Tony Blair: My Faith Guided Me In Office

Filed under: Feature, General News — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on April 30, 2008 @ 11:08 am CEST

You know, this is something I appreciate. There’s a difference between European and American politicians; European politicians can be guided by their faith, but they don’t show it off. They’re guided by their religion, but they’re not using their faith in the hopes of winning elections. In America the situation is somewhat different. Well, entirely different.

So I respect Tony Blair and appreciate it that he decided to wait until he was out of office, before he would share with Brits (and others) what role his faith plays in his life, and in his politics:

Speaking one recent evening under the lofty Byzantine vaults of Westminster Cathedral, Tony Blair ended his self-imposed silence on the subject, declaring that his faith has formed the essential backdrop to much of his political life.

Blair had begun to pick at the subject haltingly over the last year, announcing his conversion to Catholicism (after years of secretly attending Mass as prime minister) in December. But only now is he discussing it fully and openly, and acknowledging the degree to which his religious faith informed his years leading America’s closest ally.

“Today, precisely because all the fixed points of reference seem unfixed and constantly in flux, today is more than ever when we need to discover and rediscover our essential humility before God,” Blair told an audience of 1,600 invited guests at the chief Roman Catholic cathedral in England and Wales.

“I can’t prove that religious faith offers something more than humanism,” he said. “But I believe profoundly that it does.”

Well said Tony. And that’s something you can indeed point out after you stepped down as Prime Minister.

in secular Europe, where religiosity tends to be viewed with suspicion, Blair said he kept his belief long under wraps for fear of being dismissed as “a nutter.”

“One of the oddest questions I get asked in interviews, and I get asked a lot of questions, is: Is faith important to your politics? It’s like asking someone whether their health is important to them or their family. If you are someone ‘of faith,’ it is the focal point of belief in your life. There is no conceivable way that it wouldn’t affect your politics,” Blair said.

“But there is a reason why my former press secretary Alastair Campbell once famously said, ‘We don’t do God.’ In our culture, here in Britain and in many other parts of Europe, to admit to having faith leads to a whole series of suppositions, none of which are very helpful to the practicing politician.”

Blair’s aides have long said that his policies on intervention in Iraq, Kosovo and Sierra Leone were motivated not by practicalities or even, in the case of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, fear of weapons of mass destruction so much as a profound sense that they were the “right” thing to do.

Yet it has become clear over the last year or so that religion permeated many aspects of Blair’s work in government. Last year, Blair told ITV1 that he had prayed while making his decision on committing British forces to Iraq.

And that’s the main downside of the European system. In the United States, voters would at the very least know that religion, that faith, is important to a politician. But in Europe we often don’t. Why not? Because we don’t talk about it. This can result in policies that are not grounded in pragmatical considerations, but purely in faith. And those policies are seldom best.

Conclusion: both approaches have their strengths… and weaknesses.

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1 BlairSupporter

April 30, 2008 @ 10:10 pm CEST

A good article - I think!

Though quite if there is a definitive conclusion as to what role religion played in Mr Blair’s decisions is still not clear, if even able to be proved, one way or the other.

You know, you don’t have to have a religious "faith" to believe in a course of action being the "right thing" to do. For example, I share Mr Blair’s views that Kosovo, Sierra Leone AND Iraq were the "right things to do" and yet God and I long ago lost each other along life’s journey.

As I see it the main weakness that we in Britain have in not talking about religion is that we think ALL religions are like our Judaeo/Christian heritage - and fairly innocuous, innocent and personal. Certainly NOT threatening in our British and European societies.

And that blindfold we insist on wearing means that there is a growing threat to western (secular) societies, whether we as individuals, politicians or voting public wear religion on our sleeves or not.

Some in our midst use religion as a pretext for politics, and still we welcome them in the fervent hope and expectation that given time they will adapt and adopt our secular/religious approach to others: secularism in action.

Perhaps that is why Mr Blair has raised the profile on faith and belief. In order that others might do the same. Not sure if it will work. But I certainly hope it does.

2 MA

May 16, 2008 @ 5:36 pm CEST

So Blair hides his belief in bronze age mumbo jumbo until he’s out of office? He’s either embarrassed by his imaginary friend or it’s pure political expediency, knowing that the British public would treat him with more ridicule than they already did.

Either way, he’s an obnoxious character.