Tony Blair's Redemption

Tony Blair wants to build bridges. Figurative bridges, that is. Bridges among people of various religions, and between them and the secular world. He thinks that is essential for the so-called globalization process to proceed well and end well for the diverse peoples of the world. "Faith is part of our future," says Blair. And his platform from which to approach his new mission, however quixotic, is his newly established Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

The article in Time, linked below, offers that,

For Blair, the goal is to rescue faith from the twin challenges of irrelevance—the idea that religion is no more than an interesting aspect of history—and extremism. [Adds Ruth Turner, who will head the foundation,] 'You can't hope to understand what's happening in the world if you don't know that religion is a very important force in people's lives...You can't make the world work properly unless you understand that, while not everyone will believe in God or have a spiritual life, a lot of people will.'

But the article caused me to consider anew the non sequitur apparent, the conundrum posed by a man of such considerable and substantive Christian faith and convictions as Prime Minister Tony Blair: how could he so readily, so unquestioningly, get on board the Bush-Cheney Baghdad Express? Regardless, the article suggests, that legacy will pose a barrier to his vision and mission:

For many Britons, the fact that Blair led them into a deeply unpopular war in Iraq is reason enough to question his sincerity. And the supposed 'God is on our side' messianism of George W. Bush—Blair's geopolitical partner—is widely loathed in Britain.

And anyone who reads the news magazines and newspapers, or listens to the nightly television news, knows this view is not limited to Britain. It is shared widely in Europe and the Middle East, and by large numbers of people in North America and Asia, too. And the Christian religion itself, combined with Blair's role in the Iraq war, is a controversial foundation from which to approach healing and relationship building among today's estranged or unfriendly peoples, especially in the Middle East. As Time puts it,

...in many nations, the legacy of the 'war on terror' and the invasion of Iraq—both of which Blair is deeply associated with—have soured the environment for anything that looks even remotely like Western Christian proselytizing...[and] Blair's history as a partner of Bush—and hence the skepticism with which his good faith is held—means he has high hurdles to leap if he is to turn his fine words into action.

But perhaps, as much as anything else, it all has to do with pursuing his personal sense of redemption for those political decisions and actions taken, the causes of the widespread skepticism about his good faith. Perhaps when it all mattered most, he did not consult the heart of his faith, the teaching and heart of Christ. But there is an old adage among the faithful that says, "We are not called [by God] to succeed, but to serve." And there is redemption in that service as well, especially when it follows a period of placing highly questionable secular considerations ahead of more discerning and selfless public leadership and service.

Many of us shared some of his errors of judgment about early decisions to overthrow Saddam Hussein's Iraq—but we did so without clear understandings of the existence or credibility of available intelligence, without the wiser counsel of regional experts on the cultural realities, sectarian history, and fragmented politics of the place. We were denied the experienced voices of regional diplomats. And some of us also failed to appropriately consult our faith in those decisions. But regardless, as soon as the truth began to leak out through credible voices and found its way to print, many of us quickly pleaded our mea culpa, did our penance, and changed our position on the war.

Some of us even felt the need to go back and consult our guiding faith principles—as well as we could discern them for such cases—and work them through the filter of faith-based realism and defense of community. My personal essay on this matter, When War?, can be accessed by clicking on Cassandra's Tears in the right hand margin of my blogsite under Personal Essays Series. Perhaps Tony Blair's sense of redemption would also be more satisfying, more complete—and his credibility more likely restored—if he were to sit down and write his own cathartic essay on the subject, and then share it with the rest of us.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1810020,00.html