The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was established by Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 in May 2008.

The Foundation

The Foundation was launched in May 2008 in New York at the headquarters of media group Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

. In his speech Blair outlined its aim that "idealism becomes the new realism", and that one of its goals was to "counter extremism in all six leading religions". 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

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 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". 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.

The Foundation's basic premises are that 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. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation's aim is to use the tools of modern communications 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.

Abraham House

Abraham House is proposed to be a new establishment with a "spectacular space" which the Foundation will support. Here the members of the three Abrahamic faiths (Jews, Christians and Muslims) and others, can meet. Abraham House will be designed to be hospitable to those who are religious – so that they can better understand their own traditions in relation to others – and those who are not – so that they can appreciate how the particularities of the traditions make possible and limit different kinds of interaction. The Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme, the Coexist Foundation and Ralph Appelbaum Associates are involved in this project.

Faith and Globalisation Initiative

The Foundation has developed, in collaboration with Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 (Yale School of Management and the Divinity School), academic course material along with research projects and conferences will be launched as platforms for study, analysis and dialogue. Blair is to be the Howland Distinguished Fellow

Howland Memorial Prize

The Henry Howland Memorial Prize at Yale was created in 1915 for a "citizen of any country in recognition of some achievement of marked distinction in the field of literature or fine arts or the science of government." The idealistic quality of the recipient's work is an important factor in his...

 at Yale and will be one of the teachers on course.

Directors, Executives and Advisors

The foundation is headed by Ruth Turner

Ruth Turner (political advisor)

Ruth Turner , was formerly Director of Government Relations within Tony Blair's Downing Street office.-Biography:...

, formerly Director of Government Relations within Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

's office. Among the Foundation's other board members are Alfred E. Smith IV

Alfred E. Smith IV

Alfred E. Smith IV, born May 24, 1951, served as Chairman of the Board of Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center. In December 2006, after 35 years on Wall Street, he retired from his position as Managing Director of Bear Wagner Specialists LLC, a specialist and member firm of the New York Stock...

, Timothy C. Collins, Linda LeSourd Lader

Philip Lader

Philip Lader was the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom and as of 2010 is chairman of WPP Group plc, a global media and communications firm....

, Robert Clinton, Robert Coke and Jeremy Sinclair.

International Religious Advisory Council

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

Buddhist

• Roshi Joan Halifax
  Joan Halifax
  Joan Jiko Halifax is a Zen Buddhist roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community...
  
  , Abbot of the Upaya Zen Center
  Upaya Institute and Zen Center
  Upaya Institute and Zen Center is a center for residential Zen practice located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and founded by Joan Halifax Roshi. The center focuses on integration of Zen practice with social action, with traditional cultivation of wisdom and compassion in the Buddhist sense...
  
  

Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

• The Reverend Dr Rick Warren
  Rick Warren
  Richard Duane "Rick" Warren is an American evangelical Christian minister and author. He is the founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch located in Lake Forest, California, currently the eighth-largest church in the United States...
  
  , Founding and Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church
  Saddleback Church
  Saddleback Church is an evangelical Christian megachurch located in Lake Forest, California, situated in southern Orange County, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The church was founded in 1980 by pastor Rick Warren...
  
   and Founder of the P.E.A.C.E Coalition
  P.E.A.C.E. Plan
  The P E A C E Plan is an initiative begun by Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Senior pastor Rick Warren's stated intention in launching the P E A C E Plan is to involve every Christian and every church in every nation in the task of serving people in the areas of the greatest global...
  
  .
• Right Reverend Josiah Idowu-Fearon
  Josiah Idowu-Fearon
  The Most Revd Josiah Idowu-Fearon is the Anglican Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna, Nigeria and Bishop of Kaduna diocese. He was born in Nigeria in 1949. In his youth he trained for a short period as a soldier but soon realised he had a calling to serve God. He trained as a priest and after his...
  
  , Bishop of Kaduna
• The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres
  Richard Chartres
  Richard John Carew Chartres KCVO FSA is the current Bishop of London, a position he has held since 1995. Before this appointment, he was Bishop of Stepney and Gresham Professor of Divinity .-Early life:...
  
