Thread: Britian-Church attacks Labour for betraying Christians

June 7, 2008

Church attacks Labour for betraying Christians
Strongest criticism of Government in decades

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have helped to generate a spiritual, civic and economic crisis in Britain, according to an important Church of England report.

Labour is failing society and lacks the vision to restore a sense of British identity, the report says in the Church’s strongest attack on the Government for decades. It accuses the Government of “deep religious illiteracyâ€

[b]Get ready for the "One World Religion!"



Tony Blair's Bid to be a Faith Leader

Tony Blair has the chance to do for the interfaith movement what Al Gore has done for environmentalism: create a tipping point effect on one of the most important issues of the 21st century.

Similar to the environmental movement, there are a number of excellent interfaith organizations bringing people from different faith communities together to build understanding and serve the common good. And just as the combination of environmental catastrophes and new science has focused public attention on climate change, so has the combination of high-profile religious violence and studies about the surprising persistence of faith inspired people to ask big questions about the impact of religion on the world.

The interfaith movement has lacked what the environmental movement got in 2000 – the presence of a serious global leader willing to engage a serious issue in a serious way: framing debate, galvanizing energy, generating resources, pointing to a major win and convincing the world that we can get there.

Until now.


In two eloquent and important speeches - the first was a month ago in London and the second just last week in New York - Tony Blair articulated why he is committing a good part of the rest of his life to being that figure.

The crux of Blair’s vision is contained in these few lines from his New York speech:

"Globalization is pushing people together. Interdependence is reality. Peaceful co-existence is essential. If faith becomes a countervailing force, pulling people apart, it becomes destructive and dangerous.
"If , by contrast, it becomes an instrument of peaceful co-existence, teaching people to live with difference, to treat diversity as a strength, to respect "the other", then Faith becomes an important part of making the 21st Century work. It enriches, it informs, it provides a common basis of values and belief for people to get along together."


When I met with Blair in Chicago a few months ago, I was struck by the depth of his commitment to the issue, the scope of his vision and the concrete plans for his institution, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

Blair will teach a course on Faith and Globalization at Yale University. There are plans for educational material on the intersection of religious devotion and religious diversity, meant for distribution everywhere from corporations to teenagers (through web-based technologies). The Interfaith Youth Core is partnering with the Blair Faith Foundation (and Malaria No More) to bring faith communities together to end malaria in the next 5 – 10 years.

It is an ambitious agenda, but Blair has never thought small.

I was a graduate student at Oxford from 1998 to 2001, the early years of Blair’s Prime Ministership. It was an exuberant time to be in Britain. The culture was moving from “Rule Britanniaâ€

Backed by Clinton, Blair launches Faith Foundation

Fri May 30, 2008 1:04pm EDT
By Claudia Parsons


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, joined by his old friend Bill Clinton, launched his Faith Foundation on Friday with a call for more idealism and less religious extremism.

Taking a break from the presidential campaign of his wife, Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. president described Blair as "a good man as well as a great leader" and said the Faith Foundation would build on Clinton's own foundation's work in using religion to bridge divides.

"His own religious faith is genuine, deep and shapes his life," Clinton said of Blair, who converted to Catholicism in December after stepping down as prime minister last June.

Blair, whose faith was often viewed with suspicion by the British media, said he was inspired to create the Faith Foundation by the Clinton Global Initiative, which works on issues of poverty, climate change, health and education.

Blair, who is an international envoy for Palestinian economic development, said increasing globalization requires peaceful coexistence and cooperation.

"We must be global citizens as well as citizens of our country," he told an audience of academics, media, and business and religious leaders. "Idealism becomes the new realism."

Blair cited a Gallup Poll showing the percentage of people in most Muslim countries who said religion was an important part of their lives is in the high 80s or 90s; in the United States around 70 percent, and in Europe under 40 percent.

"You cannot understand the modern world unless you understand the importance of religious faith," Blair said.

Among the foundation's goals will be to counter extremism, which he said was present in all the six leading faiths -- Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jewish.

"Though there is much focus, understandably, on extremism associated with the perversion of the proper faith of Islam, there are elements of extremism in every major faith," Blair said. The foundation will work with Yale University, where Blair will lead a course on "faith and globalization."

The foundation also will partner with a group called Malaria No More which aims to prevent the 1 million annual deaths from malaria within 10 years -- a goal Blair said was achievable by using bed-nets and medicines.

Malaria No More encourages mosques, churches and other religious institutions help distribute those items.

Blair swept to power in Britain on a wave of optimism in 1997, but by the time he stepped down, his popularity was dented by his support for the Iraq war. Clinton's final years in office overlapped with Blair's first term and both said they had developed a close friendship since then.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyl ... 12&sp=true

[b]Revelation 13:11-18 (New King James Version)
New King James Version (NKJV)

The Beast from the Earth

11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those[a] who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.

Also: The new EU "Constitution" has no mention of Christianity.

Thank you for posting that information Doots. I had read Blair was going to devote his life to religion but was unaware he was working toward a one-world religion.

He became a Catholic so he is still considered a Christian.

Of the religions I am familiar with, Islam has the most 'control' over its followers.