Search...
We offer daily services and a creative programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
We are delighted to announce that from 6 Jan until early Apr 2025, work will take place to reinstate the church’s South Door onto Jermyn Street, part of Sir Christopher Wren’s original design.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word.
We offer hospitality to people going through homelessness and speak out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
St James’s strives to advocate for earth justice and to develop deeper connections with nature.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
The work of St James’s, it costs us £5,000 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us.
New walkways, a restored courtyard and re-landscaped gardens will provide fully accessible, beautiful spaces for everyone to enjoy as well as improving our environmental performance.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
Directions on Google Maps
Lauren Gomer reflects on her faith journey at St James’s and explores the vital role religion could play in shaping global policies on technology, AI, and political change as she prepares to re-enter her diplomatic career in a rapidly evolving 2025.
The start of a new year got me thinking about what is to come in 2025. After taking a year of sabbatical from my career as a diplomat in the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, I am soon to return to work in February. I am already filled with first day back to school nerves, apprehension, and a glimmer of hope, thanks to St James.
I joined St James in 2024, and under the guidance from Mariama, was baptised and confirmed at St Paul’s Cathedral during the 2024 Easter Litany. For the rest of 2024, my personal development in faith, also brough up questions to how and whether I should bring faith back into the FCDO and wider Government when I return in 2025.
It could be a pertinent time to consider how Government could call upon faith leaders, to assist with policy development regarding global changes facing humanity now and in the future.
Whether we like it or not, 2025 will be a year of political change. In 2024 at least 64 countries (plus the European Union) representing a combined population of roughly 49% of people in the World, held national elections. Just this week, Justin Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister of Canada, and in the next couple of weeks Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States of America.
2025 may be ushering in a politically new world, but this does not mean we are powerless when it comes to the political priorities we would like to discuss and defend within our church community. Globally new policy priorities are being developed and tested, what role could and should religion play in shaping this debate, and policy?
I started to consider how religion should be informing the debate around new technologies and Artificial Intelligence. Maybe it’s because I watched too many sci-fi movies over the Christmas holiday – shout out to Interstellar, Minority Report, and AI being constantly replayed on the Sky movie channels. Or maybe it was the 2024 announcement by our new Government that it is developing an AI Opportunities Action Plan to harness AI skills to deliver better outcomes for people across the UK. Along with the September 2024 statement by the Government’s Faith Minister Lord Khan, that he would “ensure that faith was at the heart of government” highlighting that the new Labour Government would be seeking to “harness the power of faith”.
Will the power of faith be challenged or diminished in 2025 and into the future, by developments in technology and AI? I didn’t have to watch Terminator nor I, Robot (again) to understand that technology has always been disruptive, and it is not the first time it could possibly disrupt religion. The invention of printing allowed Protestant movements to escape the control of the Catholic Church in a way the Cathars has been unable to do two hundred years prior. The question I am entering 2025 with is perfectly encapsulated by Bishop Cutherbert Tunstalls reflection on technology and religion: “We must root out printing or else printing will root us out”. Religion must respond to the advances in technology and AI to ensure it is not misrepresented, nor excluded from the discussion.
Connections of trust already exist between pew and pulpit, which should not be underestimated by Government, nor by us and our Church. Religion has an important role to play in helping our congregations and communities understand and collaborate with any advances in technology, or political change in general. Are there any political issues you would like St James to discuss in a safe space free from judgement? I encourage you to seek guidance from the clergy here if you do.
Our Church and faith leaders have personal access to our hearts, our worries, our relationship with God and the World at large. I think it’s about time they are provided a space to speak truth to power, and feedback our concerns and considerations on policies that, after all affect us.
Ultimately, I am walking into 2025 with the following message: we must have faith. We must have faith in ourselves, we must have faith in the future, and we must have faith in Government… ideally before the Robots take over (joking).
Lauren Gomer
