Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation
June 6th, 2008 | by kilps |I finally got down to properly reading the Time Magazine article about the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. I find the whole idea, although pretty vague, interesting - getting different religions to work together to help solve the worlds problems.
Straight away it’s pretty easy to be cynical about this, particularly if you don’t like Tony Blair - but perhaps he is just what this kind of project needs. Nobody is pretending that getting six major religions to work together is easy, and so a big name behind the project might just provide the motivation participants need.
His speech in New York gives some more details - the first part is educational, he calls it religious literacy at one point. To me though the second part has more potential - mobilising faith to help persue the UN Development Goals - beginning with an anti-malaria campaign. I don’t say that simply because I think that the humanitarian goals are more important; but rather I think that they can achieve more and in the long run will help in the work towards the first goal.
There will, of course, be those who think that the whole idea is irrelevant. This isn’t the place I want to deal with the religion argument, but I do think that Blair has a point with his mission. One can’t cast religion aside as irrelevant - and I think that it is quite possible that it will become more relevant in the future, in positive ways (this idea of faith and globalisation is also an interesting one). At the same time, even if you disagree, it is undeniable that religion plays a significant role in the world and the ideals of the project are something to strive for.
As complicated and unclear as it is Tony Blair is onto something here - let’s see where he takes it.
