"The problems we face today cannot be solved without alliances," he said. "And alliances won't work without common values."

Blair says his experience at Yale has strengthen his belief that religious, economic, and social globalization are linked.

Multicultural and multi- religious societies are the result of "pushing people together," and now "spiritual capital" and "human capital" need to be linked, he argued.

"Unless we find a way of reconciling faith and globalization, the world will be a more dangerous place," Blair said, according to The Associated Press.

Blair, who was an Anglican Christian, converted to Catholicism in 2007 after stepping down as prime minister of Britain. The former British prime minister will continue to teach at Yale for the next two years as part of a three year partnership between the university and his London-based Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Blair said Yale will be the headquarters for the U.S. operations of his foundation, according to the Yale Daily News.

"We've done this as it creates a good opportunity for Christians to meet and hear about the stories of people of other faiths," said the Rev. Jane Hedges, a canon of Westminster Abbey, according to U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper.

"Christmas is an opportunity for everyone to stop and think and is a great opportunity of the different faiths to talk to one another," she said. "Wherever you're coming from there should be something to celebrate at Christmas."

The Abbey's canon pointed out that the story of Christ's birth is included in the Koran, and noted that the Hindu snowmen is meant to convey that Hindus have something to celebrate during Christmas too. "Strictly speaking, the message of Christmas is about the birth of Christ, but it has a much broader message of peace and goodwill," said Hedges.

Westminster Abbey will showcase life-size snowmen with turbans and bindi dots on their foreheads that is meant to express that Christmas is not exclusively for Christians.  The Diocese of Liverpool, part of the Church of England, will stage a nativity that features a Chinese dragon and lantern procession.

Sixty-five percent of all Christians say there are multiple paths to eternal life, ultimately rejecting the exclusivity of Christ teaching, according to the latest survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Even among white evangelical Protestants, 72 percent of those who say many religions can lead to eternal life name at least one non-Christian religion, such as Judaism or Islam or no religion at all, that can lead to salvation.

Majorities among white evangelicals, white mainline Christians, and black Protestants who do not believe in the exclusivity of salvation say Catholicism and Judaism can lead to eternal life, Pew results show.

Smaller but still sizeable percentages (more than half) of white mainline Christians, black Protestants and white Catholics who say there are multiple ways to eternal life also say Islam can lead to salvation; among white evangelicals, 35 percent agree. And more than half of white mainline Christians and white Catholics who view heaven's gates as wide say Hinduism can lead to eternal life compared to 33 percent of white evangelicals and 44 percent of black Protestants.

Surprisingly, Christians also believe atheism can provide a ticket to heaven. Forty-six percent of white mainline Christians, 49 percent of white Catholics and 26 percent of white evangelicals who believe many religions lead to salvation say atheism can lead to eternal life.

As one-time leaders of the emergent movement have recently distanced themselves from the term, the network itself dropped its organizational leader. The decision of Emergent Village's board of directors to eliminate its national coordinator position marked the latest sign that the movement is either decentralizing or disintegrating.

Board members said they eliminated Tony Jones's position October 31 in order to reclaim the Village's founding purpose as an "egalitarian social-networking organization." "We are gifting the power of Emergent back to the people at the grassroots level of the conversation," said Jones.

"We don't know how to run networks. [But we know] there's a place for leadership in networks." McLaren says there have been ongoing questions about the label itself. "For many people, the name emergent has allowed them to remain in the evangelical world," he said. For others outside the conversation, he admitted, the name has become an epithet for theological heresy or cultural trendiness.

Additionally, several thinkers once associated with emergent, including pastor Dan Kimball and professor Scot McKnight, have formed a new network provisionally called Origins, dedicated to "friends, pioneers, innovators, and catalysts who want to dream and work for the gospel together rather than alone."

Nevertheless, the Emergent Village board remains optimistic about the future. McLaren pointed to groups such as Presbymergent and Anglimergent as examples of conversations that are taking place outside of Emergent Village. Such groups encourage John Franke, professor of theology at Biblical Seminary and Emergent Village member. "We never thought we were the conversation," he said. "We're just a particular node of the wider conversation."

But Jones hopes decentralizing American emergent networks will give participants worldwide, who lack access to book publishing and other resources enjoyed by their American counterparts, more freedom to express themselves. "Any time you can dethrone an overeducated, loud, brash, white man," he said, "people just feel more openness for their own voice to be heard."