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[inaudible] [crowd noise] for the progress in religion, it was established in recognition of individuals

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who have found new ways to increase man's love of God or man's understanding of God. It is awarded annually and is not limited to any one religious tradition,

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but seeks to focus attention on the progress in present day religious thought and work. Preston College is not only interested in the new meaning of life for Christians,

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but also for the Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist faith. And it is therefore fitting that the Prime Minister should grace us with her presence this afternoon, as her interest is not a mere formality,

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but a further manifestation of her abiding interest in interfaith activities, and the encouragement and the better understanding between all faiths. The Prime Minister's presence will be a further

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and positive encouragement for the most important work of Caston College and the many problems that it has faced. We do appreciate very much your presence here this afternoon. Our many distinguished guests this afternoon

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represent all walks of life, And we are pleased to welcome representatives for all major political parties. And you will forgive me if I only mention a few.

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We are very glad that the right honorable John Biffen, leader of the house is here. Lord Coggan, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who is representing the International Council

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of Christian and Jews, and the Council of Christian and Jews. The Chief Rabbi. the Honorable Gavril Jenner, QCMP President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews,

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and President of the National Council for Soviet Jewry, Dr. Arthur Sloman, Vice-Chancellor of Essex University, Curly Arthur Thompson of the Salvation Army, and Mr. Ray Bell, my President of the Rotary Club of London.

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And of course, we are very happy to have our President Sir John Lawrence here, and our chairman, Mr. Roger Hale. I would like to call on Michael Bordeaux today to say a few words, without whom there would be no Keston College at all.

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Prime Minister, my Lords, ladies and gentlemen, This evening is a very special event for Keston College, but it's not out of sequence with what's preceded it. Your gracious acceptance of our invitation, Prime Minister, is a boost to the confidence and morale of an organisation which in the past has not only struggled to make its voice heard, has sometimes been on the very verge of extinction.

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Extinction, not distinction. For the lack of financial support. Though that danger has receded, there is still some way to go in securing the long-term future of our work.

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The contacts of Creston College with both the British and American governments go back to about 1975. That was soon after our founding as an organization. That was also the year

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in which the Helsinki Agreements were signed. It was then that the discussion of human rights and religious liberty came more into the agenda of international political conferences

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in view of certain guarantees contained in those agreements. The establishment of an ongoing monitoring system for the Helsinki Agreements meant that the British government needed to be in consultation

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with NGOs, non-government organizations, on certain matters which they did not have enough staff of their own to encompass systematically. These contacts from our side have gone right across

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the board of party lines. In 1976, Sir Harold Wilson sought advice from Keston College on religious liberty in the Soviet Union and pledged himself to carry on

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something which was of very deep personal interest to him because of Soviet Jewry. Dr. David Owen followed this by inviting us and other organizations to a formal consultation

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before the Belgrade Review Conference. For the second review conference of the Helsinki Agreement, the one in Madrid, Keston produced a lengthy published report

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on religious liberty in the Soviet Union, and Dr. Philip Walters represented us there in Madrid. More recently, there have been opportunities for a number of private, informal, but rather significant contacts.

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These have been less frequent, but equally warm, with the State Department under both the Carter and the Reagan administrations. Never, never has there been a time when the work of Keston College was more needed in the whole variety of its activity than today, the 25th of April, 1984.

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It's only yesterday that news of the arrest of Valéry Baran, a quite outstanding and wonderful person, a friend of my wife — I have not had the privilege of meeting him face to face, but I feel as if I know him — that Leningrad jazz musician who has devoted his life for the service of the down-and-outs, the drug addicts, the lost of Soviet society,

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reaching them through his music. Valery Baranov was arrested in the month of March, and the information has only just come through to us, rendering almost out of date the excellent report on his case in The Times last Saturday.

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We've devoted extensive attention to individuals, all of them remarkable people, but some of them unsung heroes, really, with no popularly acclaimed name,

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who belong to other faiths. I would single out this evening, among many, Yosef Begul, a remarkable Jewish activist who has been sentenced no less than three times.

