Blair: Christian or progessive liberal?

An interview on the BBC today with Tony Blair, discussing his conversion to Catholicism. One of the commentators afterwards seemed to intimate that Christian fervour had led to the Iraq War, although another said that it was moral fervour that motivated him. The tired old story, almost certainly untrue, that they "prayed together" before starting the war was wheeled out again, showing how a lie becomes truth if told often enough.

The irony is that both Bush and Blair were not Christian enough; they were both captivated by the ideology of democratic fundamentalism, an offshoot of progressive liberalism. The ideological justification for Iraq War was to bring Freedom and Western-style democracy to the Middle East. Blair's political careers shows that his voting record was often against christian doctrine, but entirely consistent with progressive liberal beliefs; the Bush presidency and the Republican party have been suborned by the ideology of neo-conservativism, a form of liberal neo-imperialism.

However both would believe that this democratic fundamentalism is a natural consequence of Christian teaching. This is part of the confusion that bedevils Christianity in the modern world today.