Inside the 2025 ARC Conference
(image credit: Wikimedia, Creative Commons)
By Carolyn Morris-Collier, TGC.
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.
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.