Meeting with Tony Blair

by Sheryl Johnson
National Representative (elected co-chair of SCM)

and Mitchell Anderson
SCM Saskatoon

January 8, 2009

Early in December, Mitchell Anderson and Sheryl Johnson had the opportunity to attend a roundtable hosted by Tony Blair and Belinda Stronach to mark the launch of the Faith Acts Fellows Programme, an opportunity for young adults from Canada, the US, and the UK of a variety of religious traditions to embark on a 9-month internship.

This programme would be focused on advocating for the adoption and implementation of the millennium development goals and involve time spent in Africa. The programme is being funded, partially, by both Blair and Stronachs’ foundations.

The roundtable was held in Toronto and involved Canadian denominational and religious leaders as well as young adults from a variety of traditions. There was a good deal of time given to participants to offer reflections on the programme and ask questions. More information about the programme can be found on the programme website.

SJ: So, Mitchell, are you going to apply to be a Faith Acts Fellow?

MA: No, I don’t believe so. The programme is interesting, though I am not currently convinced that it is ideal. I have a long road ahead of me to become a minister, and I’m intending on sticking with that process for right now.

SJ: Yeah. Me neither. I saw some pamphlets on the table at the University of Toronto Multi-Faith Centre the other day and considered looking into it for a second, but then thought a bit about some of the underlying issues and decided otherwise. It’s a tricky thing though, I mean it would be super to experiecne that sort of multi-faith young adult community, but there are other places for that. Sometimes, though, I find it a tricky balance between wanting to be “ecumenical” and “inter-faith” and co-operate in projects or participate in things…but then there also has to be this filter by being grounded in my own faith and our own tradition and trying to figure out how much that needs to weigh in. I think this is one of those times that that wins out. There are other places (see Multi-Faith Centre above!) for that kind of community.

What did you get out of the experience of the launch, though?

MA: The experience of the launch was quite interesting. Sitting across a table from the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, and a few metres away from Belinda Stronach and Tony Blair was a bit overwhelming. The chance for an interfaith dialogue was really beautiful, though I wish we could have gone into deeper discussion and had greater length at which to discuss the topics before us. I also was saddened that the scheduling was such that a number of representatives of Jewish communities were unable to fully participate.

SJ: That’s interesting to hear. I think I was struck by how staged it all was, and how essentially inconsequential, literally in-effective it was. The plan for the fellowship was in place – really anything said or asked wasn’t going to change anything, just a show for some good photos and a nice quote or two.

The “press conference” roundtable (yet clearly not a table of equals in identity or in role) is such a patriarchal, western, capitalist sort of model for enacting a pre-decided script – the metanarrative of “feel good” interfaith work that is “so basic” no one can disagree and we can “set aside” our beautiful variation and unique traditions and trajectories – not to mention the structural/systemic issues (like being on the Jewish sabbath and the intimidating nature of the event’s structure).

It just seemed to me like case in point of starting from the centre rather than the margins, and “individualizing” the exclusion to cloak the systems of hegemony. The focus on the “simplicity” aspect also sort of got to me in the way that even though we as young adults around the table identified complexities of the project itself and around the “issues in /Africa/” more broadly, it seemed infantilizing (both of us as young adults and the situations/countries targetted by this work) to continually push those aside.

MA: I’m inclined to agree with you in feeling that the meeting could have been more productive. I find it amazing how, on such short notice, Tony Blair can call a meeting of many of the religious leaders of Canada. Indeed, it seemed as though the meeting was fairly representative of Canada’s religious diversity, though biased towards mainline Protestants. I think we could have entered into deeper conversation than we did, I must admit.

At the same time, I must say I empathize to a degree with the trajectory of Stronach and Blair’s work in terms of inter-faith action and dialogue. Perhaps they started a bit too simply, as you suggest, beginning where there is no possible disagreement. At the same time then, there was little room for conversation. Only those of us who had some discomfort with the proposal were able to articulate anything beyond the general consensus that . As I said in the meeting, if something more substantive comes from it, I think it could be a good idea. I believe that Blair is very committed to change, but I also believe that he is very committed to slow, gradual change, as can be seen in his past life as a politician.

In further development of your critique, I found the presence of the youth and the model of discussion to be interestingly handled. The religious leaders spoke with one another, while we had little intervention until later in the conversation. I felt as if a more interventionist model of conversation, with the chair actively seeking out our participation, would have been more desirable. Or, perhaps, encouraging everyone to go around and speak would be better as well, as I was saddened to have missed the perspectives of some.

I do think that we as progressives, we as people of faith, need to develop our understandings of how to seek good in the world. Is the model of sending people to “save” Other(ed) places ideal? Is sending people to Other(ed) places to “learn” a good idea? I think that there is significant room for conversation on these and other subjects, one in which I’d be quite interested in hearing the perspectives of the Student Christian Movements in these Other(ed) places.

In the end, I trust that, though we may make mistakes, continually turning to the Spirit is what is necessary, as a privileged Christian. Like it says in John, She judges the world (16:8) , condemning its ruler (16:11), which I would suggest at this time in history would we be us, privileged Westerners. This is, of course, not meant to include the many poor, marginalised and oppressed persons in Western societies. However, I trust that She “will guide us into all truth” (16:13).

This I pray, may the Spirit of Truth guide us to respect the many truths of our world, knowing that She speaks in many varied ways, in all of which there is wisdom.