Tony Blair - a man to watch

From Prime Minister to multi-faith champion; since leaving office at Downing Street, Tony Blair has leapt onto the global religious stage with his Tony Blair Faith Foundation. If Prince Charles aims to be a multi-faith monarch, then TB would fit comfortably alongside.

Far from fading from view, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is working assiduously to enhance his credentials in the inter-faith and Muslim world.
The road he has travelled since his university days have included strong spiritual inputs from a variety of sources. And whilst raised within the (Protestant) Anglican Church he has now "converted" to Roman Catholicism and has had a personal audience with the Pope.

This latest development - contrary to Alastair Campbell's assertion that 'We don't do God' - follows on from reports of a copy of the Koran being his 'bedtime reading', and his admission since leaving office that the spiritual life is of great importance to him.

It has been reported that he plans to launch an international interfaith foundation this year on the back of consultations with the office of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and representatives of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A newspaper report reads: 'The Muslim Council of Britain has also given its support, as has Labour supporting Jewish business leader Sir Sigmund Sternberg.'

And to this he will be well able to bring his interest and involvement in "new age" spiritualities (see below).

Aside from his spiritual adventures he has carved a role for himself, and seeking to be seen as "honest broker" in the Middle East peace process; this as part of 'The Office of Tony Blair'.

Putting the various pieces together Mr. Blair stands at the intersection of the major world religions and their geo-political junctures. Political and religious ecumenism has found itself a new champion.

Who knows how it will all pan out, but the man who could bring a prospect of peace to a much-troubled international scene whilst uniting the monotheistic religions of the world in the process could find himself being welcomed with open arms by the general public, politicians and religionists alike.

Let's hope that Christian leaders know their Bibles, and understand where all this could be heading...

Watch this space.

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Tony Blair and wife Cherie perform chant ritual to lizards/pyramid In Mexico

by Lorne Gunter of The Edmonton Journal
January 2002

In August 2001, during a family holiday on the Mexican Riviera, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, went through a "rebirthing ritual." According to a report in the Dec. 15 edition of the Times of London, the Blairs stayed at the very swanky Maroma Hotel near Cancun, where rooms fetch as much as CAN$1,800 a night. While there, they underwent the hybrid New Age/Mayan ceremony.

Dressed only in bathing suits, Britain's first couple stood outside a brick pyramid on the hotel's grounds and bowed toward each point of the compass while chanting to each of the four winds. The spiritual leader of the ceremony encouraged them "to feel at one with Mother Earth," the Times reported, and to "experience inner feelings and visions."

The Blairs then moved around the outside of the pyramid, one façade at a time, praying first to the Mayan symbols of the sun and baby lizards, signifying spring and childhood. They then prayed to another wall, on which a bird was painted, representing adolescence, summer and freedom. On a third was a crab for maturity and autumn, and finally a serpent for winter and transformation.

Moving inside, Tony and Cherie immersed themselves in the herb-infused mist of a Mayan steam bath to sweat the physical and spiritual impurities from their bodies and to "balance their energy flow." Mayan holy songs were incanted as they meditated and attempted to conjure up visions of animals in the steamy air. The celebrant explained the meaning of each of their hallucinations. Before emerging from the pyramid, the Blairs were instructed to give voice to their hopes and fears (they said a prayer for world peace), and then undergo a "rebirth." This involved smearing one another with papaya and watermelon, then with mud from the Mayan jungle outside, the Times explained.

Finally, while exiting the womb-door of the pyramid, "the Blairs were told to scream out loud to signify the pain" of birth. They then walked hand-in-hand to the beach for a dip in the Caribbean. I'm sorry. I know we live in a non-judgmental age in which no one's spiritual practices and beliefs are to be pronounced better or worse than those of any other (more on this in a minute), but this is just downright flaky. It is not just the antithesis of Christianity, but antipodal to the beliefs of all the world's major monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam as well.

It's just kooky. Any visions or spiritual ecstasy the Blairs experienced were psychosomatic, created by their own brains from their imaginations because of their need to say they saw something. Mrs. Blair is said to be a devotee of all sorts of similar (and similarly goofy) alternative therapies and spiritualisms. She is said to wear a "bio-electric shield" pendant filled with "magic crystals" to absorb the negative radiation of cellphones and computer terminals. She studies with a New Age guru and officially opened a holistic medical centre in November.

Stockwell Day was deemed too dangerous to govern Canada by virtue of his fundamentalist Christian beliefs; why then is it any different to wonder if Tony Blair is too dangerous to govern Britain by virtue of his New Age spirituality?

