April 7, 2008 – Maranatha – Awaiting Christ's Return

Blair: Religion Must be Saved from Extremism2
By

Maria Mackay

Christian Post Correspondent

Fri, Apr. 04 2008 11:54 AM ET

In his first major speech on religion, Tony Blair said Thursday night that religion must be rescued from extremism and irrelevance and used as a force for good at a time of global turmoil.

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Tony Blair

(Photo: AP Images / John Stillwell / PA)

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, right, during his address on Faith and Life in Britain, with Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, left, seated behind him, in Westminster Cathedral, central London, Thursday April 3, 2008. Tony Blair tonight called for religious faith to be rescued from extremism and put at the center of solving the world’s problems. The former prime minister said that in an increasingly globalized world, the role of faith is ‘especially important’. Religion could ‘awaken the world’s conscience’ and help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate poverty and hunger, he said.

Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year, made the call in a lecture on faith and globalization at Westminster Cathedral. It was the first in “The Cardinal’s Lectures” series, organized by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, to examine faith and life in Britain.

“For religion to be a force for good, it must be rescued not simply from extremism, faith as a means of exclusion; but also from irrelevance, an interesting part of our history but not of our future,” said Blair.

“Faith is reduced to a system of strange convictions and actions that, to some, can appear far removed from the necessities and anxieties of ordinary life. It is this face that gives militant secularism an easy target,” he added.

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