Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Today, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in collaboration with Fondazione per la Sussidiarietá and University of Ca’ Foscari of Venice , is hosting the final seminar in a series of high-level seminars throughout Italy to explore the importance of religion in the modern, globalised world. The closing seminar will explore issues and tensions surrounding human rights and religious freedoms.  These seminars analyse how complex challenges - such as the significance of faith, trends in migration, and economic downturns - affect Italian society.

On Tuesday 6 December 2011, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation will host the Faith Shorts 2011 film competition awards ceremony at 195 Piccadilly, the home of British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Joining the winners will be some very special guests and will be streamed live around the world. We’ll be providing further details of the live stream soon – keep watching this space. Faith Shorts is a global film competition that provides young people with the opportunity to express their faith through film.

This past Monday students from Coopers and Coburn (UK), Duchess High School (UK), and Hillcrest High (USA) schools joined together in a videoconference to speak about the Buddhist faith. Facilitated by Face to Faith teacher trainer Ian Jamison and Munisha, Director of the Education Service at the Manchester Buddhist Centre, the meeting allowed the participating students to address the questions they had about Buddhist practices and beliefs. Sitting in on the conference proved to riveting as discussion frequently delved into unforeseen areas and unexpected subtopics.

  Being asked to write a blog about my experience at the American Academy of Religion (http://www.aarweb.org/)  conference last week is actually quite a challenge. The AAR is such a gargantuan event that any attempt to describe it will inevitably only focus upon the few tiny subjective experiences that one can remember!

What do you call 10,000 theologians, religious studies professors and religious booksellers? A disputation of theologians? A proliferation of Professors? A sub-Angelic host? That was allegedly the number in San Francisco for the 2011 American Academy of Religion annual conference. I haven't seen so many elderly white- bearded men in one place ever before. It's enough to create an identity crisis. And if you have ever published a book on an even marginally religious topic, seeing about an acre of them all in one place is kind of depressing.

  “First ring stop, second ring breathe, third ring smile.” So goes Shantum Seth’s telephone meditation as explained during a recent video conference with four Indian schools concerning the topic of Buddhism in the contemporary world.

Eric Farr, a Faiths Act Fellow of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation reflects on the teachings of the Baha’i faith, Thanksgiving and the famine in Africa. “My God, my Adored One, my King, my Desire! What tongue can voice my thanks to Thee?” So begins a prayer of Bahá’u'lláh that I regularly turn to in moments of gratitude.

This week is UK National Inter Faith Week in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is the third year of UK Inter Faith Week and around 400 events are expected to take place to mark it.

My experience in London started as the airplane was making its final descent through the clouds hovering over the British capital. All of the monuments and landmarks that I’ve seen a million times on postcards and in coffee table books now looked like miniature models in a studio. The entirety of central London was in my view. And all of the people in it were tiny and invisible from where I was. Once I landed, I became one of those tiny people.