The Comeback Code and the Blind Spot of a Smart Book

There’s a book on my nightstand that I finished reading with pleasure and a touch of frustration. *The Comeback Code* by Julien De Wit. I know Julien a little, so I’m not saying this as an anonymous critic but as someone who appreciates his work and takes him seriously as an intellectual. It’s a smart book. Broad in scope, well-researched, and essayistic in the best sense of the word. And yet it’s missing something fundamental—something that—and this is the painful part—could have made the book much stronger.

But let me start with what's in it. Because the foundation is solid.

What De Wit Says — and Why It's Worth It

The central thesis is so clear that it almost sounds simple: anyone who wants to survive a crisis and emerge stronger needs two things. Resilience —the ability to stay afloat without losing yourself. And reinvention —the ability, in the midst of chaos, not to look for what was, but for what could be. Resilience without reinvention hardens into a suit of armor. Reinvention without resilience collapses at the first sign of adversity. Only together do they form what he calls the “comeback code.”

He applies that code at three levels: individuals, organizations, and societies.

On an individual level, he builds his analysis around recognizable figures. Abraham Lincoln as a model of someone who did not suppress loss, failure, and crisis but gave them a place—and thus continued to function. Ernest Shackleton, who kept 28 men alive for months on an ice floe through structure, routine, and always taking the next step—never focusing on the end goal. Isaac Newton, who made his greatest discoveries not in spite of a crisis but because of it—forced into isolation, freed from distractions. The essence of individual resilience, according to De Wit: distinguish between what you can influence and what you cannot; keep taking action, no matter how small; take care of your body; filter what you let into your mind; and surround yourself with people who dare to speak their minds honestly.

At the organizational level, his analysis is more incisive. Organizations that survive crises but fail to reinvent themselves become operationally robust but strategically fragile. Swissair, Kodak, Blockbuster, Nokia—they didn’t fail due to a lack of talent or resources, but because they remained strong for too long in a way that was no longer appropriate. The LEGO case is his best: a company that, in the early 2000s, nearly innovated itself into oblivion by trying to be too many things at once, and saved itself by asking the most radical question—“Who are we, really?” The answer was simple and confrontational. And from that essence, true innovation followed.

At the societal level, he discusses Roosevelt and the New Deal, Finland—which chose to invest in education during a deep recession—and Taiwan, which turned its technological strength into an existential security strategy. A resilient society, he says, needs a grand narrative—one that transcends the pain of the moment—along with the courage to make explicit choices, the infrastructure to anchor those choices, and the strategic power not to be chosen but to choose for itself.

It’s a good book. Really. It’s well-researched, clearly structured, and it has the intellectual honesty to admit that his essay is a “trial run,” not a definitive system.

But then there's that sense of loss.

The Loss That Is No Coincidence

Somewhere in the chapter on the resilient society, there is a single paragraph about religion. De Wit identifies it as one of the three categories of “grand narratives” that hold societies together: alongside ideological-identity narratives and political-economic narratives, there are religious narratives, which give meaning to suffering, loss, and mortality, and offer answers where rational explanations fall short. His wording is apt: “Societies without these kinds of narratives are left empty-handed.”

And then he continues.

One paragraph. In a 160-page book about the very question for which religion has developed the most elaborate system of answers in human history.

I don’t believe this is a coincidence. Nor do I believe that Julien considers the subject unimportant. I think he senses it—you can read it between the lines—but he doesn’t dare to name it. Victor Frankl is mentioned, but only as a psychologist. The Stoics are given ample attention, but their religious dimension is left out. Rituals are described as social glue, not as an encounter with the transcendent. Whenever he approaches the boundary, he pulls back.

That’s a missed opportunity—not just for the book, but for the analysis of the polycrisis itself.

Because look at what De Wit says people need to cope with crises: a narrative that transcends the pain of the moment. A foundation of meaning that doesn’t depend on success. A point of reference outside the system that sustains them. Absolute honesty about who you are, regardless of your achievements. The courage to act without any guarantee of a favorable outcome.

That's not a description of a psychological technique. It's a description of what religion does at its best.

And then there is an even deeper layer. De Wit describes the polycrisis as a state of intertwined, mutually reinforcing crises that feed off one another. He asks how societies can be resilient in such times. But he does not ask whether the loss of religion itself is part of the explanation for that polycrisis. I think it is. Not as a nostalgic argument—“everything was better in the old days”—but as a structural insight: societies that lose their transcendent anchor simultaneously lose the most robust source of shared meaning, of individual resilience, and of moral orientation that is not dependent on the whims of the day. What you’re left with then are stories that are more fragile, systems of meaning that break down as soon as circumstances take a turn for the worse.

