Leaving Egypt Podcast

We hope that you are enjoying Leaving Egypt. We would invite you to join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack by becoming a paid subscriber: https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet Fr John Armitage. These days, there is much talk about the challenges for leadership and what it means to be church in a post-everything society. Anxious questions abound: Is revival coming, or are we sliding into an even more uncertain season? Yet when listening to Fr John, a completely different response emerges. Amid what he describes as the great emptiness of modern life - the worship of idols, the loss of community – here is a wise, seasoned leader who carries a quiet sense of joy, anticipation, and delight in the work God has given him right where he is. What’s the secret? First, he is deeply rooted in place. When asked about himself, he begins with the story of where he grew up. It’s as if he’s saying: if you want to know who I am, you need to know where I was planted. The relational character of working-class culture has shaped his life. Second, he is firmly rooted in the Catholic tradition; the ordered rhythms of the Church have formed him. There is no fancy strategy to what he does, no new thing that makes the parish successful. But there is this deep rooting in the Gospel. These realities give him the grounding to be present with people, to enter their everyday lives in a way that lets them know they’re being met by someone held by a bigger story. This is a man in love with his neighbourhood, his life in God, and therefore with the people around him—core elements, it seems, in being a kingdom people in Egypt.

Monsignor John Armitage is the longstanding parish priest at St Margaret’s Church in Canning Town, his lifelong East London home. Fr John is an inspirational retreat leader, speaker and mentor to clergy and has held senior roles in the Diocese of Brentwood, including Vicar General. For five years between 2014 and 2020, he was Rector of the National Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham, overseeing its modernisation and leading the Rededication of England to the Dowry of Mary during the Covid lockdown. Deeply committed to social justice, he was instrumental in founding the UK’s first community organising alliance, the East London Communities Organisation (TELCO) in 1996, which launched the original Living Wage campaign in 2001. Since 2020, he has also taken on the leadership of the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, the UK Catholic evangelisation charity which has birthed the WeBelieve Festival of Catholic Life.

For Monsignor John Armitage:

https://www.dioceseofbrentwood.net/clergy/rt-rev-mgr-john-armitage/

https://www.guild-ransom.co.uk/about

https://www.cbcew.org.uk/home/our-work/living-wage/videos/east-end-dockers/

Mentioned in this episode:

England: The Dowry of Our Lady of Mary

Article by Maurice Glasman

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books:

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unravelling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet Melanie Rieback. Melanie’s faith journey is as unexpected as her professional journey. Her extraordinary story, from computer hacker to systems thinker, from a secular Jewish upbringing to the Catholic tradition, is filled with creativity and paradox. She incubates steward-ownership business models and loves the ancient liturgies of the Church. She is a leader in cutting-edge redemptive business and finance who likes Thomas Aquinas. She works with European governments as her life is shaped by Edith Stein. She retells parables to ground new economic ideas in ancient biblical wisdom. She builds bridges between the political left and the Christian right. Melanie is involved in an amazing journey of encountering the reality of God. The story of her conversion was told in another podcast (linked below). In this episode of Leaving Egypt, she reveals how her journey continues to unfold, including baptism into the Catholic Church. What stands out most about Melanie’s vocation is that, even in a highly technical field, her primary question is: “Lord Jesus, where do you want me?” Her surrender, through moments of crisis and awakening, is to a powerful calling: to gather and empower people to create a more just world, for the sake of the other, in God’s name.

Dr. Melanie Rieback is a computer scientist and social entrepreneur, CEO and founder of a cybersecurity company - Radically Open Security - that gives all its profit to charity. She is also founder of a “Post Growth” startup incubator, Nonprofit Ventures. Inspired by Catholic Social Teaching, she is involved in the Francesco Collaborative where she mentors young entrepreneurs and practitioners the non-extractive business space. Formerly, Melanie was Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Free University of Amsterdam, and head researcher in the CSIRT at ING Bank, where she spearheaded their Analysis Lab. Melanie has received many awards for her work as a woman in tech innovation. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, raised in Florida and lives in Amsterdam.

