In mid-February, 4,000 people gathered in East London with a shared concern: to resuscitate Western civilization.
A kind of uncertain electricity swirled in the air as the identity of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) seemed to be shape-shifting in real time. But this event was clearly designed for builders—an epicenter for those determined to make things better in the West, not for those content to navel-gaze or complain.
While ARC isn’t a Christian conference, Christians make up a large part of the audience. The speakers included international thought leaders in politics, business, education, psychology, and faith, all delivering speeches that felt like hybrids between sermons and TED Talks. ARC is a rare species—a place where politics, religion, economics, and social concerns mingle unencumbered.
ARC’s Grand Experiment: From Crisis to Construction
Addressing our time was framed as an urgent task by Philippa Stroud, CEO and cofounder of ARC and an influential leader in British evangelical circles. Our civilization is in decline, and we have a choice before us. In an unwavering voice strikingly reminiscent of Galadriel’s from The Lord of the Rings, she declared that the ARC conference wasn’t coalescing in a spirit of poly-crisis or apocalyptic fear but instead with a “pro-human, hope-filled, optimistic vision of our world,” answering the most challenging questions facing our society. Stroud went on to quote Isaiah 61, calling the audience to “restore the ancient ruins” of our shared heritage.
This event was designed for builders—an epicenter for those determined to make things better in the West, not for those content to navel-gaze or complain.
Meanwhile, The Guardian called it “alt-right heaven,” spotlighting the line-up, which included conservative British politicians and Jordan Peterson. Between the inaugural ARC conference in 2023 and the one held this February, a lot has changed. At ARC 2023, participants attended as political dissidents, edgy outlier voices looking for like-minded allies. But this year, being on the right is in vogue.
While woke-bashing still found its way into plenty of the speeches, the reality is that the cultural momentum has swung back to the right. The progressive foe that united this coalition has been at least partially defeated. The question now is how this room full of influential right-leaning figures and attendees will wield their newfound power—how they’ll shape it, harness it, and, for some, Christianize it.
If ARC is about builders, what exactly are they building?
Curing the West’s Existential Angst
Between more pragmatic sessions on the economy and politics were speeches addressing the existential questions. These are the ones I came hungry for. Like many people, I’m highly curious about what the next narrative will be for the West as the secular one collapses around us.
This is where the Christian story has become particularly relevant and shiny to this audience, to religious and nonreligious alike. There was a shared consensus that if our society will continue to quake without some deep moral framework, why not go back to the ones that forged the West in the first place? As Robert Barron said at the conference, “You can’t tell the story of Western civilization without some reference to God.”
It’s within this context that many beloved Christian voices took the stage and spoke unashamedly about their Christian values to welcome ears. Figures like Amy Orr-Ewing, Os Guinness, Makoto Fujimura, and Jonathan Pageau all pointed to the God of the Bible and our need for him in our times.
One of the spicier moments involved David Brooks lightly critiquing Trump and Musk and receiving a few boos from some in the crowd. I heard people remark that Brooks channeled the more winsome spirit of Tim Keller as he argued for elites to reflect on the ways they’ve contributed to societal decline and also encouraged the crowd to conserve our spiritual legacy. Brooks’s speech unearthed fault lines in the room—revealing contrasting views on how Christianity should be lived out and leveraged in society.
Age of ‘Useful’ Christianity
This was accentuated by ARC being a kind of mecca for many intellectuals who have been causing a stir on the Christian internet by their adoption or admiration of the Christian faith.
A ringleader of this cohort and former New Atheist advocate, Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke of the need for Western nations to be grounded in Christian ethics, which provides citizens with a transcendental moral compass. She liberally cited verses from Genesis, Leviticus, Isaiah, and Matthew. Jordan Peterson, ever the biblical exegete, positioned the Christlike virtue of “voluntary self-sacrifice” at civilization’s center. Peter Thiel pointed to the spiritual dimensions of AI in Christian terms, and Mary Harrington kept bringing up the imago Dei.
Christians are still sorting out how excited to get about the high-profile conversions rolling in, washing up on the shores of faith from the wreckage of atheism and the culture wars. Some of these public intellectuals have been accused of embracing a “civilizational Christianity,” one that instrumentalizes the Christian faith to band people together and finally defeat wokeism and Islam.
