PM Blair building network of Christian allies as he prepares to launch religious 'offensive' in USA

Tony Blair is preparing to launch a "faith offensive" across the United States over the next year, after building up relationships with a network of influential religious leaders and faith organisations.

With Afghanistan and Iraq casting a shadow over his popularity at home in Britain, Blair's focus has increasingly shifted across the Atlantic, to where the nexus of faith and power is immutable and he is feted like a rock star.

According to the annual accounts of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a UK-based charity that promotes cohesion between the major faiths, the foundation is to develop a US arm that will pursue a host of faith-based projects. The accounts show that his foundation has an impressive – and, in at least one case, controversial – set of faith contacts. Sitting on some £4.5m in funds as of April last year, mostly gathered through donations, it is now well placed to make its voice heard.

The foundation's advisory council of religious leaders includes Rick Warren, powerful founder of the California-based Saddleback church. It attracts congregations of nearly 20,000 and is reportedly one of the largest in the US. Warren, who has addressed the UN and the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been named one of the "15 world leaders who matter most" and one of the "100 most influential people in the world".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/14/tony-blair-faith-foundation-america

puke

:puke:

Please, please, please.

:puke:

"One of the 15 world leaders who matter most." How is he a world leader. That is disgusting.

Why the hell isn't he in the Hague?

War? Oppressing gays? Subjugating women? Influencing people to vote against their interests? Which of the good religious works does his charity specialize in?

:(

True, but ouch :)

He can't find an audience in Europe, where the religiously insane are treated as such, so he's crossing the Atlantic?
Somebody put him on the Do Not Fly list.

Women and gays are screwed again.

'Offensive in USA'. Indeed. After many years of being 'offensive in Britain'.