A Week at Canary Wharf

The ExCel Conference Centre near Canary Wharf in the East End of London was recently the location for two major conferences: the 2025 ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) event, and a Word on Fire conference on the theme of the Bible. ARC attracted some 4000 participants, Word on Fire 1600. Large numbers of Catholics attended both.

The ARC is quite a “broad church” in the sense that it attracts many species of people who are fed up with the ideologies running the world. Some are theists, some not, and among the theists there were Catholics, members of the Church of England and its affiliates, other sub-species of Christians belonging to groups formed in the sixteenth century, and there were also Jewish scholars.

Anyone with a knowledge of intellectual history could discern the fault-lines among the presenters. Some classical liberals gave the impression that nothing of significance happened between the period of Greek antiquity and the rise of liberal philosophies in the eighteenth century. Others clearly saw the eighteenth-century philosophies as part of the contemporary problems. People spoke of the event as representing a coalition of classical liberals with traditional conservatives, where “traditional” usually implies some form of theism.

The fault lines were diplomatically glossed over in the face of a common problem–the detachment of people from scientifically verifiable realities, like the distinction between male and female.

The event began with an address from Baroness Philippa Stroud, who is co-founder and CEO of ARC and a Member of the House of Lords. In an article in London’s Telegraph on the purpose of ARC she wrote:

Corrosive cultural criticism in recent decades has left the coherence of our cultural stories hanging by a thread. Our lack of a common narrative has left us feeling disillusioned and disempowered in a time when humanity is more prosperous, healthy, and better resourced than at any point in history. Physical health may be better than ever, but mental health and loneliness are spiralling. Our institutions have huge value and a strong track record, but we no longer trust them.

Thus, one of the objectives of ARC is to promote a “counter-narrative” to the assortment of contemporary ideologies collectively described as “cultural Marxism” or “wokery”.

In her address, Baroness Stroud made several references to Tolkien, including Gandalf’s wisdom that ‘all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us’.

Throughout the conference, keynote lectures and panel discussions were organized under the following headings: the civilizational moment, the family and social fabric, free enterprise and good governance, and energy and resources, including environmental stewardship.

Jordan Peterson was given a rock-star’s welcome, with many of the thousands of participants rising to their feet to applaud him. His speech was focused on the concept of sacrifice, but he stopped short of any endorsement of a belief in “the” sacrifice as Catholics understand Calvary and the Eucharist.

The standout Christian heroes of the three-day event were Archbishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Bishop Robert Barron, Os Guinness, and Rod Dreher.

Archbishop Angaelos quoted Hans Urs von Balthasar to the effect that being persecuted is the normal experience of life for a Christian. We should expect it. Christ predicted it. Bishop Barron pointed to the elephant in the room and declared that it is impossible to tell the story of Western civilization without God. He added that the human soul has a dynamism toward the infinite. Os Guinness stated that we are at a show-down moment in our history and a mere appeal to reason won’t be sufficient to drag us out of the mess we are in. He argued that Christianity must not be seen to be socially useful, but believed to be true. Rod Dreher endorsed the idea of Joseph Ratzinger that the two greatest arguments for Christianity are the saints the church has produced and the art that has grown in her womb. He also argued that we need a more mystical and more sacramental Christianity.

Erica Komisar, a Jewish psychoanalyst from New York, gave one of the most memorable keynotes in which she argued that the healthy psychological development of children depends on having a close relationship with their mother for at least their first three years of life. Other papers in the Family and Social Fabric category emphasized the dangers of too much screen time for children, including forms of education that rely almost entirely on computers rather than books.

There was one ‘lay-day’ between the ARC and Word on Fire conferences for those who attended both to take their breath. Then followed a day and a half of lectures and panel discussions on the Bible, including principles of Scriptural interpretation, the Bible and the common good, and the Bible and beauty.

The WOF conference ended with some 1600 people on their knees in the auditorium for an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Archbishop John Wilson of Southwark led the short reflections during the Holy Hour. Many people are hoping that he will be the next Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. The conference was a typical WOF event, where attention was given to truth, beauty, and goodness and where there was a very high level of technical expertise provided by young, faithful Catholics.

Quite a number of Catholics from British Commonwealth countries attended the WOF conference because they attended ARC—and the consensus was that WOF events need to be replicated across the Anglosphere. The WOF recipe is not ‘rocket-science’—it’s just presenting the faith in an intelligent way, using various media, highlighting the truth of the faith, the goodness of the faith, and the beauty of the faith.

Running alongside the WOF conference, the ExCel centre was also hosting an international Pokémon conference. There were many young people walking around cuddling Pokémon toys. They looked a bit lost. Finding what Dreher called “mystery”, others “enchantment” or “grace” or “the infinite” or “self-transcendence”, in a Pokémon toy, is deeply sad, but maybe some of them will have noticed the other young people at the ExCel centre. WOF young Catholics tend to look “normal” or, at least, not weird. As they become a critical mass in the cultural life of the United Kingdom, they may also serve as a beacon of light and hope for others of their generation, explaining that what Jordan Peterson calls “sacrifice” can be found in its highest form at every Mass in every Catholic parish throughout the kingdom.

While some people become frustrated with Peterson for not following the logic of his own psychoanalysis, drawing up a few steps short of the gate of any Christian church, it is nonetheless true that he has become a ‘gateway drug’ to Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire podcasts.

For one whole week, Catholics from across the world partied together, first at the Peterson event, then at the Barron event. It was quite a moment, maybe even a civilizational moment!