Leaving Egypt Podcast

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair speak with Andrew Willard Jones about how to live humanly within the empire of modernity. Andrew traces his journey, from a secular upbringing, to embracing the Catholic tradition and a deep commitment to family and community. An exceptional thinker among a new generation of Catholic theologians, he explores how modernity and its liberalisms have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the world and what it means to be human. But this is no retreat into religious or academic abstraction. Andrew lives and works daily in a growing community embodying a shared Christian life—an “other kingdom” that echoes Augustine in our age of unravelling. This conversation reveals a cosmic dimension to everyday life: a way of living shaped by the love of God has the potential to transform all of society. It also raises urgent questions for churches, parishes, and Christian communities in this post-liberal moment. If what’s at stake is humanity itself, then our response must be rooted in love and friendship, not power or control.
Andrew Willard Jones is a political theologian whose work is primarily concerned with historical political theology and with the reconciliation of the post-modern with the pre-modern. He is currently Professor of History and Political Theory and Academic Dean at The College of St. Joseph the Worker in Ohio, a new college teaching students the Catholic intellectual tradition while training them in skilled and dignified labour. A founding editor of the journal New Polity, his writing is recognised as having broken new ground in Catholic political thought, and he lectures widely, in both academic and ecclesial contexts. The author of many books, Andrew holds a PhD in Medieval History from Saint Louis University with a focus on the Church of the High Middle Ages. He and his wife Sara are busy raising their eleven children in Steubenville, Ohio.
Links
For Andrew Willard Jones:
https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/academic-faculty
https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/church-against-state
https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/meet-andrew-willard-jones
https://newpolity.com/blog?author=5bbdf5b7e4966bea2acb7dee
Books:
The Church Against the State: On Subsidiarity and Sovereignty (New Polity, 2025)
The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021)
Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX, (Emmaus Academic, 2017)
Evidence of Things Unseen: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology (Emmaus Road, 2019)
The Word Became Flesh: An Introduction to Christology (Emmaus Road, 2019)
This Is My Body: An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Emmaus Road, 2019)
Catholic Topical Index (Verbum, 2013)
For Alan J Roxburgh:
http://alanroxburgh.com/about
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Joining God in the Great Unravelling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/


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In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair bring together two former guests, Harvey Kwiyani (episode 20) and Jide Ehizele (episode 49), for a fascinating conversation about identity, migration, and spirituality. Jide, a second-generation British Nigerian from South London, brings grounded experience and deep reflection as a writer, thinker, and youth leader, offering unique insight into the UK’s cultural and spiritual landscape. Harvey, a Malawian missionary now based in Liverpool, works across the UK, Europe, and North America, and writes on African theology and God’s mission in the West. They sense that the Enlightenment’s legacy has weakened the West’s ability to comprehend the nature of the Spirit—while for much of African Christianity this is still instinctive. As we undergo this change of era, they see the UK wrestling with identity and a growing spiritual yearning presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for church leaders. Together with Al and Jenny, they discuss how the migration of African Christians to the UK may be the Spirit’s way of catalysing a sacramental spirituality that British culture has lost. Examining how guest and host can practice hospitality to each other, they explore how cultural barriers can be bridged to foster both a sense of belonging and an openness to encounter the Spirit in everyday life.
Harvey Kwiyani works for the Church Mission Society (CMS) in Oxford, UK, where he leads a study centre for global witness and human migration and a Masters programme in African Christianity. Harvey is also the CEO of Global Connections, a UK-based mission network, and a director of Missio Africanus, a think tank exploring the rise and role of the African missionary movement in world missions. Harvey has published several books and holds a Ph.D. in Missions and Leadership.
Jide Ehizele is a Christian thinker and writer focusing on faith, identity and cultural renewal. In his Substack, Southeast London Psalms, Jide wrestles with faith, politics and community from the perspective of a Black British Christian living in modern Britain. He also writes for The New Statesman and Unherd. Jide is an active member of St Peter’s Church, Brockley, leading theology workshops and volunteering with children’s ministry. The son of Nigerian parents, Jide was born and bred in Lewisham, Southeast London, and his day job is as a specialist consultant in the economics and planning of railway operations.
Links
For Jide Ehizele:
https://x.com/OBEhizele
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jide-ehizele-ab28785b/
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/07/the-new-racism-of-the-british-right
https://substack.com/home/post/p-168224782
For Harvey Kwiyani:
Substack
Global Connections: www.globalconnections.org.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-kwiyani-ph-d-039ab745/?originalSubdomain=uk
Twitter: https://x.com/missioafricanus?lang=en
Books:
Decolonising Mission (2024)
Wash and Pray: African Theological Discourse on COVID-19 (2023)
Multicultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church (2020)
Our Children Need Roots and Wings: Equipping and Empowering Young Diaspora Africans for Life and Mission (2019)
Mission-Shaped Church in a Multicultural World (2017)
Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West (2014)
For Alan J Roxburgh:
http://alanroxburgh.com/about
https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)
Joining God in the Great Unraveling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials
https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
https://x.com/T4CG
https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK
https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/


