Faiths & Globalisation Initiative

  The Tony Blair Faith Foundation will host its first annual “Faith & Globalisation Intensive Summer Programme,” on the topic of Religious Minorities and Human Rights, at McGill University, in Montreal, QC, from July 9-20, 2012. The summer course will explore contemporary issues, tensions and conflicts surrounding the rights of religious minorities. And, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation will arrange and cover costs for the airfare and the accommodation of 3 applicants from each university and is open to all undergraduate and graduate students from FGI partner univers

  In November, 2011, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation held several panels at the American Academy of Religion’s annual meeting in San Francisco, California. Two of these panels focused on the topics of “Religion & the Internet” and “Religious Minorities and Human Rights”. Participants from the Faith & Globalisation Network and beyond presented their research on various issues relating to these two topics.

Miss the live-stream? Watch Tony Blair and John Kerry debate religion’s place in liberal democracy The final session of Yale’s 2011 “Faith & Globalisation” course included guest lecturers Tony Blair and Senator John Kerry (D-MA). They shared their perspectives on the question – “what is religion’s proper place in a democratic government?”

Cardinal Scola, Archbishop of Milan, has sent a message of support to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation as they continue their seminar series on Faith and Globalisation in Italy. Cardinal Scola is an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church and philosopher and theologian. In September 2004, he founded the Oasis International Studies and Research Centre which promotes interfaith dialogue. His message reads: "I am glad to welcome Mr Tony Blair and his Foundation here in Milan to the seminar "Religion in the public sphere: secularism or laicite".

As students and professors alike begin preparations to trickle back onto campuses around the world, this is a great opportunity to look ahead to what’s in store for the Faith & Globalisation Initiative (FGI) in 2012. This coming semester, FGI classes will begin at the National University of Singapore, the University of Western Australia, Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone).

Tony Blair speaking in Milan, on Thursday 10 November 2011 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY There will be no peace in our world without an understanding of the place of religion within it.  This is disconcerting for political and religious leaders.  The politicians feel uncomfortable in debating religion [remember ‘We don’t do God’!]– it is off our beaten track of financial crisis, security challenges, healthcare, education, welfare.  It pitches us into an unfamiliar realm where we suspect, rightly, many nasty swamps of controversy are located.  Religious le

José Casanova is a professor in the Sociology Department of Georgetown University. He’s one of the world experts on religion and globalisation. His 1994 book Public Religions in the Modern World was a seminal text in the field. When I saw him speak last Wednesday, he was sitting next to Canada’s most famous philosoper, Charles Taylor. Casanova and Taylor, professor emeritus at McGill, were giving a lecture on secularism and the modern world in the Redpath Auditorium, a beautiful afterthought of a room in the museum of the same name.

On October 13, the first of four seminars by the Foundation for Subsidiarity and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation on the theme “Faith and Globalisation: the challenge of education” took place in Rome. In this first meeting, the debate centred on the question: Why does faith matter in a globalised world? The themes of the next three seminars will be: Religion and Development (Bologna); Religion in the Public Square, secularism or laïcité?