 Former British prime minister Tony Blair, who describes himself as a terrible student headed back to school this past Friday as a religion lecturer at University of Yale.
Blair, who became a Catholic after leaving office in 2007 and talked openly of his Christian faith while he was the prime minister of Britain as he delivered his inaugural lecture at Yale.An audience of more than 2,000 students came to hear the talk by Blair, who stepped down after a decade of being in power and how he was under fire for his strong support of the US-led war in Iraq. His new part-time job will have him delivering five lectures a year for the next three years to students and comes on top of work as a Middle East peace envoy and lucrative business consultancies. Blair will be focusing on faith and globalization as Yale's Howland Distinguished Fellow dovetails and the work of his Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The lectures Blair will deliver to the students will last only 1-1/2 hours and he will not conduct seminars, meaning only brief spells on campus, university spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said. Yale is donating 200,000 dollars to his foundation, in addition to paying a "nominal fee," Klasky said. British, unlike Americans, discourage public displays of faith by politicians. During his lecture he described the Iraq conflict, deeply unpopular in Britain, as part of a broader struggle against extreme Islam and enemies of Muslims "trying to be part of the modern world." "They are the same forces we are fighting everywhere," Blair said. Blair said there was "a deeper and more fundamental struggle than we anticipated." There is "no alternative but to follow it through." Other than his Mideast envoy duties and now teaching, Blair also has a range of lucrative part-time work, including being a consultant for investment bank JPMorgan and Swiss insurer Zurich. He is reported to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking appearances.
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