There was some excitement in recent months about a so-called “quiet revival.” Visions of a renewed Christian country emerging from this time of crisis were enthusiastically discussed.
The data turned out to be flawed and was withdrawn, yet the discussion it provoked was revealing. Hopes focused largely on numbers and a return to traditional, polite churchgoing, perhaps out of a desire for comfort, possibly also a need for control.
But the spiritual landscape in England is more complex. We are undergoing profound change. As Mary Harrington recently put it, we are “Disenchanted spiritually. Disembedded domestically. Dispossessed by our own government. Disaffected, disbelieving.”
This Easter, as we enter into the life of the risen Christ, who in His very person is the model of unity, Christians here are divided on questions of identity. So even before we speak of Christian renewal, we must ask a prior question: Whose Christianity?
The resurrection reminds us of the pattern of new life constantly breaking through: the Christian tradition is a living dynamic. Yet we see that pattern resisted in the muttering of leaders seeking to distance themselves from less polite forms of Christianity. While caution is wise, there is a risk of alienating those who are trying to enter the kingdom (Matthew 23:13). Something deeper may be stirring beneath the radar, something that growth-focused data cannot capture.
The idea that revival will come only from within the institutional churches is unrealistic. Many are fragile: ideologically confused, estranged from their neighbourhoods, with ageing congregations, overstretched clergy, burned-out volunteers, and dioceses close to bankruptcy. Notwithstanding some thriving metropolitan parishes, often thanks to migrant arrivals and Gen Z seekers looking for meaning, much of the infrastructure continues to decline.
Meanwhile, in post-industrial towns and outer estates, small fellowships are quietly appearing: some non-denominational, some Pentecostal, some Orthodox, sometimes no more than a Bible study above a shop or around a kitchen table. They offer informality, moral seriousness, straight talking, and an encounter with the Holy Spirit.
That this is happening precisely in communities most affected by deindustrialisation, globalisation and mass immigration is no accident. The rupture ran deeper than is often appreciated. It may be generating a stirring of what might be called the primal imagination.
That this yearning is sometimes expressed through flags or assertions of Christian identity is not surprising, given the vacuum of moral leadership where the mainstream churches should have been. The moral clarity of many of these fellowships is often sharpened by a shared loss of trust in those churches, particularly because of their silence around the rape gang scandals.
Yet these groups are not necessarily the ethno-nationalist caricatures their critics claim. Many are strikingly multi-ethnic, sometimes co-led by refugees and immigrants who have themselves fled Islamist regimes. What unites them is not ethnicity but a shared search for meaning, moral clarity and the presence of God.
Catholic tradition has long insisted that the poor often know their need for God more readily than the affluent and the busy, that they are less likely to have been educated out of their instinct for the transcendent. If Christian renewal is coming to England, it may not look like the restoration of an old ecclesiastical settlement. It may look more plural, grassroots and unpredictable, which should make us cautious about attempts at renewal being shaped from above.
The crisis we are living through is rooted in the false anthropology of the unencumbered self, which has colonised our culture and produced profound social, moral and political dislocation. If Christianity is to be an antidote to that crisis, it cannot be built on the same individualist foundations.
Christian anthropology is relational, so we need a relational Christianity, relational all the way down: in our theology, our practices, our political economy and our institutional life. That is why the principle of subsidiarity, at the heart of Catholic social teaching, matters so much.
Subsidiarity recognises that authentic social life grows through relationships and institutions that arise from below, through families, schools, churches, charities, businesses, clubs and associations, each playing a vital part in fostering meaning, responsibility and solidarity. This architecture of civic friendship has a cosmic dimension because this is where human beings connect. Government can enable such life; it cannot manufacture it.
A truly Christian identity is generous and capacious. It does not fear or reject a multi-faith society, but seeks to live with integrity and neighbourly respect toward people of other faiths while remaining firmly rooted in the truth of Christ. Churches have a vital role here.
We have seen it before. In the 1889 Great Dock Strike, Cardinal Manning and General Booth forged a civic friendship that strengthened solidarity among East End workers. A century later in Liverpool, Bishops Worlock and Sheppard helped a city in crisis not through state programmes but by supporting local people of all faiths and none to build their own institutions: educational, sporting, legal, business and housing. That is subsidiarity in action.
England does not need a triumphalist, integralist Christianity that would provoke blowback. Rather, our story has been one of quiet enculturation and Spirit-led change, from the re-assimilation of Catholic tradition, to the historic visit of Pope John Paul II, to the profound changes brought by the gifts and challenges of migration.
Which brings us to a mysterious part of the English Christian story. England has long been called the Dowry of Our Lady. That ancient title, rooted in Walsingham, suggests that renewal here may not come through state sponsorship or ecclesiastical restoration alone. It may also come through a spirituality that surrenders to God’s will and carries the experience of His agency into ordinary life. The Catholic tradition, despite its imperfections, has a rich treasure to offer here - its spiritual, moral and social wisdom is universal and intended for all.
This Easter season, therefore, we must pay attention to where the Holy Spirit is actually moving, not only in thriving parishes but also in the estates and informal fellowships across the country, in a variety of Christian forms.