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In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Anne Snyder about the anxieties—and unexpected possibilities—of our volatile moment. Anne doesn’t stop at lament or analysis. As she wrestles with the tensions between plurality and unity in a fractured age, her desire to articulate truth in the written word is matched by an instinct for hospitality and the conviction of God’s grace underlying our daily lives. Inspired by the integrated witness of Dorothy Day, Anne not only writes and encourages other writers, but organises spaces where people of different perspectives can meet—and, through mutual vulnerability, encounter grace. In conversation with Al and Jenny, Anne reimagines Christian humanism as an “understory” beneath the surface of our divides: a story of local, hidden movements where building, healing, reckoning, and reconciling are the components essential for the common good.
Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment, a magazine of public theology for the common good and a developing ecosystem of conversation and community. Rooted in the Christian humanist tradition, Comment now encompasses a growing podcast network, gatherings that span grassroots to institutional settings across North America and the UK, and a three-day festival at the Washington National Cathedral. Anne also hosts The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-edited Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (2022). The author of The Fabric of Character (2019), she writes widely and delights in weaving worlds together—in print, around the table, and across different sectors and ways of knowing.
Links:
For Anne Snyder:
Comment Magazine
https://comment.org/contributors/anne-snyder/
The Whole Person Revolution podcast
https://annesnyder.org/about/
Breaking Ground
Books
The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape (2019)
Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (Co-edited with Susannah Black, 2022)
For Alan J Roxburgh:
http://alanroxburgh.com/about
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)
Joining God in the Great Unraveling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials and https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/


Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with John Clifton about his experiences as a Salvation Army leader among people in the margins. In a sense, this is what you would expect from a Salvation Army officer. But give this a careful listen: John is also a deeply informed thinker and theologian with vital insights for the church today. In Christian circles lately there is much being said and written about two contrasting conversations: the quiet revival of young adults coming to certain kinds of churches, and the confusion and fear surrounding the recent conversions of controversial figures like Tommy Robinson and others at the margins—people who have had little to do with church and Christian life. John has important things to say about what is happening here and about why we should listen to what the Spirit is saying from the culture to the churches. John calls the church to return to its working-class roots, for relational spaces where Christ is encountered in the powerless, for the fostering of solidarity, and for local economic renewal.
Captain John Clifton is a Salvation Army officer, ordained minister, and theologian based in North Shields, North East England. He serves as the Divisional Commander for The Salvation Army’s North East Division, overseeing operations across the region, focusing on spiritual guidance, community outreach, and social services. His work emphasizes the Church’s engagement in public life and society, particularly supporting communities affected by debt, hunger, homelessness, and unemployment. He collaborates on initiatives for justice, reconciliation, and empowering local leadership through broad-based community organizing. Academically, John researches systematic theology, exploring the transformative power of compassionate acts and social encounters. His doctoral thesis was titled “Producing Christ in the World: a study of Christian action in terms of the Homeless Man as a Christological paradigm of powerlessness.” He writes on faith, theology, and faithful action via his Substack, Christ in the Margins, and has previously led Salvation Army corps in places like Ilford (East London) and Blackpool (North West England). The youngest son of General Shaw Clifton, John has made a lifelong commitment to the Salvation Army and lives in North Shields near Newcastle with his wife Naomi and their young family. His writing can be found on his Substack, With Christ in the Margins
For John Clifton:
https://www.instagram.com/drjohnclifton/
https://x.com/DrJohnClifton
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjohnclifton/?originalSubdomain=uk
https://www.salvationarmy.org/news/shaped-conviction-crafted-care-and-offered-army-he-loved
For Alan J Roxburgh:
http://alanroxburgh.com/about
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)
Joining God in the Great Unraveling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
Substack https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG


Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In a departure from previous episodes, Al Roxburgh interviews his Leaving Egypt co-host, Jenny Sinclair. Jenny shares something of her early life: from growing up in the milieu of a significant church leader, to years of rebellion, to the awakening that came through a dark night of the soul, and finally to finding her home in the Catholic Church. Later, sensing signs of coming social instability, she was drawn by the Holy Spirit to follow a trail. Through her curiosity to understand what Christian witness in the midst of this unravelling means for the churches, there emerged for Jenny a new vocation in the form of Together for the Common Good. Amidst the animating energy of the Spirit, Jenny finds herself at the heart of an unfolding work, with many others involved. Seeking a constructive response to the social crises of our time she encourages Christians to participate in the common good - the heart of God’s work of reweaving a broken world.
Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, a UK charity. From its beginnings in 2011, T4CG works with Christians across the churches to cultivate an “outward-facing” posture that listens to both God and neighbour. Engaging leaders, churches, charities and schools, T4CG draws on the Catholic Social Thought tradition as the key theological imagination for addressing the social, spiritual, moral, economic and political crises of this moment. Jenny speaks and writes, and convenes gatherings of leaders to engage the key questions of our time. Alongside this work, Jenny is the director and co-founder of Leaving Egypt with co-host Alan Roxburgh. Formerly a graphic designer, charity worker and serial volunteer, Jenny is the daughter of the Anglican Bishop David Sheppard. She is mother to two adult sons and currently lives in Liverpool.
For Jenny Sinclair:
https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/about/our-founder-director
https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/podcast
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
https://x.com/T4CG
For Alan J Roxburgh:
http://alanroxburgh.com/about
https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)
Joining God in the Great Unraveling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time


Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe