But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.

Blair frames religion less as a private creed than as a public resource for social cohesion. The quote argues that stable plural societies need moral languages and institutions that can cultivate restraint, mutual obligation, and reconciliation—qualities that reduce the likelihood of conflict and increase the chances of peace. It also reflects Blair’s broader “faith and globalization” outlook: that religious actors, when engaged constructively, can be partners in civil society and international peacemaking rather than sources of division. Implicitly, it challenges strictly secular accounts of social order by insisting that religion remains a significant, even necessary, contributor to the ethical and communal infrastructure of modern life.