For Melanie Rieback:

www.linkedin.com/in/mrieback

www.radicallyopensecurity.com

www.francescocollaborative.org

www.francescoeconomy.org

Rerum Novarum – Pope Leo XIII

Laborem Exercens – John Paul II

A podcast interview with Melanie Rieback referred to in this episode

An article by Melanie Rieback on steward ownership as a third way (in Dutch): https://wi.christenunie.nl/groen-2025/03-creatief-met-armoede (pdf download)

Presentation on Steward Ownership by Melanie Rieback to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences as part of a workshop on Digital Rerum Novarum: Artificial Intelligence for Peace, Social Justice, and Integral Human Development in October 2025

A series of lectures by Melanie Rieback on Post Growth Entrepreneurship at the University of Amsterdam

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books:

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unravelling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

We hope that you are enjoying Leaving Egypt. We would invite you to join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack by becoming a paid subscriber: https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet for a second time with Mark Lau Branson about how his church is working out the nature of leadership.

A small, multicultural congregation in Los Angeles, they comprise a cross section of America - from university professors to immigrant day workers. Following the catastrophic urban wildfires of 2025 and amidst ongoing immigration issues that confront them daily, this community is undergoing a profound reorientation. Embracing a new imagination, they are allowing the gifts that the Spirit has given them through one another to shape them as a people. Shifting from an inward focus on the life of the church, towards the outward-facing question of how to join with God in their broken and shattered communities, they are seeing a more “bottom-up”, shared leadership emerging, and from this, meaningful relationships of solidarity in the neighbourhood. In the context of Luigino Bruni’s episode #60 it is clear that what is happening here is the discerning of “charism” among the people. Mark’s story describes a form of leadership quite different from the usual approaches of those with oversight of a congregation. Rather than “vision casting” and “strategizing” from above, this empowering, shared approach is about listening, prayer, and discernment, calling forth, naming and supporting the gifts of the people in liturgy, formation and worship - and especially outside church in their communities.  

Mark Lau Branson has been the Homer L. Goddard Senior Professor of the Ministry of the Laity and has taught at Fuller since 2000. His current work focuses on Ph.D. students. Ordained at San Francisco Christian Center, an African American Pentecostal church, he has served on the pastoral teams in United Methodist and Presbyterian churches and has written many books. Mark has worked with several agencies active in education, community development, and community organizing, and continues to serve as a consultant and speaker. He is a member of the national Advisory Board of the nonprofit CHERP Solar Power, and has served on the boards of the Institute of Urban Initiatives, the Ekklesia Project, and the Academy of Religious Leadership. He is active at La Fuente Ministries, a bi-lingual, multicultural church in Pasadena, California, USA.

For Mark Lau Branson: 

https://www.fuller.edu/faculty/mark-lau-branson/

Churches, Cultures, and Leadership: A Practical Theology of Congregations and Ethnicities (with Juan Martínez)

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions: Confronting Modernity’s Wager (with Alan Roxburgh) 

Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry, Missional Engagement, and Congregational Change

Starting Missional Churches

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unravelling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In this episode Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet with Rob Stewart, a true pilgrim grounded in the hope of God’s kingdom. Rob recognises that modern economies are not only unjust but also deeply harmful, isolating people and working against the grain of humanity. Rob is convinced that another way is possible. Believing that human beings are “hard-wired for connection,” a moment of metanoia led him to leave behind a thirty-year business career and embark on a journey into relational economics. He went on to establish a solar energy cooperative which not only provides clean, affordable energy but also invites people into a shared story of participation. Rob’s pilgrimage has been shaped by highs and lows, inspired by contemplative prayer, and guided by a humble surrender to the will of God.

Rob Stewart is the Founder and Executive Director of Collective Power Boroondara, in Melbourne, Australia - a community energy cooperative advancing an equitable transition to a sustainable economy. Linked with others in the field of relational economics, he participates in the Francesco Collaborative and other international networks focused on ethical business practices. Formerly, he studied for the priesthood but things took an unexpected turn when he met his future wife. He went on to serve in the family retail business, a company founded by his father on the basis of Catholic Social Teaching principles. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and three adult sons.

