A number of prominent politicians popped up at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday in Washington, and offered some of their thoughts on prayer and belief:

President Barack Obama and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair struck similar themes in remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast Feb. 5, telling of their own faith roots and noting that the world’s major religions all hold a core doctrine of caring for others.

Obama also used the occasion to say that later in the day he would formally announce the establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a reworking of the faith-based office established by President George W. Bush.

Later that morning Obama signed an executive order creating the new office and a new council of advisers.

Looking around the Washington hotel ballroom with thousands of guests from around the world, Obama said at the breakfast, “It strikes me that this is one of the rare occasions that still brings much of the world together in a moment of peace and good will.”

Noting that by their very nature the beliefs of various faiths “will never be the same,” Obama said, “No matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. … There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.”

Blair, who became a Catholic a few months after he left office in June 2007, made similar observations about the world’s religions and their teachings about peace. He also said that “religion is under attack from without and from within. From within it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. … If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.

“From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict,” said Blair, according to a text provided by his office. “Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive nonbelievers come together in unholy alliance.”

Both Blair and Obama told of how their experiences with people of faith helped inspire their own search for God.

Blair explained how a teacher knelt and prayed with him as he worried about his ailing father.

“Now my father was a militant atheist,” he said. “Before we prayed, I thought I should confess this. ‘I’m afraid my father doesn’t believe in God,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ my teacher replied. ‘God believes in him. He loves him without demanding or needing love in return.'”

“That is what inspires,” Blair said, “the unconditional nature of God’s love. A promise perpetually kept. A covenant never broken.”

There’s more at the CNS link.

PHOTO: Tony Blair, by Reuters