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Amazon.co.ukBlair calls for more faith
There always was something slightly messianic about Tony Blair. Now he is calling for a greater role for faith in world affairs – as if religion were the solution rather than the problem.
[photopress:blair.jpg,full,alignright]According to The Guardian, Blair will be delivering a lecture at Westminster Abbey where he will say that “failure to engage with religious groups will drive believers to apathy or fundamentalism” (the Guardian’s words). Apparently, Blair believes that people are moving either towards religious extremism or a feeling that religion is a “spent force”.
That actually conforms with polls in the UK – religion is declining overall but evangelism and fundamentalism are increasing. But note the implication that both ends of the spectrum are a bad thing. And notice that there is no mention of atheism – just apathy. This is clearly a way of denigrating atheism without having the courage to do it directly. Blair is a slick spinmeister. He knows that atheists form a large section of British society. He can’t call them a problem outright. He has to resort to innuendo.
It is a common tactic for movers and shakers in the religious world to sideline secularism whenever there are debates about bringing world peace or social benefits. There is much talk about ecumenical approaches and multi-faith initiatives, but never the slightest consideration that taking faith out of the picture altogether might actually remove barriers to progress – that spending any energy and resources on considering the role of faith might be a wasteful irrelevance. Get rid of faith and you can get on with the job. But too many people in positions of power seem to think that the only solution to the world’s problems lies in medieval witchcraft.
This faith in faith says a lot about Blair. His crusading zeal in the role of Bush’s lapdog can best be explained, perhaps, by a common interest in supernatural phenomena. There seems no other reason why a pseudo-socialist prime minister would cosy up so snugly to a crypto-fascist president.
In an interview, Blair recently said that he largely kept his religion out of the public spotlight because “frankly, people do think you’re a nutter”. That’s an illuminating comment. It shows the massive gulf between the status of religion in the UK and the US. Indeed, in the UK, religious fervour is the perceived domain of the unhinged. In the US, it’s a requirement for the job of president.
But US-style religious extremism is creeping into the UK. Blair oversaw the rise of faith-based initiatives in areas where religion has no business – doing the work once done by government departments. Faith schools have become stronger. Even the anti-intellectual disease of creationism is on the rise. This may be Blair’s true legacy.
After leaving office, Blair converted to Roman Catholicism and is leading the Faith Foundation for young people (as the figurehead of New Labour, his experience of spin and indoctrination will come in handy here).
In case Blair hasn’t noticed, though, maybe we should point out that faith already plays a major role in world affairs. Ask anyone in Iran. Or Iraq. Or who lost loved-ones on 9/11. Perhaps what Blair, acting now as the acceptable face of the Inquisition, is trying to tell us is that people need the right religion. But we’ve been there before, haven’t we?
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