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Can we just imagine three sentences to jail, the last one of them for 12 years, simply for carrying on what in this country would be a perfectly legal activity,

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something which many of our honored guests indulge in every day, the promotion of religious liberty. And that is his offense, along with promoting the right to emigrate,

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as we have, of course, in this country. And so his case, like that of Anatoliy Shcheransky, will be very much in the forefront of our minds as we continue our work at the college.

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We are not concerned only with the subject of persecution. Perhaps equally important, maybe even more important, is the undoubted fact, which is now, I think, gradually becoming seen as a fact,

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that there is a religious revival, perhaps even one of major proportions within the communist countries. If I had to pick out one specific area of activity

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in which our work is important, it is to make the facts of that revival known worldwide, to act, as it were, as the spokesman, the voice, the Our Voice is the name of a new book coming out

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about the work of Keston College to be published in about three weeks' time, to be the voice of that church, of those believers who are finding a faith

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from a background of atheism and certainly within a situation of persecution which is either actual or potential at any time. All I can do this evening is to commit Heston College

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to continuing and developing its work. We shall retain our independence of political and denominational control, but at the same time we take your presence, Prime Minister, as a positive recognition of the role that Keston College has to play in the public life of this country.

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Thank you for coming. Thank you to the staff of Keston College for its continued and dedicated work. Thank you to all our friends, personal friends, supporters of the work and we hope future supporters of the work who are here this evening. Thank you also to the media who are so widely represented and who have given Keston College

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wonderful recognition in the last few weeks of its activities. We thank you, Prime Minister, we thank you one and all for your support of the work of the College this evening. Thank you Michael for these very, very moving words. The Prime Minister graciously agreed to say a few words. The Prime Minister. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bordeaux,

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Hello, friends. I am pleased to be here for two reasons this evening. First, to demonstrate my support for the work of Keston College, which has been so vividly described by Michael Bordeaux. But secondly, it gives me the opportunity to extend my very warm congratulations to him

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on being awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. [Applause] We were all thrilled with the news, and we hope that it will give a tremendous boost to the work which you are doing,

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because it will bring the knowledge of that work to so many more people. And I know from having read so much about how you came to do that work, that you really felt that you have a destiny to do it, and you know so very well the tremendous importance

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of giving heart, hope and courage to people in those countries whose activities you report, who do not have the freedoms which we take so much for granted. It's always seemed to me that the true difference

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between a free society and an unfree society, that's what we're talking about tonight, we're a free society, you work in unfree societies, is it in free societies We recognize these great liberties, the liberties of speech, freedom of speech, freedom of worship,

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as not coming from any state, and as being far too important for any state to be able to set aside. They are fundamental to human life. We recognize that. That is why we are a free society. But alas, there are some states who do not recognize that. You attempt to say that no one has any liberty save that which is granted to them by a secular state.

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That is nonsense. But it happens. You will remember, some of you will remember, if you're as old as I am, that during the war there was a great Atlantic Charter signed by President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The first two freedoms in that charter are what I have always called the positive freedoms,

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freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Then there was a marvellous speech I think made by Roosevelt afterwards, not known anything like so well, and it said, "But what is the use of freedom of speech, unless you have something to believe,

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and therefore something to say?" Well, of course, not everyone does, but it must be as most irritating and frustrating if you have something to believe, if you have a faith, you wish to proclaim it and you cannot, and it's an offence sometimes even to possess a Bible.

