The Great Reset will destroy our present culture (social justice and Critical Race Theory), ensure that our children master the new one (global citizenship skills), and give us a newly-minted myth for us to believe (why the Great Reset will save us all). Yes, the Great Reset is a social, cultural, and religious revolution. It is dangerous to Christians everywhere.

The World Economic Forum (WEF)[1] says that now is the time to replace our current economy with “a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being.”[2] According to its leader Klaus Schwab:[3]

To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism….

[T]he pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.[4]

However, this plea has also been called an agenda for tyranny. The foreign minister of Brazil addressed the United Nations to say:

[T]otalitarian social control is not the remedy for any crisis.

…

Those who dislike freedom always try to benefit from moments of crisis to preach the curtailing of freedom. Let’s not fall for that trap. Totalitarian social control is not the remedy for any crisis. Let’s not make democracy and freedom one more victim of COVID-19.[5]

What is this Great Reset? We’ll find that it’s yet another attempt to establish socialism. In this scheme businesses will be persuaded to voluntarily accept government control. We’d silently shift into accepting a socialist economy, along with the rest of its agenda, without even realizing it.

This article will approach the Great Reset in this manner:

• Remind us that the Bible judges socialism and finds it wanting.
• Describe the main components of the Great Reset.
• Show how it’s being brought to us by evangelizing the willing, and coercing the unwilling.
• Discuss approaches for opposing its goals and its evangelism strategies.

Socialism and Christianity don’t mix.

The Great Reset has a sneaky idea. “Woke” company managers will convince their shareholders that the government, along with social activists, must be given veto power over what the company does. Even though no law requires this surrender, the shareholders will be pressured to recognize their new masters.

This demand for corporate change amounts to a cultural revolution. Business managers, shareholders, and the general public are being conditioned to accept community control over companies. We’re being led into economic socialism without them even using the ‘S’ word. After all, the dictionary says that socialism means community control:

socialism:  n.  1. a theory or system of social organization in which the means of production and distribution of goods are owned and controlled collectively or by the government.[6]

Before we examine the revolutionary Great Reset, we need to remember what God says about government, property, and ownership. That’s because the Great Reset demands socialist change. And socialism not only steals people’s property, but also their freedoms.

Regarding property and ownership, God’s quite OK with people owning things. And if some of them become billionaires then good for them. Property and ownership are explored in the author’s article Is Capitalism Immoral? Here are some of its highlights:

• God gave Adam and Eve the right to own things.
• Mankind practiced capitalism from the very beginning.
• The New Testament affirms private ownership.
• It is OK to be wealthy.

Some people claim that Christianity endorses government socialism because the early church in Jerusalem practiced communalism. However, their sharing was strictly voluntary. Again, from the article:

Early in the Jerusalem church its people pooled their goods for the common good, selling property and land for the needs of the saints (Acts 2:43-45; 4:32-35). Yet communal life wasn’t the norm for Christ’s church. For example, Paul encouraged to the Corinthian church to prepare a gift they promised for the benefit of the Jerusalem church (1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8:2, 6-8). If the Corinthians were living communally then Paul could have simply asked the elders about the gift. This means that members of a congregation may choose to act communally, but they aren’t obligated to do so.[7]

People have the right to either keep their stuff or give it away. But when a government insists that we share, especially with itself, that’s called taking or stealing.[8] Socialism, along with its communist endgame, insists that individuals have no property rights, and that everything belongs to the community. When government and activist “stakeholders” claim the right to control a business, they’re using the socialist playbook to steal from the business owners.

Although the Great Reset seems to concentrate on economic matters, its goals also require a cultural reset. Ever since Karl Marx published his books, socialist advocates have waited for an opportunity like this one. The Great Reset implements a socialist culture, having these features:

• Hatred towards God. Socialist theory says that that there is no God. Serving the community of mankind gives meaning of our lives.
• Removing the religious. People who believe in God are enemies of socialism. They must be pursued and marginalized, even extinguished.
• Preventing reactionary thought. Lest people get dissatisfied with socialism, a socialist state must identify possible internal enemies. This means continual spying on its own citizens.

Lots has already been written about how these socialist “features” repress individual freedoms. Rather than repeat those arguments here, look to those articles. For example, the author has these previous articles on socialism and Christianity:

• Socialism is also a religion
• To Know Socialism is to Hate It

The Great Reset is just repackaged socialism, and it’s dangerous to Christian culture. Even so, we still must learn something about it. We must be familiar enough with it its terms to recognize when it’s being pushed upon us.

The Great Reset in a nutshell.