More religion—or, to be more precise, greater recognition of the value that Christianity has to offer, though I’m not advocating that everyone join a church—would not weaken her comeback. It would complete it.

Religion Itself Is Making a Comeback

But then the question turns on its head. Because if religion plays such a central role in resilience and reinvention—can we then apply De Wit’s model to religion itself? Is religion currently making a comeback?

I think we need to be honest about what the data shows. Institutional secularization in Western Europe is continuing as a structural trend. There’s no getting around that. But at the same time, you see a movement in the opposite direction that you can’t ignore: a growing interest in spirituality, contemplation, and the search for meaning—even outside the walls of the church. A return among younger generations—including in the U.S.—to distinct and identity-forming religious communities. Growing public interest in figures like Augustine or the mystics, not as pious devotion but as an intellectual quest. A growing awareness, even among secular thinkers, that the grand narratives of atheistic humanism are missing something that people truly need.

There is no single major revival. But there is a fragmented pattern of renewal that is worth taking seriously.

If I apply De Wit’s model honestly to religion—and as a bishop, I can hardly do otherwise—then I see two challenges that must be addressed simultaneously. And I say “challenges” deliberately: this is not a casual observation but a call to action, including for myself and for the people I work with.

The First Challenge: The Church as a Resilient, Innovative Organization

De Wit describes how organizations that survive crises make precisely that mistake: they become strong in a way that is no longer appropriate. Operationally robust, strategically fragile. They confuse form with function. They optimize what already exists instead of asking the radical question: Who are we, really?

The church, too, must dare to ask that question—not as a threat to the message, but as a prerequisite for carrying it forward. The core of Christianity is reconciliation, hope, the value of every human life, God’s presence even in suffering, and a community that transcends humanity. That core is not the problem. That core is exactly what the world needs. The problem arises when we protect the form rather than the function.

The LEGO question for the church is: What are we actually doing, if we strip away everything that isn’t essential? And the answer to that question should be surprisingly clear and surprisingly relevant. But then we must also be willing to renew ourselves based on that essence—in how we communicate, in the forms we use, in how we are present in society—without compromising the message itself. On the contrary: it is precisely by focusing on the essence that we can convey it more powerfully and clearly to the world.

That is a challenge I face every day as a bishop. Remaining relevant without becoming a social club. Addressing the questions of our time without watering down the answers. Communicating the message clearly without reducing it to a feel-good story. That is the difference between a church that reacts to the secular vacuum and a church that speaks from its own strength.

De Wit explains that innovative organizations don’t need more ideas, but better questions. The same applies here.

The second challenge: religion as a contribution to society at large

The other side of the comeback is less internal. Because if religion truly plays the role I believe it does in resilience and reinvention, then that’s not just relevant to people who are already religious. In that case, religion has a role to play in the broader societal conversation about how we tackle the polycrisis.

De Wit describes how societies need grand narratives—stories that transcend the pain of the moment, that unite people beyond their individual interests, and that offer an ultimate foundation of meaning that does not depend on success or political legitimacy. He also describes how rituals and traditions hold societies together and make periods of crisis bearable.

What he doesn’t say—but what I do dare to say—is that Christianity has not only played a historical role in all these areas but still has something to offer today that secular alternatives cannot provide. Not as a monopoly, not as a state religion, not as a coercive identity—but as a living tradition that has answers to the questions posed by the polycrisis and that secular systems leave unanswered.

Why is this suffering bearable? What do we owe one another, even when there is nothing to expect in return? What provides direction when all external points of reference disappear? What makes a human being more than just the sum of their productivity?

These are not the questions of a religious niche. These are the questions of a society in crisis.

The resurgence of religion is therefore not merely an internal matter for believers. It is an opportunity and a responsibility to actively participate in the broader conversation about recovery and reinvention—to demonstrate, not merely proclaim, what a faith-based community can concretely offer: in caring for the vulnerable; in preserving shared stories; and in providing an anchor for people caught in the midst of a storm who can find no foothold.

Shackleton kept his men alive by maintaining structure and always taking the next step. But he also did so because he believed it was worth it. That conviction—namely, that refusal to believe that everything is meaningless—is exactly what religion offers in the most direct sense.

De Wit’s “comeback code” is spot on. Resilience plus reinvention. Never one without the other. The scale doesn’t matter: it applies to people, organizations, and societies.

But he overlooked the most substantial source of both. Not because it doesn't exist, but perhaps because it was too vast to skim over.

I hope he'll have the courage to speak up about it next time. And I hope the church has the courage to show that it's worth speaking up about.