A Revolution of Everything

Revolution by chris.corwin

For over 200 years Western society has been governed by the division of labour. It is this specialisation that has allowed the incredible industrial and technological advances which have shaped our culture. From the production of cheap motorcars to the development of digital technology, specialisation has kept the wave of progress surging forward.

This materialistic reality has shaped not only the goods we produce and own, and the jobs that we do, but also our very way of thinking. Consider your instinctive reaction to the terms – who is superior; the ‘specialist’ or the ‘generalist’? When we are ill we go to the general practitioner at first, but quickly turn to a specialist if we need more than a simple prescription. We want our children to be taught by specialists in their subjects. If we need help with our tax returns we find a specialist to help us.

Specialisation has also shaped our thinking in the way that much of life tends to be compartmentalised. We live in boxes, and travel to work in boxes. At work we sit in a box, looking at a box, and then once home we turn on the box. Inevitably this results in a frame of mind that views work as belonging to one compartment, and leisure to another, and spirituality to another. Increasingly we live atomised lives, where the different things we do are not organically connected, and in which we are isolated from other people. The sense of emotional disconnect that many people feel is hardly surprising in this efficient, specialised, but ultimately dissatisfying world we have created.

While the picture I have painted might seem to be just life as life is, it is certainly not what is expected within a biblical worldview. From the perspective of the Bible’s authors, God is actively involved in everything in creation, and his people are dynamically united with him, and one another. In 1 Chronicles 29:11-12 we read David’s prayer before the people as he made preparations for building a temple:

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.

David’s prayer is a recognition of the connectedness of all human experience. Ultimately it is the Lord who owns and controls all things – he really is the king. And in the end it is the decision of the King, rather than our specialisation that determines what happens in our lives. What this meant for David was that whether he was planning a building project, leading his troops in war, or composing a psalm of praise, the whole thing, everything, was about the Lord.

Turning to the New Testament we see that a favourite apostolic description of believers is that they are in Christ. Joined into Christ, we are also joined into one another. This organic, bodily union must give shape to everything we do. It means that though we may specialise in our place of work, we can never become compartmentalised beings. It means that whether we are travelling to work, cooking a meal, washing the car, sitting at our desk, caring for our children, or anything else, we are doing it in Christ, and in connection with the rest of his people.

My prayer is that the Everything Conference would help us think more about these issues and see their implications for us. Whether your thing is art, or business, or politics, the main thing is that we should be biblically shaped – that our worldview should be conditioned more by the reality of our connection to Jesus than our cultural preconceptions. If the church of Jesus Christ would grasp this it would unleash a revolution far more powerful than the industrial one.

Let’s start a revolution of everything!

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