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He’d thought about the BBC. Bit more respectable. Bit more homegrown. But the Beeb didn’t have the international cachet CNN could offer. They’d replay the conference again and again throughout the day, beaming him out to every one of their stations. And, if nothing else, international was the word of the day.
The pundits had been on the air since nine o’clock the previous night, speculating. Nightline had devoted an entire segment to the upcoming a
With a go from the producer in the London studio, Harris stepped to the microphone at 7:04. He pulled two note cards from his jacket pocket and began to speak.
“Good morning. My name is Nigel Harris, and let me first extend my thanks to CNN for organizing all of this at such short notice, and to you for allowing me to join you during your no doubt busy mornings. I promise to be brief.
“As many of you know, I stepped down as executive director of the Testament Council over a year ago. I was convinced, at the time, that an organization of its kind could achieve only limited gains within a secularized society, and that faith and politics, difficult as it was for me to admit, would never find a common ground in creating our future. I saw the selfsame efforts, both here in Europe and in the United States, coming to naught, and felt, perhaps, that our time had passed. I realize now that I was wrong.” He paused. “It has never been clearer to me than today that those goals can be achieved only by the mutual cooperation of both. Faith must infuse politics. Politics must guarantee the rights of its faithful.”
Again he paused, aware that, somewhere in the council’s London headquarters, the phones were ringing off the hook. “No, we had no idea he was coming back, either,” they’d be saying. He would have loved to have been there to see the surprise on their faces during the next few minutes. “I have also come to realize that such cooperation ca
“Several months ago, I therefore decided that there was a need for a new kind of leadership, an international organization that could meet the expansive needs of a new mille
“We are taking this step because we feel that, in a world co
“Let me say that the Faith Alliance will not be concerned with such divisive issues as national health, balanced budgets, tax reforms, deficit reductions, European fiscal cohesion, or any other such issues, which, though important in specific arenas and to specific politicians, have only shifted our focus away from what truly matters. Our message extends beyond political borders and therefore has no partisan agenda.
“In the next few weeks, you will come to know what we in the alliance hope to achieve. Our hope is that you will choose to embrace it. After all, it would be meaningless without your support. All I ask is that you take a look at what we have to say. Consider it. I feel confident that you will agree we must all find a way to reinject a spiritual and ethical purpose into every facet of our lives. If not for ourselves, then for the future, for that brave new dawn. What else is there?
“I thank you for your time and your patience. Are there any questions?”
Twenty arms sprang up at once. Harris pointed to a familiar face in the second row. Margaret Brown, BBC News.
“Mr. Harris,” she began, “I appreciate your desire to keep things vague, but could you elaborate on what exactly you mean by religious vigilance? Which religion are we talking about?”
“Vigilance in inspiring faith, Margaret. I believe that to be a staple in every religion. The point here isn’t to find what separates us, but what co
“Yes,” she continued, shouting above the next surge of hands and questions, “but wasn’t that the same claim you made when you were with the council? Not a Christian agenda, not a conservative agenda. And yet it turned out that wasn’t the case at all when it came to your lobbying efforts with Parliament. Is the Faith Alliance just another special-interest front?”
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘front,’ Margaret, but I will say that my choice to look beyond the council had more to do with the focus of the message than with the message itself. Spiritual commitment isn’t something that should be marginalized. Jim,” he said, pointing to James Tompkins from the Times.
“Yes. Mr. Harris, you said the proposal will be in papers around the world. That can run into a tidy sum of money. Where, might we ask, is the funding coming from?”