Blair and Obama talk of their Christian faith

 

US President Barak Obama and ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair both delivered inspiring keynote speeches at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, in Washington DC yesterday (February 5).

 

President Obama announced the creation of an Advisory Council on Faith and also talked of what his own Christian faith means to him.

 

“The particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times,” he said.

 

“I believe good is possible because my faith teaches me that all is possible, but I also believe because of what I have seen and what I have lived.

 

“I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I’ve ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.

 

“I didn’t become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose. “

 

To read the full text of Barak Obama’s speech click here

 

Ex British-PM Tony Blair chose the occasion to speak about his own Foundation, the issue of religion in the world and the Middle East peace process.

 

“For billions of people, faith motivates, galvanises, compels and inspires, not to exclude but to embrace; not to provoke conflict but to try to do good. This is faith in action. You can see it in countless local communities where those from churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, tend the sick, care for the afflicted, work long hours in bad conditions to bring hope to the despairing and salvation to the lost. You can see it in the arousing of the world’s conscience to the plight of Africa.

 

“There are a million good deeds done every day by people of faith. These are those for whom, in the parable of the sower, the seed fell on good soil and yielded sixty or a hundredfold,” he said.

 

“Bringing the faith communities together fulfils an objective important to all of us, believers and non-believers.  But as someone of faith, this is not enough. I believe restoring religious faith to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future, is itself of the essence. The 21st Century will be poorer in spirit, meaner in ambition, less disciplined in conscience, if it is not under the guardianship of faith in God.