A Faithless World

Some of Blair's motivation is clearly personal. He is a recent Catholic convert. (There are, by the way, now more Catholic than Anglican churchgoers in Britain for the first time since the Reformation.) During a speech at Westminster Cathedral in early April, Blair talked movingly of God as "selfless love, merciful and an infinite dispenser of grace."

But his main argument is public and visionary. Religion, Blair argues, is not going away, as secularists have expected and predicated for centuries. For millions, he noted in his Westminster speech, it is "the motive for their behavior, the thing which gives sense to their lives and purpose to their journeys -- which makes life more than just a sparrow's flight through a lighted hall from one darkness to another, in that memorable image of the Venerable Bede." While religion may sometimes be a source of conflict, it has often been a source of reform and idealism -- as in the fight against slavery, apartheid and genocide. The goal of his faith foundation, he explained to me, is for the major faiths "to work together against injustice rather than prey -- that's p-r-e-y -- on injustice."

And the first injustice Blair's foundation has chosen to confront is malaria, in cooperation with a splendid organization called Malaria No More. Blair's vision of ecumenism is not focused on endless dialogue but on collective action. Malaria is a massive moral challenge, taking more than a million lives a year, mainly of children under 5. The band across central Africa where malaria is endemic is also a region were Muslim-Christian tension often runs high. About 40 percent of malaria victims in sub-Saharan Africa are Muslim. So fighting malaria is the issue most likely to bring Muslims and Christians together across their durable divisions. And, Blair adds practically, churches and mosques are essential "distribution centers" for the bed nets that save young lives.

"Faith," Blair argues, "is not an historical relic but a guide for humanity on its path to the future. A faithless world is not one in which we want ourselves and our children to live."

It is a new and unpredicted role for Tony Blair: the faithful servant against a faithless world.