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Wishing you a blessed Easter
Jenny Sinclair and all the team at Together for the Common Good
IN THIS EDITION
David Ranson A Service Shaped by Christian Identity
Jide Ehizele Beyond Zero-Sum Thinking: Recovering a Christian Moral Imagination
Jenny Sinclair Whose Side is the Church On
Jo Stow From Hidden Need to Shared Life
Staying Human series new dates for your diary
Leaving Egypt podcast latest episodes
Jenny Sinclair Christian Calling and the Relational Imperative
Discover all these pieces below
A Service Shaped by Christian Identity
What does it mean for a charity, an organisation or a church, to be truly Christian in a time when Christian identity is contested? David Ranson suggests that identity cannot be separated from mission - that it emerges through engagement, dialogue, and service. He explores four dimensions - imagination, commitment, tension, and strategy - of a Christian consciousness capable of responding to a changing, pluralist world while remaining rooted in tradition. David is writing from a Catholic social teaching perspective but these insights are equally relevant for Christians of all traditions, especially leaders and volunteers involved with charities, churches and other public facing organisations.
Beyond Zero-Sum Thinking: Recovering a Christian Moral Imagination
Today’s fractious politics increasingly frame society as a zero-sum competition in which one group’s flourishing must come at another’s expense, a mindset now evident across both progressive and ethnonationalist movements. Drawing on the biblical vision of divine abundance, Jide Ehizele calls Christians to resist these mutually hostile rivalries and recover confidence in the Christian moral imagination.
Being God’s People in Times of Unravelling
We’re delighted to share the latest episodes from the Leaving Egypt podcast where we read the signs of the times and share stories of hope from the grassroots. Guests from across the Christian traditions meet with co-hosts Jenny Sinclair and Al Roxburgh to explore what it means to be a Christian at this time, and how the Holy Spirit is at work in people’s lives.
Listen now:
Luigini Bruni Beyond Business: the Church’s Response to Crisis
Rob Stewart An Economy of the People
Mark Lau Branson Embracing the Charism of Shared Leadership
More exciting guests coming soon including Melanie Rieback, Bishop Guli Francis-Deqhani, Mgr John Armitage.
The Leaving Egypt audience is growing - join the community here
Whose Side is the Church On
This article by Jenny Sinclair was first published as a chapter in a new book of essays marking the anniversary of the Faith in the City report. But this is no celebration: Jenny sees the report as very much of its time. She challenges Christians to leave behind the assumptions of the 1980s and engage honestly with the realities of our new era.
Reflecting on the deepening estrangement with poor communities, she urges churches and Christian charities to shift from top-down, welfare-dependent models of “social justice” and managerial service provision, towards a ground-up, common good approach rooted in solidarity, subsidiarity and the dignity of work - a relational dynamic infused with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
From Hidden Need to Shared Life
In this article, Jo Stow invites schools to look beyond management and service delivery to something deeper: a relational culture where hidden needs can surface without shame. Drawing on real experiences from Common Good Schools, she explores what it really means to live the option for the poor, not just by providing support, but by creating a climate of trust where children and families feel safe to come forward. This is a gentle but powerful call to shift from projects and data to genuine noticing, relationship, and solidarity.
Read the article here
Staying Human: AI, the Future of Work and Christian Discernment
Join us ONLINE for the fifth lecture in our Staying Human series coming soon
6.30pm Wednesday 20 May 2026
Staying Human: AI, the Future of Work and Christian Discernment
Examining the impact of the AI and Robotics revolution on work, livelihoods and purpose, Matthew Sanders - CEO of Longbeard and Founder of Magisterium.com - draws on Catholic Social Teaching to explore what must remain human and what can be outsourced if we are to uphold agency and relationality and mitigate the potential for social unrest.
Book your place to join the livestream HERE
Date for your diary - the sixth lecture in the Staying Human series coming in the autumn
6.30pm Tuesday 13 October 2026
Staying Human in the Margins: Finding Christ in Places Written Out of the Future
Drawing on encounters in deindustrialised communities and signs of spiritual hunger in places where institutional Christianity has thinned, John Clifton - Divisional Commander, Salvation Army, North East Division - explores how globalisation has changed not only our economy, but how we treat people and places. In this, the sixth in our Staying Human series, John argues for a return to proximity alongside forgotten communities—and for a way of following Christ that recognises His presence in the margins, chooses humanising solidarity instead.
Livestream booking opens nearer the time.
Explore all the talks in the Staying Human series HERE
Common Good Schools Easter Update
Jo Stow, our Common Good Schools Project Leader, shares her excitement about new primary schools joining our KS2 programme and reveals the 1st July deadline for schools to join in the next cohort. She also shares news on two new secondary schools joining our KS3 / KS4 programme, previews our upcoming activities and speaking engagements, and invites you to get involved.
Find out more here
Christian Calling and the Relational Imperative
In this lecture for the Dominican Family Seminar, Jenny Sinclair examines Christian vocation amid today’s cultural unravelling. Using Catholic Social Teaching, she reads the signs of the times — from community breakdown and the “unencumbered self” to loneliness, polarisation, and a technocratic economy that fractures relationships. She presents vocation as outward-facing and relational, calling Christians to an everyday witness that rebuilds a shared life through civic friendship, subsidiarity, and solidarity. The common good, she argues, emerges only through reciprocal relationships - and offers a hopeful path for the Church to become part of the antidote at this hinge moment in our history.
You can read it and find the audio from the lecture here.
Join us
Over the last 15 years, thousands of people have engaged with Together for the Common Good. It is thanks to their energy, prayer, encouragement, and support that this work has flourished. Join today and become part of this growing network of faithful people dedicated to civic and spiritual renewal.
Header image: The Resurrection of Jesus, Khora Fresco, Istanbul, 14th Century