Watchman, 08/01/2008

Tags: European Union, Global, Tony Blair

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	Editor	29/04/2014 10:35
Note to all: There has been a recent spate of messages from a person or persons who seem to be totally preoccupied with Calvinism/predestination etc. I would therefore suggest that further debate with anyone (Guest included) on these topics would be fruitless. Note to (Guest): If you wish to post regularly please identify yourself (either by registering or making yourself known to me). Thank you!
	John Ferguson. (Guest)	29/04/2014 18:42
Guest,your teaching is totally undermining the teaching of Gods glorious gospel taught by the scriptures especially laid out in New Testament 1Corinthians 15 vs 1-4 the basis for our faith is that Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again. Other bible verses tell us of the need to respond.to the good news of the Gospel by faith alone in order to be saved Rom 10 v 9. This neo-Calvinist teaching that exercising believing faith is an act of work on the part of the individual,negating salvation by grace alone.this assertion ignores the many passages in scripture urging "whosoever"to decide or chose to believe on the name of The Lord for salvation John 3 v16;Acts 2v21;Rom 10 v 13. Furthermore to consider that believing faith to be work contradicts Romans 4:5: If you interpret scripture you interpret it with scripture,that would be one scripture doesn't contradict another to take an isolated verse like Jeremiah 10 v 23 out of context as are doing won't stand scrutiny.
	Simpleton (Guest)	29/04/2014 20:22
The fact is John Ferguson and Guest, you are both right. But let us NEVER forget that election is Biblical doctrine, and only God's Elect will be written in the Lambs book of life. I think Romans 11.33 is a good Scripture to meditate on?
	Editor	30/04/2014 11:25
Six posts have been deleted this morning (all but one from 'Guest'). All further posts on this thread relating to soteriology will be deleted.
	Simpleton (Guest)	30/04/2014 15:37
Guest, I should have posted earlier, but it would appear that you seem to be denying man has no responsibility in matters of salvation at all? Even God's elect must 'Do' something? 2 Peter 1.5 just for ONE example? But you know all this? The editor seems to want to keep the conversation restricted to Tony Bliar, so I would only say that he operates like a snake?
	Simpleton (Guest)	30/04/2014 16:10
In case of any confusion I meant Tony Blair NOT the editor operates like a snake.
	(Guest)	30/04/2014 17:35
Simpleton, Of course God's elect should respond to God's directives - but we shouldn't do so in our own (natural) strength, we must do so by giving the faith of Christ the freedom to operate through us. It is only then that we experience victory over the weaknesses which reside within our (sin controlled) human nature. As Paul confesses towards the end of Romans 7: For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a Law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! It is Christ whose (obedient) faith - and only His faith which has the victory over Sin - and the elect must walk, not in their own (natural, self sourced and self focused) faith - but in the faith of Christ. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Tony Blair - that there is not outrage in Christendom when this man dares to call himself a Christian reflects on Christendom's complete lack of spiritual discernment
	John Miller	01/05/2014 10:33
If we accept that predestination is God's only demand for the salvation of sinners and personal repentance and faith have nothing to do with it, then the unsaved have a cast iron defense when summoned to the Great White Throne. "It was not possible for me to be eternally saved, O God. You made it impossible. You did not predestine me for blessing. As a righteous God you cannot condemn me to a lost eternity in Hell because there was nothing that I or anyone else could have done, including your Son, to save me." Such misrepresentation of God's message of infinite grace is unscripturally dangerous and brings the work of atonement into question. As a Gospel preacher it is laid on me to urge all without exception to repent, confessing their sins and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. John 3:16, Acts 17:30 and many other scriptures incontrovertibly prove this is correct.
	(Guest)	01/05/2014 11:19
Not so John! Jacob have I loved Esau have I hated... Romans 9.11-33. Pharoah and Judas among many others were raised to destruction for God's purposes, were they not? John 17.12 tells us that Judas was predestinated/elected for destruction? Yet at the Last day (great white throne) he will know it was his own work;"All the world may become guilty before God" Romans 3.19 (subject to God's judgment). Isaiah 29.16, 2 Timothy 2.20 etc I don't know why so many fight against election/predestination, it is Biblical. And it gives believers assurance of salvation. But ofcourse you are correct the gospel MUST be faithfully preached! You or I don't know whose names are written in the "Lambs book of life", do we? "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" Romans 10.17. At least that is how I heard the gospel. Romans 11.33
	(Guest)	01/05/2014 11:47
At the risk of bringing the Eds wrath down on me, I will respond to your points on predestination: Your first point is not valid. If there are 10 people guilty of theft and 'the Law' decides to pardon one - that gracious pardon does not make the remaining nine any less guilty of theft - does it? Your second point, although intended to point to a different conclusion, speaks only of God's infinite grace towards the elect and should instil righteous humility into each and every one of the elect who meditates on it. JESUS DIED FOR US WHILE WE WERE STILL UTTERLY LOST SINNERS John 3/16 is one of the most misinterpreted, abused and misused scriptures in the entire Bible. Regarding Acts 17/30 - so, God calls all men to repent? But, as scripture confirms, only those who have been gifted repentance can obey that call........

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