Modern corporate cultures, leadership styles, and management systems have trended toward professionalization, departmentalization, and specialization, resulting in the phenomenon of “involution”. Involution is characterized by excessive competition and specialization at the cost of substantive progress, as well an overemphasis on minute divisions of labour that leads to inefficiency, diminished results, and stagnation.
A. The Bible Reveals the Universality of Involution
In fact, the Bible offers several examples of involution. The prophets repeatedly rebuked the Israelites for empty forms of worship and the priestly system for becoming overly ritualistic, neglecting genuine spiritual life (e.g., Isa 1:11–17; Mic 6:6–8). Furthermore, the people’s demand to imitate foreign nations by having a king led to a monarchy’s typical prosperity, extravagance, but also decay, and eventually internal strife that splits apart the nation (1 Kgs 11–14). These are clear signs of an involution crisis.
The scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time exhibited tendencies toward involution due to their overly intricate interpretations of the law. They focussed on ceremonial regulations while neglecting love, mercy, and justice (e.g., Matt 23:23–24). Jesus taught God’s people to break free from this culture of involution by returning to the essence of the law—relying on God’s love and grace through sincere repentance (e.g., Luke 18:9–14). He urged them to replace formalism with faith and love to rebuild authentic relationships with God and others (e.g., Matt 22:37–40).
B. The Challenges of Faith Against Involution
Theological education, missions, and church governance have been plagued by involution. In Christian academic research, the focus on specialization has led to insular disciplines that lack dialogue and integration. This results in partial perspectives that struggle to address the complex challenges of contemporary contexts.
In the history of missions, when Western churches adhered to the medieval idea of Christendom, they expanded globally alongside colonialization. This often meant engaging in cultural imperialism and ignoring local cultural contexts and holistic care for souls and communities.
As for church governance, human resources, finances, and space are limited, and churches and organizations compete in overlapping areas of ministry. This leads to excessive reliance on quantitative measurements to evaluate personnel, finances, and performance. Spiritual formation and holistic practice of the gospel are neglected, reducing faith to mere formalism. Churches and organizations become passive and lack innovation and breakthroughs. They fall into draining cycles of administrative inefficiency, resource depletion, and power struggles.
C. The Gospel Breaks the Cycle of Involution
How can we overcome involution? By returning to the gospel! The gospel is the power of God because it represents God’s action in Christ to save humanity and renew all creation. When God’s people turn to the gospel truth, they break free from self-centred isolation and move toward God-centred faith practices. Through God’s sovereign intervention, spiritual renewal and transformation occur:
1. God intervenes in culture
The essence of the gospel lies in God actively intervening in human history and culture to dismantle self-centredness. During the Jerusalem Council, the apostles witnessed the power of the gospel when the Holy Spirit broke through entrenched Jewish cultural barriers (Acts 15). Jewish Christians opened up to the Gentiles, transcending cultural and linguistic divides to spread the gospel, forming a multi-ethnic community of believers.
2. We return to the essence of the gospel
The essence of the gospel is the grace and redemption of the Triune God in Christ. Churches and organizations must centre on Christ while striving for unity to bear witness to this unique gospel truth. Only by living out the power of the gospel can we transcend unhealthy competition among denominations and institutions, and reject formalism, transforming faith practices into authentic life testimonies.
3. We renew our drive for missions
Cross-cultural missions are crucial for breaking the cycle of involution. In the past two centuries, global missionary movements have resulted in non-Western believers surpassing Western ones in number, compelling Western theologians to engage with “non-Western others”. Dialogue with diverse cultures forces Western theologians to reflect on their own limitations and blind spots. Such cross-cultural interactions enrich theological perspectives while breaking free from the involution that takes place within mono-cultural frameworks. The universal nature of the gospel across diverse contexts is thus revealed.
Conclusion:
From Involution to Revival Churches, evangelical organizations, and seminaries need vigilance against involution, with its destructive competition, formalism, and self-isolation. As we see in biblical accounts and church history, faith communities can only break free from the cycle of involution by turning back to the essence of the gospel. In the year ahead, let us welcome a deeper abundance in the Spirit and stronger drive for missions by embracing openness, humility, and reliance on God’s grace.