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It's an offence to teach anyone else's child other than your own. Your children may suffer by being ridiculed if they dare utter your beliefs, and you pursue those beliefs, knowing that by doing so, you may be denied entry to higher education,

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and you may be denied promotion. The people in those countries into which you go, Mr. Bordeaux, are deprived of so many of those things, of most of those things. And yet the remarkable thing is, their daily acts of courage,

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each and every day, because their faith is so great, whatever it might be, that they will pass it on. And they will get messages out to us about their experiences in those countries. And the work of Keston College shows that we never forget them, and they know that. Now what can we in Parliament do, regardless of our political affiliation,

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because we couldn't have a Parliament without the sort of freedom of speech. I mean, you should hear them on Tuesdays and Thursdays at me. I mean, we couldn't possibly have a Parliament without reading this week. And of course, we always started off, as you know, with prayers,

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just to make certain that we know that there are far greater things than those deliberations which we have in Parliament. So we always started off with prayers. But what can we do?

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It's my great pride to be Prime Minister of a free society, And I have always made the point of seeing people who come over to this country, who've been allowed out of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, who come over, some of them are very well-known names,

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and I see both them and the people who act on their behalf, and the people who act to try to get others out of those countries so that they may enjoy our kind of freedom. We do it, I confess, under the great searchlight of publicity,

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because that really does help them, and then the news gets back. It also is remarkable when they tell you, face to face, of their experiences, and I can only say that we come to feel very small when we think of what we take for granted,

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and how much they quietly have to fight for. We also try to appreciate not only the names of those who are so well-known because they've been exchanged for someone or eventually come out.

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But it is the thousands and thousands of people behind them who do make a point of passing the messages from one hand to another, either by written messages or from one person to another,

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by word of mouth. And it really is a tribute to the unknown ones, the one wishes to be especially thoughtful today. We also, as you indicated, Mr. Bordeaux, in our public declarations through the Helsinki Agreements

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and through the Madrid declarations, point out that we have all signed great declarations which should grant to people human rights. And indeed, there's a great human rights charter for the United Nations We know full well that those human rights are not being honoured.

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And we've made clear publicly, and will continue to make clear, our deep concern at the efforts of the authorities in those countries who stifle religious freedom, and who try to curb the fundamental right of the individual to practice his faith.

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We condemn the punishments meted out to those who seek only to exercise that fundamental right. We shall remind those countries, above all, of their obligation to the men and women who make up their own peoples. And I naturally hope, indeed we all do, that one day more humane, more civilized, and more enlightened policies will be adopted,

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just as I hope at international level to see an improved understanding between East and West, because I do. I think you have to be able to talk to people in order to influence them. You have to be able to invite some of them over to see our way of life, so that they do know that there is another way, and some of them see what freedom is for the first time.

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Progress may not be fast, and it certainly won't be easy, but we should do our best It is to make certain that we do go forward, and always with the ideas and views of enlarging individual freedom in mind. And whatever assistance governments or prime ministers may or may not be able to give over the quest for religious freedom, there is little doubt in my mind that ultimately success will come.

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That, after all, is why we're all believers. But it doesn't come by wishing it so. It comes by recognizing that we are the instruments of the faith to which we belong, and it will only come about through our efforts.

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I say all that in the knowledge that there are people, courageous individuals whose determination to stand up for their fundamental rights in the face of abuse or imprisonment shines like a beacon of hope across the world. So let us hope that their efforts will one day be rewarded by the kind of freedom, religious freedom,

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which those of us here today have the good fortune to enjoy. That is the cause you've heard from individual, about individual cases and about the work of the Keston College from Michael Bordeaux. It is vital that it continues. There's nothing else like it the world over.

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I must tell you that when I see our American friends as Prime Minister, I will frequently use the work of Keston College and say, 'Look, this is what they've found out. This is what is happening.' The lady standing in front who knows of one of her reports

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has been shown to the highest politicians of the world over. When we discuss how best to deal with these matters, you will take advantage of the work and the personalities in Keston College. Any Prime Minister would be foolish not to use those,

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any Prime Minister of any background. And so on behalf of everyone, I want to thank Michael Bordeaux and Keston for what they have done and what they are doing extend religious freedom to those who do not have it,

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and to let the rest of us know the great values which we enjoy, and never to take that for granted. I hope you will be generous. (audience applauding)

