Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Growing up as one of just a handful of Hindus in St Louis, Missouri (USA), our family always celebrated this “festival of lights” at home.  We would place the traditional oil lamps in every room of the house to light Ram’s way back to his kingdom after fourteen years in exile.

That's what renowned scholars José Casanova & Charles Taylor discussed last week with students at McGill University during the Faith and Globalisation Initiative’s (hyperlink to new site) “Shared Topics Week” where leading research universities in our network studied the issue of religion and conflict.

On October 13, the first of four seminars by the Foundation for Subsidiarity and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation on the theme “Faith and Globalisation: the challenge of education” took place in Rome. In this first meeting, the debate centred on the question: Why does faith matter in a globalised world? The themes of the next three seminars will be: Religion and Development (Bologna); Religion in the Public Square, secularism or laïcité?

Today, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in collaboration with Fondazione per la Sussidiarietá and Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, is hosting the first in a series of high-level seminars throughout Italy to explore the importance of religion in the modern, globalised world. In Rome, the opening seminar will ask, what virtues are required to deal with globalisation and the political and religious pluralism of the 21st century?

I can't think of a better welcome to India than this: "The saints are upstairs when you're ready," the hotel staff told me. Our first stop in India last week was to meet with more than 20 very senior faith leaders to seek their advice on our work. From Gyani Gurabachan Singh from the Golden Temple to His Grace Vincent Concessao to Rabbi Abraham Benjamin to Acharya Dr Lokesh Muni to Imam Umar Ahmed Ilyasi, we were overwhelmed by the seniority and spiritual wisdom of those who travelled from all over India to meet us.

The cool Monday morning was slowly warmed by a radiant sun rising above the campus in Canduman, Mandaue City.

Teenagers say they enjoy discovering faith from their grandparents. Faith values cross the age gap between teenagers and the elderly.

In October 2010 I started the third and final year of my law degree at the University of Hull, but didn’t know what I wanted to do in nine months time after I completed my last exam and graduated. I spent the next few months looking for what was available out there in the big scary world, which seemed like another place altogether from my university bubble.

Growing up in a small, homogenous town called Darien, Connecticut, I never felt comfortable exploring or sharing my faith with those around me. Different was bad, and all I thirsted for was to fit in – to be popular, to be accepted, to be one of “them”. Back in fourth grade, I had already learned and perfected the practice of othering: separating people into categories of “us” and “them” by learning what I could from TV, my friends, and the local mall, using those factors to define what was cool and rank myself accordingly.

While we at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, in collaboration with Help AGE International, felt that we must do something to celebrate the UN Day for Older Persons on the 1st October, at the same time we wanted to explore with our students the issues affecting the world’s elders, how and why people of faith should be concerned about these issues and think about ways they could help. We held three multipoint video conferences with some very special guest speakers. We were delighted to have Sawang Kaewkantha from  Help Age International, Chang Mai join us in one VC; Mr.