This Pentecost, we are reminded that our dependence on the Holy Spirit is more important than ever. Just as risen Christ invited the apostles to “receive the Holy Spirit”, so He asks us again now - in an age of rapid technological change. This is no abstract invitation. It is a practical command for our time. The Spirit is the one who gives the gift of conscience and leads us into the light of the moral order.
We are living through a period of unravelling – the consequences of an era shaped by hyper-liberal individualism. For decades, a culture of self has affected our social, economic, political and spiritual life: eroding the bonds of belonging, prioritising personal autonomy over mutual responsibility, and undermining human worth. The damage is visible - in fragmented communities, strained families, declining trust, and a widespread crisis of meaning. Into this already weakened social fabric now comes a new and powerful force: a new industrial revolution.
The disruption is already underway and moving faster than most predicted. Generative AI has achieved mass adoption in a fraction of the time it took the smartphone. Agentic systems are automating complex professional work. The trajectory points toward profound displacement across white-collar and, increasingly, manual sectors, where one person may do the work of five, ten, or far more. The transition is likely to be rough.
We must take this seriously. It is no longer viable to regard this as a specialist interest for science or tech experts. We are all called — across our traditions — to play our part, both in resisting what dehumanises, and in engaging wisely to ensure that the technology upholds the person, the family and community.
This sobering reality sharpens everything we at Together for the Common Good have long argued for: the urgent need for spiritual and civic renewal rooted in a coherent Christian witness. At the heart of that witness is an authentic Christian anthropology: the conviction that human beings are relational beings made in the image of God. We are not designed to be isolated individuals defined by category. We are called to work together, with God, in His creation, to take responsibility, to build relationships, and to exercise moral agency.
AI excels at the objective dimension of work — the tasks, outputs, and efficiencies. But it cannot fulfil the subjective dimension: it cannot exercise conscience, hear God, provide human warmth, shape conscience and character through years of struggle, or generate the embodied mutuality of real community. These realms are our responsibility.
This is why reliance on the Holy Spirit is not pious sentiment but practical necessity. Where human conscience is pressured by artificial systems, the Spirit helps us hold the line. We are being offered increasingly powerful tools, but we must not outsource our role in discerning the voice of the Spirit - vital for truly human decision-making.
The challenge before us is sobering. A society already hollowed out by individualism, deindustrialisation and globalisation now faces mass displacement of jobs - roles that have historically formed people in judgement, responsibility, and neighbourliness. An inadequate response to this new, epochal change risks deeper disorientation, anger, and unrest.
Yet this same pressure reveals the profound relevance of what the Church is uniquely equipped to offer: local, embodied, relational communities that ground people in a meaning that is deeper than economic function. The Spirit reorients us toward vocation — to contribute, to tend, to build together.
As Christian leaders — ordained and lay — we must lean into our calling with the renewed clarity that this context demands. What does it mean to be a Christian in this new time? Our churches, groups, charities, church schools, and organisations are well-placed to be vital neighbourhood anchors. Not fading institutions managing decline, but living centres of formation, belonging, and common life.
We can help people to understand the deeper purpose of human life. Our gatherings, our local relationships, our discipleship, our worship, preaching, mentoring, and leadership must prioritise the subjective: discernment, moral clarity, attentive presence, conscience shaped by Scripture and prayer, and the habits of mutuality and community. Our countercultural witness must be rooted in an authentic Christian anthropology, where we devote ourselves to relationship, and to making and doing, rather than consuming.
Our congregations must be places where meaning is found. When familiar structures of work change, something fulfilling must provide motivation. An outward-facing local church community, living out subsidiarity in practice, can help to organise local life around shared purpose, mutual obligation, and the dignity of contribution. We can partner with neighbours through forms of co-ownership to manage local energy and food supply and develop new local economies. Our institutions are uniquely placed to play a key role. The times call for a new, Spirit-led imagination.
We must engage the wider conversation with moral clarity. We need informed Christian voices who insist that inherent human dignity does not depend on economic output, and who can discern how technology should serve the person rather than redefine them. This requires both resistance to AI overreach and wise engagement with the technology in ways that uphold and enhance our common life.
The AI revolution sharpens our long-held vision. The new pressures now arriving, on top of the unravelling we are already witnessing, call us back to the heart of the Gospel: Christ is King, the one who restores communion through the gift of the Spirit. In receiving that Spirit, we become better able to uphold conscience and embody hope.
When Rerum Novarum — the first encyclical in the modern era of Catholic Social Teaching — was published, it represented a historic intervention to defend the human person in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Now, we anticipate that the next encyclical will continue that tradition. Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), will address the AI revolution. To be published next week, it will provide valuable gospel-rooted guidance as we discern our response to the challenges of our time.
Wishing you every blessing this Pentecost. May you receive the Holy Spirit afresh, and with your neighbours, step forward together for the common good.
