Tony Blair To Launch “Faith Offensive” Across America
Mar 14, 2010 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Tony Blair is to use his extensive network of religious leaders to launch a ‘faith offensive’ across America within the next 12 months.
The former Prime Minister, who launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in May 2008, is poised to develop a U.S.-based arm for the charity, which will pursue a variety of faith-based projects.
The foundation, which was set up to promote cohesion between the major faiths, is sitting on £4.5million of donations, according to The Observer.
Now Blair, who converted to Catholicism in 2007, is to use that money to spread his message across the Atlantic, where he is more warmly received than in the UK.
But the overtly religious dimension of the charity has drawn criticism.
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: ‘The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is a fundamentally flawed concept.
‘If religion is constantly at the fore, then the old suspicions and hatreds will continue to fester.’
The views held by the religious figures on his charity’s advisory council have also proved controversial.
The inclusion of Rick Warren – the powerful founder of the California-based Saddleback church – has angered many liberals, who see him as an opponent of gay rights and abortion on demand.
Other, less controversial characters, include David Coffey, president of the Baptist World Alliance and Belinda Stronach, who runs her own foundation in Toronto, Canada.
The daughter of a Canadian billionaire, Stronach is highly influential in her home country as a philanthropist and businesswoman.
She has served in both the Conservative and Liberal parties and has been dubbed ‘bubba’s blonde’, a reference to her friendship with former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
According to his charity’s accounts, Blair intends to open an office in Toronto to develop his working relationship with her.
The accounts also revealed the close connections that the foundation enjoys with major political institutions in the U.S.
‘With the Washington-based Centre for Interfaith Action, the foundation supported a meeting of major international organisations active in faith-based approaches to combating malaria (plus the White House, World bank, UN, World Health Organisation) to co-ordinate international efforts,’ the accounts state.
