It may not be big news on this side of the pond, but last night former British Prime Minister Tony Blair officially converted to Catholicism; which - for our British cousins - is a relatively big deal.
We Americans like to think that we keep a good separation between things like faith and politics, but compared to the Brits our political leaders all look and sound like an illegitmate child of Pat Robertson and Ronald Reagan. The truth is that faith, politics, and public life really go hand in hand in American culture. We want our potential leaders to at least “pretend” to have some semblance of religiosity about them.
Europe however is a different story;where there is a seeming distrust of those who speak openly and fervently about their religious beliefs - which is what makes Tony’s announcement so interesting.
It’s long been understood that Tony’s wife and children were active members of the Catholic church; with his kids attending a private Catholic school. And Tony himself was apparently a faithful attendee at Sunday mass throughout his tenure as PM. Yet throughout his 10 years as one of the world’s most well known leaders, Blair made no public references to his faith. Commenting on his conversion Blair said that he kept silent on the issue because he, “didn’t want to be considered a nutter.” (British for crazy)
There’s also the issue that England as nation has a nasty little history with the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of England - catchy name - also known as the Anglican church was created in the early part of the 116th Century when King Henry decided to break away from the Catholic Church when he wanted to annul his latest marriage. So, needless to say a British leader publicly converting back to Catholicism is a wee bit of a slap in the face.
The end result is Tony Blair waiting until he is well out of public office to take a personal and private step in his faith, all out of fear that he would have been considered crazy or caused a national commotion by doing so earlier.
While I don’t agree with Tony being at least somewhat motivated by fear in his decision to keep silent about his Christianity, I am however stuck as to figuring out which public approach is best for a country. Do we want leaders to give lip service to Christianity as a means of appeasing a voter-base and meeting some warped standard of what a President should look like? Or would we rather have a Christian leader who keeps his views far from the spotlight yet is obviously approaching his faith with care and thoughtfulness?
Hmm….
February 4th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I think that your essay titled Choose your Man…or Woman answers the profound questions that you propose. You mention that you don’t know who is the appropriate leader to vote for based on his/her religious background…and go into details about their personal faiths.
I personally believe that a politician’s religious beliefs should not affect the public’s vote. You mentioning that you can’t vote for certain candidates based on their faith is like mentioning that they are male/female, black/white.
Voters need to look for a person that has conviction when making decisions…not their religious beliefs. Where is the line between the separation of church and state? Why does the church feel that they should be politically involved in government? Why should a politician receive that type of power? He or she is a politician…not a leader of a church.
However, since Tony Blair didn’t make his religious choices public, the English did not judge him based on his faith in God. Which is the way it should be. Based on what you said in your blog, I think what Tony Blair did was extremely wise.
It would be like me interviewing people for a position at my school and only hiring teachers (at a public school) that had my same religious beliefs. That’s not fair. Our differences and our beliefs are what makes us special…not superior.