Tony Blair Quotes

I think that today, faith drives so much of our politics, that I thought, "If you don't talk about it, you are missing a whole big part of what is going on politically."

We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about the Gospel in a political context.

The time has come to knock off this religion business in American politics. There's no end to the mischief that can occur. It is like putting nitroglycerine in a Waring blender.

There's no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there's been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I've always believed in the separation of church and state.

The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion don't mix. This is the stock response of the left.

A lot of America's success is because we're an open society and haven't brought dogma or religious influence into the American political process.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

God doesn't belong in politics.

Politics bereft of religion is absolute dirt, ever to be shunned.

I do not regard myself as a Christian politician. I regard myself as a politician who just happens to think religion matters. I would be appalled, absolutely appalled, to think religion drove anyone's politics in a secular democracy like ours.

I think it's already apparent that a good part of this Nation understands - if only instinctively - that anything which seems to suggest that God favors a political party or the establishment of a state church, is wrong and dangerous.

We have to have the faithful in government.

Religion, for better or for worse, has been politicized in blatant ways that have seldom been equaled in American elections.

I don't need politicians doing a 24-hour prayer with Oral Roberts to get our country back on track.

The fact that religion plays such a part in how people vote troubles me, troubles me as a minister's daughter. Because I always felt that the separation of church and state was what our forefathers and foremothers really fought for.

As a politician who cherishes religious conviction in his personal sphere, but regards politics as a domain belonging outside religion, I believe that this view is seriously flawed.

My concern is to keep religion and the state separated. I don't think that religion and politics go together. When you see political decisions colored by religion, decisions that affect us all... I thought: 'I do not want to go back to medieval times.'

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion.

We have this idea in our minds that there's this separation of church and state in America, which I think is a good thing. And we extend that to our politics - not just church and state, but it's also there's a separation of religion and politics. But of course there isn't.

As a concerned person of faith, … I have watched with increasing alarm as Religious Right groups manipulate religion to further their intolerant political agenda.

George W. Bush is the founder of the first American religious party.

When a Republican tells me that God’s hand is in his, demand to see his credentials.

I think politicians should express their faith. I have never adhered to the Blair view that we don't do God, indeed I'm not sure that Blair does.

I think there is a puritanical wind that is blowing. I have never seen such a lack of separation between church and state in America, I don’t believe in God, but if I did I would say that sex is a Godgiven right. Otherwise it’s the end of our species.

People of faith should not invoke the power of the state to decide what everyone can believe or think or read or do. In such cases, like abortion or prayer or prohibition or sexual identity, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the free conscience of each person, not the coercive rule of secular law.