Links

For Rob Stewart

https://collectivepowerboroondara.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-stewart-a0b2551ab/

https://francescocollaborative.org/

Also mentioned in the episode:

A Personalist Manifesto by Emmanuel Mounier

https://www.cpa.coop/

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unravelling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair welcome back Luigino Bruni for a second conversation, this time exploring how churches and religious orders confront crisis. An economist and scholar of organisational life, Bruni reflects on what is at stake when Christian communities lose confidence. Attentive to the extent that the methods of management culture have become defaults for many church systems, he observes how communities are losing touch with the core of what it means to be God’s people. At the heart of a Christian community is the presence of Jesus among the people of God, and the task of those entrusted with care and oversight is to help their people discern the movements of the Spirit, both among them, and in their local communities. Bruni counsels that this is not the work of outside consultants bringing business models into the church. He cautions that outsourcing can lead to confusion and weaken the heart of communal life. Instead, he believes that in the midst of our great unravelling, churches and communities facing difficulty have a special calling. He insists that “crisis itself has precious things to teach”, and that at such times, the work of a community is to embrace practices of discernment that are rooted in the confidence that Christ is among them making all things new.  

Professor Luigino Bruni is an economist, an historian of economic thought and a scholar of organisational life. He is Professor of Political Economy at the Lumsa University in Rome, a public non-state Italian university formed on Catholic principles. Here he also coordinates the Phd Programme in Civil Economy. His scholarship of economics extends to biblical commentaries on the history of economic thought as well as to the religious nature of capitalism. Professor Bruni is involved in many grassroots projects devoted to developing a new economic paradigm: he is International Co-ordinator of the Economy of Communion project, a Board member of the Economy of Francesco Foundation and a member of the international Focolare movement. In addition, he is Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Economics, an active columnist and author of many books.

Links

For Luigino Bruni

https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/

https://www.luiginobruni.it/it/ec-ea.html

https://francescoeconomy.org/eof-board/

https://lumsa.it/it/docenti/luigino-bruni

https://www.edc-online.org/it/header-pubblicazioni/luigino-bruni.html

https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/ec-ea/communities-are-not-businesses-managerial-culture-extinguishes-charisma.html

https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/ec-ea/mother-superior-or-leader-the-convent-is-not-a-business.html

Books

The Genesis and Ethos of the Market

Civil Economy: Another Idea of the Market co-authored with Stefano Zamagni

The Wound and the Blessing: Economics, Relationships, and Happiness

Capitalism and Christianity: Origins, Spirit and Betrayal of the Market Economy

The Economy of Salvation: Ethical and Anthropological Foundations of Market Relations in the First Two Books of the Bible

The Economics of Values-Based Organisations: An Introduction

Further books in English listed here

https://www.luiginobruni.it/en/books.html

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

https://x.com/T4CG

https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Cam Roxburgh about his thirty-plus years forming the Neighbourhood Church in greater Vancouver. Cam’s story is one of faithful dwelling—listening to the Spirit and discerning what God is doing in the community. The conversation traces Cam’s journey as a church leader, marking his shift away from what he calls “the era of projects” towards an approach centered on practices rooted in prayer, discernment and local relationships. He challenges forms of church leadership that prioritise strategy, methods, and quick outcomes - the “just add water and stir” view of the world. Instead, Cam advocates for “doing life with neighbours.” His steadfast commitment to place, despite many obstacles, has borne remarkable fruit: deep community trust, transformed lives, and even a measurable impact on the local economy. Al and Jenny explore how God has used Cam’s long, patient journey to bring into being things no one could ever have imagined - a testament to his persistent patience and passionate desire to hear the Spirit even in the midst of real discouragement.

Cam Roxburgh is Team Leader of The Neighbourhood Church in Burnaby, Vancouver. Here, he has been instrumental in transforming church property into a major affordable housing and community amenity development. He also leads Forge Canada and is Vice President of Missional Initiatives for the North American Baptists. Cam is driven by a love for the church and a desire to see people fulfil a Jesus-shaped life as disciples dwelling in their neighbourhoods. Cam is also co-founder and co-leader of the Commons Cooperative, a transatlantic group of pioneers and practitioners across denominations who have come together to “join in with God to form communities of hope” in the places people call home. Cam and his wife Shelley live in Surrey, British Columbia.

