This is freaking scary....Yale's Partnership With the Tony Blair Faith Foundation [Archive]

bunklocoempire

09-23-2008, 04:06 PM

I posted this on a gun forum couple days ago.

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With all the talk of the interdependency of the United States economy with the world, and the talk of the US taxpayers being "forced" to prop up AIG and others to prevent a National and global "melt down" my eyes have been wide open to this globalization demand for stability. No matter what the economic consequences, I loathe this, as a Christian and an American.

Then I happen across this (I take "news" from everywhere and read between the lines):

"I think globalization is pushing people together and there is a danger that religious faith pulls them apart." -Tony Blair
-Daily Show with John Stewart 9-18-08 episode 13118 http://www.thedailyshow.com/index.jhtml (clips may change, but you have the show date/# if you wanna search)

I did a double take while watching the show, went to the sight and re-watched the interview. Blairs statement does follow with his take on good and bad religious actions referencing violence in the middle-East. This presupposes that extremeism and violence in the middle-East is solely religious as some believe and some do not. Note the use of the word solely.

I did a little digging about Blairs theory, he is teaching a class at Yale on Faith & Globalization, found this: http://tonyblairoffice.org/2008/04/speech-on-faith-globalisation.html
A long read but important, he does go back and forth seemingly trying to satisfy all views, I'll give the more alarmist parts (to me as a Christian and an American concerned with Sovereignty), but it should be read in it's entirety to come to your own conclusion.

Before the excerpt here's my belief of faith on peace/stability so you know where I'm coming from, basically this: Jesus is the way -not- a way to the Father. Jesus brings divisions between men not peace, He does bring peace between God and man. Hope that helps any understand my beef when someone tells me otherwise.

Excerpt:
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In an era of globalisation, of political interdependence, where the world is ever more swiftly opening up and the cliché about a global community becomes an economic, political and often social reality; in this new world, how religious faith develops will have a profound impact.

The forces shaping the world at this moment are so strong and all tend in one direction. They are opening the world up. I sometimes say to people that in modern politics, the dividing line is often less between traditional left vs. right; but more about open vs. closed.

Mass migration is changing communities, even countries. People communicate ideas and images instantly around the world, creating immediate political and ideological movements in a ferment of quickly devoured information. Economically the world system is ever more dependent on confidence, robust when things seem good, extraordinarily brittle when confidence dips. The world is interdependent today, economically, politically, even to a degree ideologically.

The divide, then, is between those who see this as positive - the opening up offering opportunity; and those who see it as threatening and wish to close it back down.

As you can see from the Presidential race in the U.S., there are new questions that cross traditional Party lines: free trade vs. protection; engagement in foreign policy or isolationism; supporting immigration or opposing it. In these, the issue is less left vs. right but open vs. closed. And they all derive from a fear that globalisation is throwing people, cultures, countries together but with no common sense of values or understanding of each other. The landmark Gallup Poll, being taken world-wide, demonstrates the huge centrality of inter-cultural sensitivity as to how globalisation is perceived.

It is in this context that the role of faith is especially important, not least because most religions were global, even before political and economic systems were. If people of faith reach out to one another, learn to co-exist, believe in respecting ‘the other’ they can play an important part in reducing fear and tension, being proud of their own distinctive religious, and often cultural identity, but open and in amity towards those of a different religion. Alternatively, religious faith could be used to bolster, to promote, to intensify the very clash of civilisations we seek to avoid.

This is why it matters to those of different faiths and those of none, to have a powerful inter-faith encounter, precisely because such an encounter symbolises and enacts a world of co-existence not exclusion.

I would widen the argument still further. Faiths can transform and humanise the impersonal forces of globalisation, and shape the values of the changing set of economic and power relationships of the early 21st Century.
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A question for Tony, McCain and Obama (McBama have the same global economic view), if I as an American concerned with United States Sovereignty don't wanna play the globalization game am I being "closed?" Tony, if I with force or peaceful means resist the global undermining of US Sovereignty is it do to my particular faith? Tony, am I hindering a world of co-existence because I choose not to enact an inter-faith encounter?

The Word tells me this of divisions, not of earthly co-existence, but of keeping and strengthening the true faith:
Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

I wonder what the coagulated faith of the UN will become. Good chance it'll have something to do with money, because the money part is here already, and according to our politicians and banks there is nothing to be done about it.

Bunkloco