Finally, we are required to do something that it seems rather odd to have to say. We have to re-discover some confidence and conviction in who we are, how far we’ve come and what we believe in. By the way, I think this even about the economic crisis. It is severe. It’s going to be really, really hard. But we will get through it and not by abandoning the market or open economic system but by learning our lessons and adjusting the system in a way that makes it better. But on any basis, this system has delivered amazing leaps forward in prosperity for our citizens and we shouldn’t, amongst the gloom, forget it.

The same is true for the security threat we face. We are standing up for what is right. The body of ideas that has given us this liberty, to speak and think as we wish, that allows us to vote in and vote out our rulers, that provides a rule of law on which we can rely, and a political space infinitely more transparent than anything that went before ; that body isn’t decaying. It is in the prime of life. It is the future. And though the extremists that confront us have their new adherents, we have ours too, nations democratic for the first time, people tasting freedom and liking it.

And that is why we should not revert to the foreign policy of years gone by, of the world weary, the supposedly sensible practitioners of caution and expediency, who think they see the world for what it is, without the illusions of the idealist who sees what it could be.

We should remember what such expediency led us to, what such caution produced. Here is where I remain adamantly in the same spot, metaphorically as well as actually, of ten years ago, that evening in this city. The statesmanship that went before regarded politics as a Bismarck or Machiavelli regarded it. It’s all a power play; a matter, not of right or wrong, but of who’s on our side, and our side defined by our interests, not our values. The notion of humanitarian intervention was the meddling of the unwise, untutored and inexperienced.

But was it practical to let Pakistan develop as it did in the last thirty years, without asking what effect the madrassas would have on a generation educated in them? Or wise to employ the Taliban to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan? Or to ask Saddam to halt Iran? Was it really experienced statesmanship that let thousands upon thousands die in Bosnia before we intervened or turned our face from the genocide of Rwanda?

Or to form alliances with any regime, however bad, because they solve ‘today’ without asking whether they will imperil ‘tomorrow’? This isn’t statesmanship. It is just politics practiced for the most comfort and the least disturbance in the present moment.

I never thought such politics very sensible or practical. I think it even less so now. We live in the era of interdependence; the idea that if we let a problem fester, it will be contained within its boundaries no longer applies. That is why leaving Africa to the ravages of famine, conflict and disease is not just immoral but immature in its political understanding. Their problems will become ours.

And this struggle we face now cannot be defeated by staying out; but by sticking in, abiding by our values not retreating from them.

It is a cause that must be defeated by a better cause. That cause is one of open, tolerant, outward-looking societies in which people respect diversity and difference in which peaceful co-existence can flourish. It is a cause that has to be fought for; with hearts and minds as well as arms, of course. But fought for, nonetheless with the courage to see it through and the confidence that the cause is just, right and the only way the future of our world can work.

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You can read the whole speech at tonyblairoffice.org

The first question Pilate asked Jesus when he was brought before him was, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Consider the history of monarchy to the Jews. It wasn’t long after they’d entered the Promised Land that they started lobbying the Most High for a king. They wanted the PR value. The neighboring nations had kings and they liked the caché. They kept putting in requests with Yahweh for a king they could call their own. At one point, God said (and I paraphrase), What do you need a king for? Who do you think I am!

It went right over their heads. They wanted royal dragoons and beefeaters, the gilded accoutrements of a monarch, all which Yahweh knew they needed like a hole in the head. Stubborn as mules, they kept kvetching for a king until finally the One who alone was to be their king let them have what they wished for. With a couple exceptions to prove the rule, the experiment proved to be a disaster.

And one day a man came riding an ass into Jerusalem as if he were the king Israel was meant to have all along. Among things peculiar about him was that he referred to himself as I Am.

What does the Cross and Jesus bar-Joseph dying on it mean among so many crosses in history? Crucifixion was nothing new in the Roman Empire. Crosses with men dying in agony upon them in public places and along well-traveled roads were familiar sights. In 4 BC when there had been a rebellion in Syria, the Roman governor Varius led his legions to restore, as they say, the peace. To show that he meant business, Varius ordered the execution of two thousand men at once on separate crosses. Fast-forward to the Jewish Wars of 66 – 70 AD, after which Jerusalem fell again to the Romans. The Roman general Titus, to show his mettle, crucified as many as five hundred Jews daily outside the walls in plain view of the citizens of Jerusalem.

But if you want truly spectacular cinema, go back to 68 BC. The gladiator Spartacus was leading one hundred thousand slaves against Roman authority. When the legions eventually put down the uprising, the authorities crucified six thousand rebels. To amplify the horror, they put crosses alongside the Appian Way, one every 116 feet for 132 miles from Rome to ancient Capua. To imagine the sheer linear scale of that message, imagine a trip from where you sit here at Saint Francis to my brother Sean’s house in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Take River Road to the Beltway/495 North to 95 North up past Baltimore and past Wilmington. Follow US 202/the Concord Pike north to PA Route 322 East. Take the left fork onto East Strasbourg Road, turning left on Ellis Lane. Turn right onto his long driveway. From where you are now to his door: 132 miles, all of that marked by a crucifixion every 116 feet.