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[ Applause ] [LAUGHTER] Wonderful. [APPLAUSE]

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Thank you, Prime Minister. Your words have all been taken down, been recorded. [LAUGHTER] And they will be a great inspiration

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for those who suffer and we shall make it our job to distribute it and let people know what we have to say today this afternoon. I would like to call on Noah Doubleday to say a few words and to tell you the work that Doubleday does. He and his staff is very largely responsible for his function this afternoon, and I would like to pay tribute for all the work he's said and done during that event. [Applause]

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Prime Minister, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Prime Minister, we are very much indebted to you and your parliamentary colleagues who are here with us tonight for making time in your very busy schedules to be with us. And we must also thank you most warmly for your words. I know they'll be greatly appreciated by all of us at Keston,

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and I think to a much wider audience who will in due course hear them. So on behalf of the friends of Keston, the Council, and the staff of the College, and all our guests here tonight, I thank you. It's good for us, and I strongly suspect too, for believers in Eastern Europe who are undergoing persecution,

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to know that this country has a government which both cares what is going on and is concerned to inform itself about the facts. And it's good to know from what you've just said that these facts are borne in mind in diplomatic contacts with other nations of Eastern Europe. By now, Keston has established, I think one could say, an enviable and unique reputation. Of course, there are a few, a small minority, who object to what we do through fear that our exposure of the facts may pose a threat to detente.

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"Why don't you keep silent about these things?" they say. "Why don't you alter your approach?" The answer is, of course, that we are convinced that truth and honesty are as essential to good and peaceful international relationships as they are to personal ones. No, we shall go on. The College is definitely not for turning. [laughter and applause]

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This is an entirely appropriate occasion, I think, for me to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you who have helped us financially down the years, and who in so doing have played such a major role in our success. We are, as you know, entirely dependent upon the nations, and these have come in large amounts and small from individuals, from churches and other religious bodies, and from a number of grant-making organisations. And without this backing, as indeed without Michael himself, there would be no Keston College. And our gratitude is offered most sincerely.

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Now though, Keston College stands poised on the threshold of a new and very challenging phase of its work. It is, so to speak, just emerging from adolescence into full adulthood. Demands upon us from religious agencies, from academic and government bodies, and particularly

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from our friends in the media, are increasing rapidly. With God's help and with yours, we intend to meet this challenge. It can only be done, however, through a considerable increase in our regular income. At this time, too, we have an immediate need to recruit further staff to allow us to give

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the coverage which is expected of us now, and to provide working space for them. If you've visited Keston in the last few months, you'll know how urgent this is. At times, we know very well how the proverbial sardines feel in their tin. This is why, over the next two years, we're looking for a capital sum of £500,000.

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It's vital that this is also matched, though, by an upturn in our regular income. The story of Keston College is indeed a remarkable one. It's also quite unique. You may already be helping us, and some I know are giving to the limited.

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But seeing how much has been achieved, is it possible that some of you may be able to step up that aid? If Keston is new to you and you've not backed us before, this evening offers an opportunity to invest in success.

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Not a commercial blue chip, of course, but one that's concerned with people, sometimes suffering people, denied the basic rights we take for granted

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here in our democratic society. At a moment of national crisis, General de Gaulle once appealed to his fellow countrymen, Frenchmen, help me.

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It was a simple but very powerful appeal. Knight, harassed, persecuted, and imprisoned believers in the Soviet bloc make a similar appeal. People of goodwill, help us. They know the immense value of the work that Keston does to them, and you can help them by helping us.

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You might, for example, like to finance a research scholarship, which could bear your name, but there are many aspects of our work which do need your help. Do talk to any of us from the Council and the staff of the College. Most of us are identified by one of these badges. But above all, do not let this tremendous opportunity pass.

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These things are too important and too urgent for any of us to pass by on the other side. Thank you. (audience applauding) This ends our formal proceedings,

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but a film will be shown, and I'm sure you'll be very interested to see on the work of Keston College. [Bell rings]

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