England’s Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken a swipe at the kind of faith-based politics he sees in the United States, the must-read international press watchdog site Watching America reports.
Watching America links to a Guardian article and here are the relevant quotes:
Tony Blair chose a faith audience in south London yesterday to proclaim his belief that he was opposed to US-style faith politics in British public life.
The prime minister, battered by Tory tabloid pressures on abortion, insisted: “I do not want to end up with an American-style of politics with us all going out there beating our chest about our faith.
“Politics and religion – it is not that they do not have a lot in common, but if it ends up being used in the political process, I think that is a bit unhealthy.”
He was speaking a Christian Evanglelical audience in a church. The paper also notes that some of what he said was a rerun for a speech he gave several years ago on the subject. Some of those key parts:
In language similar to a speech he gave to an almost identical audience exactly four years ago, just before the 2001 general election campaign, Mr Blair said he valued Christian and other religious groups’ contributions to voluntary services and called on them to get still more involved.
“I would like to see you play a bigger not a lesser role in the future,” he told them.
“I say this because of the visible, tangible difference you are making for the better in our society for so many people. That is the proof of your faith in action in the service of others.”
What do we learn from this? Politicians play the same (pander) game, regardless of their country….
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.