  , Lord Bishop of London
• The Reverend David Coffey, President of the Baptist World Alliance
  Baptist World Alliance
  The Baptist World Alliance is a worldwide alliance of Baptist churches and organizations, formed in 1905 at Exeter Hall in London during the first Baptist World Congress.-History:...
  
  
• The Reverend Joel Edwards
  Joel Edwards (UK)
  Joel Edwards was the General Director of the Evangelical Alliance until the end of 2008. He is now International Director for Micah Challenge and is also a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He has presented on the BBC Radio 4 feature of The Today programme, Thought for the...
  
  , Director of Micah Challenge International and former General Director of the Evangelical Alliance
  Evangelical Alliance
  The Evangelical Alliance is a London-based charitable organization founded in 1846. It has a claimed representation of over 1,000,000 evangelical Christians in the United Kingdom and is the oldest alliance of evangelical Christians in the world....
  
  .

Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

• Anantanand Rambachan
  Anantanand Rambachan
  Anantanand Rambachan is a Trinidadian Hindu-American scholar with a specific focus on interreligous dialogue. He is the Chair and Professor of Religion, Philosophy and Asian Studies at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, USA. He has been teaching at St. Olaf since 1985. Rambachan is a Hindu and is the...
  
  , Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at St. Olaf College, Minnesota

Jewish

• Rabbi David Rosen
  David Rosen (Rabbi)
  Rabbi David Shlomo Rosen CBE is the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and currently serves as the Director of the American Jewish Committee's Department of Interreligious Affairs and the Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding...
  
  , Chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations
• Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks
  Jonathan Sacks
  Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks, Kt is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name is Yaakov Zvi...
  
  , Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

• HE Dr Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Dr Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti
  Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti
  Dr. Ismail Khudr Al- Shatti is among the prominent personnel in the political arena of Kuwait and GCC. He is currently serving as the Head of advisory committee for His Highness Prime Minister of Kuwait. He is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Kuwait; before which he had functioned as Minister,...
  
  , Advisor in Diwan of HH the Prime Minister of Kuwait and former President of the Gulf Institute for Futures and Strategic Studies

Sikhism

Sikhism

Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded during the 15th century in the Punjab region, by Guru Nanak Dev and continued to progress with ten successive Sikh Gurus . It is the fifth-largest organized religion in the world and one of the fastest-growing...

• Professor Jagtar Singh Grewal, former Chairman of the India Institute of Advanced Study and former Vice-Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University
  Guru Nanak Dev University
  Guru Nanak Dev University was established at Amritsar, India on November 24, 1969 to commemorate Guru Nanak Dev's birth quincentenary celebrations. Guru Nanak Dev University campus is spread over 500 acres near village of Kot Khalsa, nearly 8 km west of the Amritsar City on Amritsar - Lahore...
  
  

Criticism

Hugh O'Shaughnessy

Hugh O'Shaughnessy

Hugh O'Shaughnessy is an Irish journalist who has worked for over 40 years for major British newspapers including The Observer, The Independent, the Financial Times and most frequently The Guardian. He has also published a number of books focusing on Latin America. He was a friend of Salvador Allende...

 in The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 has reported that Prof. Michel Schooyans

Michel Schooyans

Michel Schooyans has a doctorate in philosophy and theology and is a priest of the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels....

 of the Catholic University of Leuven and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences was established in January 1994 by Pope John Paul II. It is headquartered in the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican. Professor Edmond Malinvaud was its first president...

 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

Forward Thinking (charity)

Forward Thinking is a charitable organisation addressing issues related promoting greater understanding and inclusion of Muslims in the UK and the Middle East peace process.- Aims and programs :It has three main Aims...

, 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

Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...

 mocked the Foundation in a spoof letter, published in the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

. In it, he ridiculed the idea that faith is not a divisive force, and attacked religion's record on promoting dialogue and equality.

External links

• Tony Blair Faith Foundation (organization website)