Yet many of these figures have also confessed more personal or spiritual dimensions to their conversions. Still, it’s understandable why their Christian allegiance sparks hesitation among believers. Is their faith merely a strategic alignment in the ongoing cultural battles? Sensing this tension, Guinness clearly stated at the conference, “The Christian faith will not do anything for civilization if it’s viewed as useful.”
Meanwhile, Glen Scrivener and Justin Brierley mingled with attendees and reported having wonderfully rich conversations with many young people who were drawn to the event by conservative politics but were now intrigued by the spiritual dimensions being continually spotlighted on stage. At ARC, Christianity isn’t sequestered as merely a private matter of personal piety, nor does it take the approach of a kind of covert winsome Christianity, where we slowly renew the culture in our individual spheres of influence. Instead, Christianity is boisterously relevant and seen as a bedrock for the project of reviving Western civilization.
This raises a question: Is Christianity about building prosperous societies, wealthy families, and powerful nation-states? As many others commenting on this topic have raised, Jesus was a poor vagabond who spent a large portion of his time healing random beggars and sick people on the side of the road.
Since the conference, I’ve heard a few people remark that a portion of Christian ethics seemed to be mostly missing—specifically, the foundational imperative that the American left has staked its flag in: love and care for the marginalized. To be fair, many at the conference would believe the trickle-down from a booming economy might do the trick. Besides, they might think this topic has received its fair share of societal airtime over the last decade. Nonetheless, this missing set of fundamental Christian principles didn’t go unnoticed.
Constantine Dilemma
This movement has struck a chord. Some of the talks on YouTube have gone viral. No matter what you make of ARC, it’s undeniably an important cultural phenomenon. Several Christians I chatted with emphasized the “alliance” piece of the setup—a coalition comprising individuals and institutions from a relatively large range of views and ideas about how to shape the future. They see ARC as an arena where they, as Christians, can live out their faith and see things get done.
Is Christianity about building prosperous societies, wealthy families, and powerful nation-states?
ARC presents as a moldable entity open to feedback, growing and learning as they go. While they’ve keenly diagnosed the culture’s discontents, the path forward remains an open question. I’m curious to see how the various solutions presented will end up playing together—won’t Thiel’s technocapitalist vision devour the foundation of the more traditional family-centered conservatism? Nevertheless, the solutions they’re in the process of developing certainly kick off all-important discussions.
The conference left me with several burning questions firing around in my mind: How are Christians to interact with power? Do we embrace a countercultural or a muscular Christianity? Are we in a “Constantine moment”—similar to when Christianity first aligned with state power under Emperor Constantine in the fourth century—and is it a blessing or a curse? Are Christians to be in the business of civilization building or defending?
New camps are burgeoning around these concerns. Paul Kingsnorth, one of ARC’s more outspoken critics, says civilizations aren’t the point and history is littered with moments when the church has traded its prophetic voice for cultural influence. Civilizations rise and fall—we’re working toward an otherworldly kingdom.
However, many see this approach as giving up and being defeatist. Rod Dreher argues that civilizations do matter: “I believe it matters a great deal whether or not we have a culture and a political order that is conducive to life, or oriented towards death.” The garden-to-city argument emerges here, emphasizing that the Bible begins in a garden and culminates in a flourishing civilization, suggesting human nature is wired for development. Therefore, if we’re going to build cities and civilizations, shouldn’t they be good ones? For those of this mind, the ARC conference is a place to channel their energy and resources.
ARC illustrates broader tensions and opportunities before Christian communities today, especially as our faith tradition is being increasingly looked to for answers to modern questions. History swings between two poles: a faith that flourishes in the margins, subversive and prophetic, and a faith that shapes the world, laying the foundations of civilizations.
Today, with a renewed openness to religion, there’s both a challenge and an invitation. Can Christians steward institutions, restore what’s broken, and build something enduring without losing sight of our pilgrimage status? The call to “restore the ancient ruins” stirs the soul, but so does the reminder that the message of Christ is much richer than an outline for strong nations. It’s one of collective surrender, sacrifice, and love remaking the world. Our task as Christians, as usual, is to grapple through these age-old paradoxes.
The Gospel Coalition