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What role can faith play in the common good?  

That question lay at the heart of a one-day symposium at St John’s College, Cambridge, which brought together leading thinkers to examine the Church’s role in contemporary public life.

Titled ‘Public faith, common good, Christian social order’, the symposium set out to explore how Christian social thought can contribute to renewed hope, deeper solidarity, and a more just and compassionate social order.

“St John’s is a place where we have big ideas and big conversations and we wanted to create a space to bring thinkers together to engage with some of the most pressing challenges shaping our societies today – welfare and economic justice, national identity and political landscapes, community flourishing, and the future of public faith,” said the Rev’d Dr Victoria Johnson, Dean of Chapel and Fellow of St John’s College.

“There is a real common purpose of wanting to change society for the better and work towards the common good.”

The symposium was organised by the Dean and the College Chaplain, the Rev’d Graham Dunn, in conjunction with The Church of England Diocese of Ely and the Church Times as part of the College’s Common Good programme.

They spoke alongside 12 guests including former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; Bishop of Ely Sarah Clark; Bishop of Edmonton Anderson Jeremiah; Nick Spencer, Senior Fellow at Christian religion and society think tank Theos; Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford; Andrew Rumsey, incoming Bishop of St Albans; Anna Rowlands, the  St Hilda Chair in Catholic Social Thought and Practice at Durham University, and Jeremy Morris, former Master of Trinity Hall and former Dean of Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge.

Held on Tuesday 21 July 2026 in the Old Divinity School at St John’s, the symposium was the culmination of the College’s Common Good programme.

Launched at the start of the 2025-26 academic year, the programme’s ongoing purpose is to give members of the College community the time and space to reflect upon about how they can be the change we wish to see in the world through a series of talks, a keynote lecture, workshops, networking events, and visits.

The symposium featured a panel discussion and the lectures, True human welfare: Christian humanism and social order; Another country: social order and the national church; The radical act of common life: finding ‘us’ in a world drifting apart; and From provincial Persia to the palace of Westminster: influences on my public faith.

“It was a wonderful experience. It was a space where lay people, clergy, academics and charity representatives could think about contemporary issues together and in a reflective way, to discuss the importance of community, of what is good, what we can each contribute to society,” said Dr Johnson.

Listen to the event lectures on the Church Times’ four-part podcast series, The Symposium:

Dr Andrew Rumsey, Bishop of St Albans, ‍

Dr Nick Spencer, Senior Fellow of Theos, with a response from the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams,

Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Chelmsford, and a response by the church historian, the Rev'd Dr Jeremy Morris,