Tony Blair’s global ambitions for his faith charity have been curtailed after one of the world’s leading divinity schools pulled out of a joint project, apparently angered by his claim that religious differences would fuel the wars of the 21st-century.
The former prime minister announced a joint project this year between the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and the Harvard Divinity School to produce in-depth analysis of religion and conflict around the world.
The faith foundation is an important part of his charity network, which includes a sports foundation and an African governance initiative, which resulted in Mr Blair being named philanthropist of the year at the GQ magazine awards this week.
Collaborating with one of Harvard’s oldest professional schools, which was founded in 1816, would have significantly enhanced the foundation’s reputation and fundraising capabilities in the United States. Mr Blair wrote in January that they would produce a website to provide analysis of the impact of religion on “countries where there is a problem”.
Harvard confirmed yesterday that it had pulled out after reports that it was angered by Mr Blair’s claims that religion was responsible for fuelling violent conflicts.
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Jonathan Beasley, from the Harvard Divinity School, said: “HDS was engaged in discussions on a working relationship with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation team but decided not to pursue a formal collaboration after realising that the aims of both organisations would be better served independently.” He declined to discuss whether Mr Blair’s controversial article was behind the decision not to collaborate with the project.
Martin Bright, the former political editor of the New Statesman who was appointed to edit the foundation’s website, first revealed the “crisis” last month. He wrote that Harvard “was apparently angered” by the article, which was written by Mr Blair in January.
Entitled “Religious differences will fuel this century’s epic battles”, the piece warned that religious extremism had become the biggest source of conflict and highlighted terrorist attacks across the Middle East and in Asia, Africa, the Far East and Russia.
He said that the aim of the foundation was to make religious extremism a major item on the agenda of world leaders and said that it was not limited to Islam, with examples around the world of Muslims being victims of religiously motivated violence by other faiths.
Mr Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving Downing Street and has frequently spoken about the importance of his faith. In addition to his charity work, he is also an official peace envoy to the Middle East.
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A spokesman for the foundation said: “We worked closely with Harvard Divinity School in the early stages of the production of the religion and geopolitics website, valued our collaboration and continue to have good relations with them.”
He said that the foundation had launched its own resource in June and aimed to build content written from different viewpoints from a range of experts.