[John Allen reports in today's NCR:]
In so many ways, Tony Blair is not your typical Anglican convert to the Catholic church.
For one thing, of course, Blair is the former British prime
minister. Almost as atypical these days, however, is the fact that
Blair does not belong to the traditionalist wing of Anglicanism,
meaning Anglicans disenchanted with the ordination of women and
homosexuals, the blessing of same-sex unions, and other liberalizing
currents, and hence usually most likely to contemplate the "Roman
option."
Instead, Blair espouses a theologically moderate, socially engaged
Christianity. By the standards of British politics, Blair is a social
moderate, and his largely permissive positions on abortion, birth
control and embryonic stem cell research have drawn strong Catholic
criticism over the years. (Some outraged English Catholics have gone so
far as to charge that Blair should not have been received into
communion with the church, at least until he recants.)
Last Friday, I attended a press conference at the Time-Warner Center
in New York to present Blair's new "Faith Foundation," a global
inter-faith coalition designed to mobilize religious leadership to
achieve social good. Most immediately, the Faith Foundation intends to
enlist religious believers in global efforts to eradicate malaria,
estimated to kill one million people each year, primarily in the
developing world, and the vast majority are children. A related aim is
to combat extremism and terrorism carried out in the name of religious
belief.
Interestingly, Blair's Faith Foundation counts a slew of prominent
religious leaders among its advisors - Sir Jonathan Sacks, for example,
Chief Rabbi of England, as well as Reverend Rick Warren, Senior Pastor
of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Yet there's not a
single Catholic, though promotional materials say that Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O'Connor of England will join the advisory council after he
steps down as Archbishop of Westminster.
To call Friday's press conference "high-profile" is an exercise in
under-statement. It was hosted by CNN's Christiane Amanpour, and
featured opening remarks from former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who
said he had come to "wish my friend well." Richard Levin, President of
Yale University, where Blair will be a visiting professor, was also on
hand.
Eboo Patel, founder and director of the Interfaith Youth Core in
Chicago and another advisor to Blair's Faith Foundation, provided the
day's sound-bite.
"The worst mistake would be to think that the fault line of the 21st
century runs between Christians and Muslims, or between theists and
secularists," said Patel, a Muslim. "It's between pluralists and
totalitarians."
That line was picked up by other speakers, so much so that it almost
became an anthem - with Blair and his admirers clearly on the side of
the pluralists.
Blair was careful to say that his foundation does not seek "to
subsume different faiths into one universal faith of the lowest common
denominator." Nevertheless, it seemed clear that Blair's Faith
Foundation reflects what one might call a "center-left" religiosity,
with emphasis on tolerance, dialogue, and cooperation in the pursuit of
humanitarian objectives.
What future the foundation may have is tough to handicap. From a
purely Catholic point of view, however, it's at least worth noting that
the church's most high-profile recent convert also seems a natural
spokesperson for a more "progressive" or "liberal" form of Catholicism,
at a moment when that constituency appears to be, in many other ways,
on the ropes.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
MOJ readers may be interested in this Pew Forum Q & A on "Assessing a More Prominent 'Religious Left'", here.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Call for Papers
Sixth Baha’i Conference on Law
Exploring the Intersections of Religion and Governance
October 10-11, 2008
American University, Washington College of Law
Washington, D.C.
This Call for Papers invites submissions on the question of
what contributions religion can make to governance (broadly defined as the
traditions, institutions, and processes by which authority is exercised in a
given society).
Under what conditions are religion or faith relevant to
questions of “good governance”? Since
the mid-1990s, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United
Nations, as well as developed country governments, have advocated good
governance as a condition for development aid. Criteria for good governance
have been variously said to include accountability, responsiveness,
transparency, public participation, and the rule of law, among other elements.
Many have highlighted the roots of these concepts in Western
democratic culture. One might recall,
for example, James Madison’s widely quoted aphorism that “a popular government
without popular information or the means of acquiring it … is but a prologue to
a farce or tragedy or both.” This
Conference seeks to consider religious dimensions of these concepts. This may shed light on whether modern
characterizations of “good governance” are uniquely Western, either in origin
or present applicability.
More broadly, the Conference will ask what faith and
religion can continue to teach us about good governance and its features. What do various religious traditions
emphasize as the essential elements of good governance? From the perspective of the Baha’i Faith, for
example, one might argue that processes of good governance must simultaneously
pursue the interdependent principles of justice and unity, with an ultimate
orientation to the achievement of universal peace. Along such lines, we hope to explore what
ultimately is the role of “faith” in identifying and developing criteria for
good governance.
Please send an abstract of your paper proposal via e-mail to
Professor Padideh Ala’i at [email protected],
with a copy to Nicolas Mansour, at [email protected],
no later than June 30, 2008.
Conference Organizers:
Padideh Ala’i (American University, Washington College of Law)
Robert B. Ahdieh (Emory Law School)
Neysun Mahboubi (Yale Law School)
[From the Stuntz/Skeel blog, Less Than the Least:]
I’m
a registered Republican and will probably vote for McCain in November.
Even so, yesterday seems to me one of the great days in American
history. And it’s a great day in part because it all seems so ordinary:
two candidates battled for a major-party nomination, and one of them
came out on top, barely. That has happened before (mostly in Republican
races—since, for most of its history, the Democratic Party required
that its presidential nominees win two-thirds of all delegate votes,
not a simple majority). But this time, the candidate who came out on
top is a black man, and that hasn’t happened before.
I remember when Doug Wilder was inaugurated Virginia’s governor in
January 1990: the first elected black governor in American history,
inaugurated in the city that once served as the capital of a nation
founded to preserve black slavery. Former Supreme Court Justice Lewis
Powell, scion of Richmond’s white establishment, administered the oath
of office. When Wilder had taken that oath, Powell leaned into the
microphone and said: “It’s a great day for Virginia.” It was. Just as
yesterday was a great day for the United States.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Do yourself a favor: Sit back, relax, and read Paul Baumann's wonderful article, here, in this weeks' Commonweal:
Among the Catholic Commentariat
My Seven Hours of Fame
