Tony Blair Faith Foundation

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was established in May 2008 by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The organization has been created as an interfaith foundation. The related group Tony Blair Faith Foundation US is a separate charity, 501 3 (c), in the United States, located in New Haven, Connecticut.

Launch

The Foundation was launched in May 2008 in New York at the headquarters of media group Time Warner. In his speech, Blair outlined the Foundation's aim that "idealism becomes the new realism", and that one of its goals was to "counter extremism in all six leading religions" (ie, according to the Foundation, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Sikhism). Blair said that while in office he feared being exposed as a "nutter" if he had talked about his religious views. Former US president Bill Clinton attended the launch, describing Blair as "a good man as well as a great leader". In an interview with Time magazine, Blair said the Foundation was "how I want to spend the rest of my life".

The Foundation's basic premises listed in their initial mission statement are: 1) faith is important to many, underpinning their systems of thought, their behaviour and the behaviour of many of the world's progressive movements, and that 2) the great religions share values of respect, justice and compassion. But it is also recognised that faith can be divisive, too. This is viewed by the Foundation as being based on distortions of faith rather than being intrinsic to it. Their aim is to use the tools of modern communication to "educate, inform and develop understanding" about various faiths, and the relationships between them. It aims to do this in such a way as to address global poverty and conflict.

The Foundation has several projects: Faith and Globalisation Initiative, Face to Faith, Faith Acts (an activist group), and Faith Shorts (for short religious films).

Faith and Globalisation Initiative

Main article: Faith and Globalisation Initiative

Blair is to be the Howland Distinguished Fellow at Yale and is one of the professors for the course.

Faiths Act initiative

Faiths Act is a project of the Foundation described as an attempt to build a global movement in order to both "inspire and mobilise" those who believe, in a faith, to address the Millennium Development Goals. The project has focused on deaths from malaria.

Faith Shorts film project

The project known as Faith Shorts was announced in March 2010 for short-length movies which increase "understanding between religions". Awards are presented for the films rated highest.

Directors, executives and advisors

The 2 foundations, in the UK and US, have separate executives:

Tony Blair Faith Foundation

The foundation in the UK is headed by Ruth Turner, formerly Director of Government Relations within Tony Blair's office. Among the Foundation's other board members are Alfred E. Smith IV, Timothy C. Collins, Linda LeSourd Lader, Robert Clinton, Robert Coke and Jeremy Sinclair.

Tony Blair Faith Foundation US

The foundation in the US has been headed by others, including directors Timothy C. Collins and Alfred E. Smith IV.

International Religious Advisory Council

The Foundation has an International Religious Advisory Council made up of members of the 6 major religions. Its role is to advise Tony Blair on the work of the Foundation. Its members are:

Buddhist

• Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot of the Upaya Zen Center

Christian

• The Reverend Dr Rick Warren, Founding and Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church and Founder of the P.E.A.C.E Coalition.
• Right Reverend Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Bishop of Kaduna
• The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres, Lord Bishop of London
• The Reverend David Coffey, President of the Baptist World Alliance
• The Reverend Joel Edwards, Director of Micah Challenge International and former General Director of the Evangelical Alliance.

Hindu

• Anantanand Rambachan, Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at St. Olaf College, Minnesota

Jewish

• Rabbi David Rosen, Chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations
• Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

Muslim

• HE Dr Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Dr Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti, Advisor in Diwan of HH the Prime Minister of Kuwait and former President of the Gulf Institute for Futures and Strategic Studies

Sikhism

• Professor Jagtar Singh Grewal, former Chairman of the India Institute of Advanced Study and former Vice-Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University

Criticism

Hugh O'Shaughnessy in The Guardian stated that the Foundation "inspires ridicule". He noted that Professor Michel Schooyans of the Catholic University of Leuven and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has "accused Blair and his wife of supporting a messianic US plan for world domination." The criticism's focus is that the Foundation's approach amounts to reducing the religions to the same, predetermined common denominator. This means "stripping them of their identity". Schooyans arguing that "(t)his project threatens to set us back to an age in which political power was ascribed the mission of promoting a religious confession, or of changing it. In the case of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, this is also a matter of promoting one and only one religious confession, which a universal, global political power would impose on the entire world."

The director of the Muslim charity Forward Thinking, Huda Jawad has been reported by the BBC as raising doubts about levels of support from many Muslims for the Foundation, given Blair's foreign-policy record.

On 2 April 2009, skeptic and secularist Richard Dawkins mocked the Foundation in a spoof letter, published in the New Statesman. In it, Dawkins ridiculed the idea that faith is not a divisive force, and attacked religion's record on promoting dialogue and equality.

Between April 2008 and April 2009, the foundation raised more than 3.5 million pounds, and paid, according to the Daily Telegraph, six-figure salaries to its top officials. An implied criticism was that these pay scales were in line with much larger charitable organisations. However, the wages were also reported to be the result of external recommendations and a strategy of hiring a small number of capable senior staff to co-ordinate a variety of efforts.

External links

• Tony Blair Faith Foundation (organization website)