Blair holds secret meetings with religious leaders to combat extremism
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has held secret meetings with a number of religious leaders to lay down plans for an international interfaith foundation designed to combat religious extremism.
by Daniel Blake
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2007, 11:31 (BST)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has held secret meetings with a number of religious leaders to lay down plans for an international interfaith foundation designed to combat religious extremism.
The foundation is being set up with the hope that it will help ease tensions between the world's major religions, and overcome common misunderstandings and misconceptions held against one another.
Reports about the new initiative came as Blair prepared to speak to some of America's leading Roman Catholic bishops in New York - something that has reignited rumours of his impending conversion to Catholicism.
Blair has said, "The tragedy is that Christians, Jews and Muslims are all Abrahamic religions.
"We regard ourselves as children of Abraham but we have fought for so long."
The former prime minister will be hoping that the new initiative will also help foster religious harmony in the Middle East and other volatile regions, including Britain, where religious tensions are stirring.
Blair's advisers have also recently held talks with the office of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and representatives of the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Muslim Council of Britain has also given its full support to the initiative.
However, many others are still known to be sceptical over whether Blair, one of the leading figures in the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, could demand the required trust from all sides to build lasting peace.
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Added: Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 12:52 (BST)
Who is going to benefit from cozy chit-chats among religious leaders?
Definitely not those living free from religion (heretics, freethinkers and the like).
And probably not those ordinary members of religions (the ones that say they believe, but aren't really sure what it is they've been signed up to).
So just Blair and his favoured clerics then? (And maybe the biscuit manufacturers - I am sure the religious elite like a good dunk like the rest of us lesser mortals).
Rob, Reading, UK
Added: Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 12:23 (BST)
But it was Blair that turned benign religious practice in the UK into a weapon of the state via Faith schools by allowing Religions to purchase the right to 'Faith Brand' children with their own particular type of conditioning. This sale of children's minds is compounded because in some cases this also involves taxpayers subsidising political conditioning which is integral to the religion. This agenda has produced a form of divisive religious tribalism which covertly prevents integration and destroys human rights to freedom of belief, both religious and political. If there is a Supreme Being who created more stars than there are grains of sand on the Earth and who knows our every thought and guides us daily then it is religions with their power hierarchies that get a buzz from controlling other men's minds and invented religious doctrine that stands between God and man.
Keith Budden, Rayleigh England
Added: Monday, October 22, 2007, 15:01 (BST)
Living ‘together’ in harmony—because we [Jews, Christians, Muslims] are all ‘children of Abraham’—sounds noble but in reality is [presumably Blair fully understands the theological implications] a nonsense. What has ‘light’ to do with ‘darkness’ or 'error with truth' [if one can say that]?
How could Blair possibly imagine that ‘Koran believing’ Muslims would compromise Islam’s claim to be the ‘very last word’ from God. Of course there are many Muslims who desire a peaceful coexistence with other ‘family’ members—as there are [more than] many Christians and Jews with the same desire.
I’m sure Mr Blair knows that ,according to the New Testament, Jesus Christ made absolute claims for himself—claims that would not fit in easily with the latest postmodern views of reality. You understand, of course, that I am not denying the validity of Blair’s call for an ‘absolute’ commitment to the cause of peaceful coexistence. I am simply making the point that there are some absolutes that can not be denied.
Derek White, Bournemouth, England