Jenny Sinclair
Together for the Common Good
In this edition
Matthew Sanders Staying Human: AI, the Future of Work and Christian Discernment (lecture)
Jide Ehizele Sharing a Life Together
Jenny Sinclair The New Industrial Revolution, Catholic Social Teaching & Political Unravelling
Leaving Egypt episodes Melanie Rieback, Mgr John Armitage & Sophie Taylor
Jenny Sinclair Caritas, People and Place
Jenny Sinclair Christian Witness in the Unravelling
Dates for your diary Staying Human series continues
Discover all these pieces below
Staying Human: AI, the Future of Work and Christian Discernment
Earlier this week, Matthew Harvey Sanders gave the 5th in our Staying Human series of lectures. Sanders helps us confront the realities of the new industrial revolution now unfolding through artificial intelligence: its rapid timeline, its profound effects on work, livelihoods, and meaning. Drawing on his experience of the industry and on a deep understanding of the Catholic Social Teaching tradition, he shows what must be done to uphold human agency and mitigate the risk of social unrest. As a leading thinker and practitioner in ethical AI, Sanders sees the local church not as a fading institution but as the essential bulwark to preserve conscience, vocation and belonging. This is a sobering lecture that reveals the vital need for formation in authentic anthropology - and the deeper purpose of Christian witness in our time.
Video coming soon.
Read Matthew’s lecture here
Sharing a Life Together
Jide Ehizele reflects on modern Britain’s drift into a culture of parallel lives, where diverse identities exist on the same street — like a Black London barbershop and a young professionals’ artisan café — yet rarely interact. Standing in the breach, he calls for a shift from liberalism’s ethic of “non-interference” to a richer, genuinely shared life. He envisages a vital role for the local church in bridging these estranged spaces, enabling connection, mutual support, and contribution to the common good. He explores the imagination required to enable encounter between people who occupy “different moral worlds”, and situates this within a vision of restored belonging, bringing heaven to his corner of southeast London.
The New Industrial Revolution, Catholic Social Teaching & Political Unravelling
What does Catholic Social Teaching have to say about AI, capitalism, work, family and the future of society? Jenny Sinclair, appearing on the Into the Truth podcast, talks Pope Leo XIV, Rerum Novarum, the new industrial revolution and why Catholic Social Teaching is more relevant now than ever before. As artificial intelligence transforms work, relationships, politics, and even our understanding of what it means to be human, the Church’s social teaching offers a powerful framework rooted in human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, solidarity and the vocation of work.
Being God’s People in Times of Unravelling
Listen to three new exciting episodes on the Leaving Egypt podcast:
Stewarding a Christian Imagination for a Just World with Melanie Rieback
A Priest to the People with Fr John Armitage
A New Generation Finds Home with Sophie Taylor
Join us to explore what it means to be God’s people in an age of unravelling. Guests from across the Christian traditions meet with Leaving Egypt co-hosts Jenny Sinclair and Al Roxburgh to read the signs of the times and share stories of hope from the grassroots.
More wonderful guests to come soon, including Tim Soerens, Bishop Guli Francis-Deqhani, Justin Gill, Ian Williamson - and more.
Join the Leaving Egypt community and invest in this work - take out a paid subscription from only £5 a month!
Common Good Schools - Pentecost update
In this update for Pentecost, our schools Project Leader, Jo Stow reports on new strategic relationships with multi academy trusts, new partner schools joining the programme, as well as news of upcoming activities and the next deadline for schools wishing to join. She acknowledges the generosity of donors – in particular those who have supported the Bursary Fund, and her gratitude for a grant enabling our Common Good Schools team to enable more schools to play their part in their local communities.
Find out more here
Caritas, People and Place
In this talk for Caritas, Diocese of Brentwood, Jenny Sinclair urges local leaders to confront today’s “change of era” and the meta-crisis we face by recovering the relational heart of Catholic Social Teaching. She calls for practical but decisive shifts, prioritising the strengthening of families, the reimagining of parishes as outward-facing centres of civic life, and for a rooted relationship with place. Moving beyond providing services, the people of the churches are called to become a rehumanising force for civic friendship, embodying confident Christian witness in everyday life.
Signs of the Times and Recommended books
Discover our latest collections of articles to help you navigate this time of great volatility. We’ve assembled articles from both the legacy media and from new and independent media under the headings of UK, International, Islamism, Antisemitism, Iran war, Humanity, Changing Church. You will also find a short list of books.
Explore here.
Christian Witness in the Unravelling
In this talk for Churches Together Horsforth, Jenny Sinclair explores how Christians can offer faithful witness when familiar social structures are coming apart. Drawing on stories of joint leadership, she shows what becomes possible when church leaders step into the civic life of a troubled city and stand in solidarity with local communities. Demonstrating how the Catholic Social Teaching tradition equips us, she calls churches to move beyond partisan loyalties and the dynamics of service-provider charity and shift to building local friendships and speaking truth. This is an unflinching yet hopeful challenge to become a people of the common good at a time of deep unravelling.
Date for your diary
13 October 2026, 6.30pm
Online lecture | #6 in the Staying Human series | Staying Human in the Margins: Finding Christ in Places Written Out of the Future with Captain Dr John Clifton Divisional Commander/North East Division, Salvation Army.
Booking opens nearer the time.
Catch up on the series so far here
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Working across denominations, we engage churches, charities, leaders and schools through online resources, in-person talks, the Leaving Egypt podcast and the Common Good Schools programme, helping people read the signs of the times and fulfil their unique role for the common good.
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Header image: The Descent of the Holy Spirit by Kateryna Kuziv (Ukrainian: b. 1993) Tempera on gessoed wood. Courtesy of Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection ©2023 John Kohan
Thank you so much for this. How can I contribute (besides money) - any local nearby group UK RH17?