The World Economic Forum conferences, sometimes called the Davos meetings,[9] attract a lot of billionaires, political leaders, and social activists.[10] Having invented the Great Reset, it isn’t surprising that their speeches keep circling back to it. The Great Reset has these basic components:

WEF chief executive officer Klaus Schwab described three core components of the Great Reset: the first involves creating conditions for a “stakeholder economy”; the second component includes building in a more “resilient, equitable, and sustainable” way—based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics which would incorporate more green public infrastructure projects; the third component is to “harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” for public good.[11]

Through the “stakeholder economy” and “equitable and sustainable” components, businesses are to bind themselves to the overall plan. The technology component describes what governments will do to innovation when, and if, they get control of everything else. We can ignore this component for now.

According to the WEF, countries should put aside national interests and cooperate as one. As Schwab said at the 2022 World Government Summit, “Our futures are intrinsically connected and that requires collaborative responses.”[12] This echoes the United Nations plans of Agenda 21 / Agenda 2030 / Sustainable Development Goals,[13] which also call for refashioning a new society and a new economy.[14] Broadly speaking, both the UN and the WEF want a socialist command economy accompanied by vast social changes.

The Stakeholder Economy steals control of businesses.

In the “stakeholder economy” shareholders technically own a business but can’t direct it. Decision making is surrendered to outside parties.

Underpinning the notion of “stakeholder capitalism,” a concept that has taken the C-suites of some of America’s largest companies by storm, is the idea that a company should be run for the benefit of all its “stakeholders,” a conveniently hazy term that can be defined to include (among others) workers, customers, and “the community,” as well as the shareholders who, you know, own the business. It’s a form of expropriation based on the myth that a corporation that puts its shareholders first must necessarily put everyone else last. … Stakeholder capitalism is not only a threat to private property, but also, by not much of a stretch of the imagination, to individual freedom.[15]

Once the company commits to pleasing these outside parties, it’s effectively giving them veto power over company decisions. The community now controls the company. Note that because these stakeholders aren’t shareholders, they’re playing games with other peoples’ money.

Schwab says that stakeholder capitalism “would not change the economic system, but rather improve it to what he considers to be ‘responsible capitalism’.”[16] Responsible capitalism covers the same ground as stakeholder capitalism:

Responsible Capitalism requires a fundamental integration of the needs of the wider community, care for the communities in which the business operates, environmental initiatives and support for the arts and culture, with the business’s goals and processes. Above all, it is about how successful business leaders apply the principles of moral and social responsibility in the running of their business, combining social commitment with business acumen and innovation, and building a coherent philosophy in which the company’s success is judged over the long-term by criteria that include sustainability, equity, and moral justice as well as standard financial benchmarks.[17]

When the community looks to a business to act as its nanny (“care for the communities”), provide it with entertainment (“support for the arts and culture”), and act as a soldier in the culture wars (“sustainability, equity, and moral justice”), then that business has been expropriated from its rightful owners to become a toy, a misused community plaything. That’s a long way from the idea that “the business of America is business.”[18]

Justin Haskins, writing for The Hill, calls these changes global socialism.

At a virtual meeting earlier in June hosted by the World Economic Forum, some of the planet’s most powerful business leaders, government officials and activists announced a proposal to “reset” the global economy. Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs.

“Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,” wrote Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in an article published on WEF’s website. “In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

…

Or, put another way, we need a form of socialism — a word the World Economic Forum has deliberately avoided using, all while calling for countless socialist and progressive plans.[19]

Through stakeholder capitalism, Schwab and the WEF want businesses to become community-controlled cultural warriors, expending themselves for the sake of a socialist future.

Measuring your wokeness through metrics.

Schwab’s second core component is “building in a more ‘resilient, equitable and sustainable way’ – based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.”[20] ESG metrics are presently just a public relations gambit. That is, some advocacy outfit publishes rules that it thinks a targeted company should live by. This campaign works when:

• Company management already conspires with the advocates.
• Company management is afraid of losing public opinion support if they do fight.
• Company management is weary of fighting.

Of course, even when a company gives in it doesn’t win. The metrics will continually be changed, pushing businesses to fulfill new political goals. Says Schwab:

The second component of a Great Reset agenda would ensure that investments advance shared goals, such as equality and sustainability.

…

Rather than using these funds, as well as investments from private entities and pension funds, to fill cracks in the old system, we should use them to create a new one that is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable in the long run. This means, for example, building “green” urban infrastructure and creating incentives for industries to improve their track record on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.[21]

These business incentives will be things like “meet these metrics or there’s no more financing, no more approvals for you.” ESG metrics are social and political, not measures of good financial performance. As example, here are some proposed metrics:

• Measuring your greenhouse gas emissions
• Monitoring your carbon footprint

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