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In a world marked by rapid technological change, social fragmentation, and spiritual hunger, how can Christians bear faithful and compelling witness in public life?

In this year’s John Stott London Lecture, Graham Tomlin will explore what it means to communicate and live out the Christian faith in a time of uncertainty and change, where many forces are shaping us in powerful ways. Together we will unpack how the gospel helps us live and speak wisely in every sphere of human life.

Drawing on the legacy of John Stott’s vision of ‘double listening’, attentive both to the word of God and to the realities of the contemporary world, Bishop Graham will consider how Christians can engage thoughtfully and courageously with the questions, anxieties, and hopes shaping modern society. What does cultural witness look like in an age of rapid change and competing narratives? How might ordinary disciples of Jesus live and speak faithfully in their workplaces, communities, and everyday relationships?

The sixth in Together for the Common Good's Staying Human series, this will address what happened to communities that globalisation has written out of the future - and what it means for churches to find Christ already at work among them.

This series is exploring how to stay human as we live through a change of era. Amidst the unravelling of the old era - cultural confusion, fragmentation and the breakdown of trust – we see the limitations of government, the AI revolution, and we sense deep uncertainty ahead.

Our speaker John Clifton will open up a frank conversation about how globalisation reshaped not just our economy and our politics, but also how we treat people and places.

Drawing on his encounters with anger and grief in deindustrialised communities, and on signs of spiritual hunger in places where institutional Christianity has thinned, John will explore what these places reveal about the deeper moral and spiritual crisis of our time.

This talk is not just diagnosis but primarily constructive: inspired by Franciscan, Salvationist and Catholic Social Teaching traditions, John calls the churches back to proximity - to a way of following Christ that answers abandonment not with charity alone, but with humanising solidarity.