For Cam Roxburgh:

http://www.southside.ca/

https://forgeca.wordpress.com/

https://www.thecommonscooperative.com/about

https://churchforvancouver.ca/burnaby-church-plans-45-storey-project-in-partnership-with-bc-builds/

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair speak with Andrew Willard Jones about how to live humanly within the empire of modernity. Andrew traces his journey, from a secular upbringing, to embracing the Catholic tradition and a deep commitment to family and community. An exceptional thinker among a new generation of Catholic theologians, he explores how modernity and its liberalisms have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the world and what it means to be human. But this is no retreat into religious or academic abstraction. Andrew lives and works daily in a growing community embodying a shared Christian life—an “other kingdom” that echoes Augustine in our age of unravelling. This conversation reveals a cosmic dimension to everyday life: a way of living shaped by the love of God has the potential to transform all of society. It also raises urgent questions for churches, parishes, and Christian communities in this post-liberal moment. If what’s at stake is humanity itself, then our response must be rooted in love and friendship, not power or control.

Andrew Willard Jones is a political theologian whose work is primarily concerned with historical political theology and with the reconciliation of the post-modern with the pre-modern. He is currently Professor of History and Political Theory and Academic Dean at The College of St. Joseph the Worker in Ohio, a new college teaching students the Catholic intellectual tradition while training them in skilled and dignified labour. A founding editor of the journal New Polity, his writing is recognised as having broken new ground in Catholic political thought, and he lectures widely, in both academic and ecclesial contexts. The author of many books, Andrew holds a PhD in Medieval History from Saint Louis University with a focus on the Church of the High Middle Ages. He and his wife Sara are busy raising their eleven children in Steubenville, Ohio.

Links

For Andrew Willard Jones:

https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/academic-faculty

https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/church-against-state

https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/meet-andrew-willard-jones

https://newpolity.com/blog?author=5bbdf5b7e4966bea2acb7dee

Books:

The Church Against the State: On Subsidiarity and Sovereignty (New Polity, 2025)

The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021)

Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX, (Emmaus Academic, 2017)

Evidence of Things Unseen: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology (Emmaus Road, 2019)

The Word Became Flesh: An Introduction to Christology (Emmaus Road, 2019)

This Is My Body: An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Emmaus Road, 2019)

Catholic Topical Index (Verbum, 2013)

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unravelling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair bring together two former guests, Harvey Kwiyani (episode 20) and Jide Ehizele (episode 49), for a fascinating conversation about identity, migration, and spirituality. Jide, a second-generation British Nigerian from South London, brings grounded experience and deep reflection as a writer, thinker, and youth leader, offering unique insight into the UK’s cultural and spiritual landscape. Harvey, a Malawian missionary now based in Liverpool, works across the UK, Europe, and North America, and writes on African theology and God’s mission in the West. They sense that the Enlightenment’s legacy has weakened the West’s ability to comprehend the nature of the Spirit—while for much of African Christianity this is still instinctive. As we undergo this change of era, they see the UK wrestling with identity and a growing spiritual yearning presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for church leaders. Together with Al and Jenny, they discuss how the migration of African Christians to the UK may be the Spirit’s way of catalysing a sacramental spirituality that British culture has lost. Examining how guest and host can practice hospitality to each other, they explore how cultural barriers can be bridged to foster both a sense of belonging and an openness to encounter the Spirit in everyday life.

Harvey Kwiyani works for the Church Mission Society (CMS) in Oxford, UK, where he leads a study centre for global witness and human migration and a Masters programme in African Christianity. Harvey is also the CEO of Global Connections, a UK-based mission network, and a director of Missio Africanus, a think tank exploring the rise and role of the African missionary movement in world missions. Harvey has published several books and holds a Ph.D. in Missions and Leadership.

Jide Ehizele is a Christian thinker and writer focusing on faith, identity and cultural renewal. In his Substack, Southeast London Psalms, Jide wrestles with faith, politics and community from the perspective of a Black British Christian living in modern Britain. He also writes for The New Statesman and Unherd. Jide is an active member of St Peter’s Church, Brockley, leading theology workshops and volunteering with children’s ministry. The son of Nigerian parents, Jide was born and bred in Lewisham, Southeast London, and his day job is as a specialist consultant in the economics and planning of railway operations.

Links

For Jide Ehizele:

https://x.com/OBEhizele

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jide-ehizele-ab28785b/

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/07/the-new-racism-of-the-british-right

https://substack.com/home/post/p-168224782

For Harvey Kwiyani:

Substack

Global Connections: www.globalconnections.org.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-kwiyani-ph-d-039ab745/?originalSubdomain=uk

Twitter: https://x.com/missioafricanus?lang=en

Books:

Decolonising Mission (2024)

Wash and Pray: African Theological Discourse on COVID-19 (2023)

Multicultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church (2020)

Our Children Need Roots and Wings: Equipping and Empowering Young Diaspora Africans for Life and Mission (2019)

Mission-Shaped Church in a Multicultural World (2017)

Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West (2014)

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

https://x.com/T4CG

https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Anne Snyder about the anxieties—and unexpected possibilities—of our volatile moment. Anne doesn’t stop at lament or analysis. As she wrestles with the tensions between plurality and unity in a fractured age, her desire to articulate truth in the written word is matched by an instinct for hospitality and the conviction of God’s grace underlying our daily lives. Inspired by the integrated witness of Dorothy Day, Anne not only writes and encourages other writers, but organises spaces where people of different perspectives can meet—and, through mutual vulnerability, encounter grace. In conversation with Al and Jenny, Anne reimagines Christian humanism as an “understory” beneath the surface of our divides: a story of local, hidden movements where building, healing, reckoning, and reconciling are the components essential for the common good.

Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment, a magazine of public theology for the common good and a developing ecosystem of conversation and community. Rooted in the Christian humanist tradition, Comment now encompasses a growing podcast network, gatherings that span grassroots to institutional settings across North America and the UK, and a three-day festival at the Washington National Cathedral. Anne also hosts The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-edited Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (2022). The author of The Fabric of Character (2019), she writes widely and delights in weaving worlds together—in print, around the table, and across different sectors and ways of knowing.

Links:

For Anne Snyder:

Comment Magazine

https://comment.org/contributors/anne-snyder/

The Whole Person Revolution podcast

https://annesnyder.org/about/

Breaking Ground

Books

The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape (2019)

Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (Co-edited with Susannah Black, 2022)

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials and https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

X/Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with John Clifton about his experiences as a Salvation Army leader among people in the margins. In a sense, this is what you would expect from a Salvation Army officer. But give this a careful listen: John is also a deeply informed thinker and theologian with vital insights for the church today. In Christian circles lately there is much being said and written about two contrasting conversations: the quiet revival of young adults coming to certain kinds of churches, and the confusion and fear surrounding the recent conversions of controversial figures like Tommy Robinson and others at the margins—people who have had little to do with church and Christian life. John has important things to say about what is happening here and about why we should listen to what the Spirit is saying from the culture to the churches. John calls the church to return to its working-class roots, for relational spaces where Christ is encountered in the powerless, for the fostering of solidarity, and for local economic renewal.

Captain John Clifton is a Salvation Army officer, ordained minister, and theologian based in North Shields, North East England. He serves as the Divisional Commander for The Salvation Army’s North East Division, overseeing operations across the region, focusing on spiritual guidance, community outreach, and social services. His work emphasizes the Church’s engagement in public life and society, particularly supporting communities affected by debt, hunger, homelessness, and unemployment. He collaborates on initiatives for justice, reconciliation, and empowering local leadership through broad-based community organizing. Academically, John researches systematic theology, exploring the transformative power of compassionate acts and social encounters. His doctoral thesis was titled “Producing Christ in the World: a study of Christian action in terms of the Homeless Man as a Christological paradigm of powerlessness.” He writes on faith, theology, and faithful action via his Substack, Christ in the Margins, and has previously led Salvation Army corps in places like Ilford (East London) and Blackpool (North West England). The youngest son of General Shaw Clifton, John has made a lifelong commitment to the Salvation Army and lives in North Shields near Newcastle with his wife Naomi and their young family. His writing can be found on his Substack, With Christ in the Margins

For John Clifton:

https://www.instagram.com/drjohnclifton/

https://x.com/DrJohnClifton

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjohnclifton/?originalSubdomain=uk

https://www.salvationarmy.org/news/shaped-conviction-crafted-care-and-offered-army-he-loved

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG