Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in
Second Antiphon from the Divine liturgy (Ps. 146)
whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on
that very day his plans perish.
The Lord will reign forever; Your God, O Zion, to
all generations.
Closing out my post on Descartes I mentioned that Kant would be discussed next. Due to the continuing political, social and economic upheaval and the foreboding voices of many in the ether of the internet about the “new normal” and the “Great Reset”, I decided to shift focus to the mission of the Church in a rapidly changing milieu. If you are unaware of these terms and want to do a little research, my caveat is to use discernment before wading into the bog of the internet, especially YouTube. I recommend listening to Fr. Josiah Trenham’s video titled The Great Reset. Be mindful and prayerful before going too deep into this area, one will find oneself into all sorts of conspiracy theories and fear-inducing articles and videos. Not all of this can be believed. However, anyone tuned into the events of last year will notice that there is something happening, and this something does not bode well for the traditionally minded person, i.e. the Orthodox Christian.
Conspiracy
Americans are particularly drawn to conspiracy theories. Historian Gordon S. Wood dedicates an entire chapter in his book The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States to how conspiracy and paranoia played a determinative role in the founding of America. These ideas of the “unseen hand” that moves history traces its origin to Europe (Adam Smith also referred to the “invisible hand” behind the economy). Fears of secret societies such as the Masons and Illuminati can be found in many cultures. A good starting point was the Bavarian Illuminati scare of the late eighteenth century. Ideas of intrigue and revolution, fear of monarchies and the Catholic Church, distrust and scapegoating of Jews–which Hanna Arendt wrote extensively about–all were determinative factors. These ideas followed immigrants to America.
Wood writes, quoting Richard Hofstadter:
“That the fear of conspiracy characterizes periods when traditional social and moral values are undergoing change” and therefore focused on the unusual fluidity of American society.
Further on:
Despite such qualifications [fear of subversion is always generated by psychological needs] and cautions, however, the implications of these historical accounts of the paranoid style were clear: Americans seemed prone to fears of subversion, and these fears were symptomatic of severe social and psychological strain.
Wood suggests that the American Revolution sets the fundamental pattern of this “paranoid style.” As we learn from Charles Taylor that the social imaginary radically changed from the time of the High Middle Ages to the Modern Age. Deism and natural science purged God from the lower order of society and polity leaving a sort of power vacuum. Lesslie Newbigin would reflect on the eventuality of an external power seeing a society “ripe for takeover” when people were leaderless and searching for answers. Something or someone must fill that void. If God and spiritual beings were no longer used to explain seemingly random events, then what or who was moving history and directing fate? Theories of secret societies at work in the shadows of society filled in the gaps of causality and provided reasons for people looking for answers. This would also leave a society vulnerable to coercion and takeover.
The first quote sheds some light on why this happens. People are living through a major paradigm shift, but for them at the time it doesn’t feel like that, all they know is that conventional knowledge and narratives no longer seem adequate, and mores and customs are being replaced by innovative beliefs and ideas. This causes great anxiety.
We could naturally very well be going through another one of these periods. If not, it is something that the elites are presupposing is happening and that this is an opportunity for institute changes. Such a person is Klaus Schwab.
The Great Reset
In his controversial, new book, Covid-19: The Great Reset, Schwab details his manifesto for the exploitation of a world crisis and the implementation of a global agenda. Founder of the World Economic Forum, Schwab can be seen as the spearhead of the new order, or the Great Reset. Needless to say, conspiracy theories abound placing Schwab a few tiers down on the pecking order of global power–that is neither pertinent nor edifying at the moment. What is important though are the ideas being discussed by the “powers that be” that in time, if implemented, will change the world as we know it.
In the introduction of his book, Schwab tells us that
The fault lines of the–world most notably social divides, lack of fairness, absence of cooperation, failure of global governance and leadership–now lie exposed as never before, and people feel the time for reinvention has come. A new world will emerge, the contours of which are for us to both imagine and to draw.
The first question that should arise in one’s mind, who are these “people” that want a “reinvention”? The author himself is not exactly part of the lower or middle classes, does he have actual contact with these people? Doubtful. These “people” that he is namelessly naming are likely those whom comprise his social group, i.e. bankers, economists, politicians, the intelligentsia. This should be a vibrant, red flag blown relentlessly by portentous gusts. Hyperbole aside, this should be alarming. In times past, especially the modern age, many of the major events came about by those people in power ostensibly for justice, equality, freedom; or these ideas filtered down to the disenfranchised from universities sparking revolt, then when these people assumed power, they propagated even worse atrocities in the name of said ideas. Many of these people believed they were on the winning side of history doing what was perceived as moral.
The Fundamentals
The reset is presented as three tiers (or levels): the macro, micro and individual. The economic , societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological are subsets of the macro reset. At the micro level, industry reset is discussed and business and government relationship becomes a dominant theme. Finally, redefining humanity is the thrust of the individual level of the Great Reset. Regardless of the different sub resets, everything discussed in this book is framed in terms of economics, meaning that at every level there exists an exchange between persons or groups which can be conceptualized monetarily. In terms of “give-and-take” exchange, all interactions will be weighed based on profitability, e.g., what yields the greatest results, what is the most viable option, regardless of it being about actual profit. The Great Reset unapologetically presupposes secularism and materialism, and it intends to propagate globally these philosophies. Fundamentally, these ideas require a social contract, of sorts, to really work–a contract between members of society and an abstraction of society. At the level of individual resets, the human person is expected to surrender rights and prerogatives for the benefit of humanity. Obsequious behavior of the person in relation to the collective is, essentially, a subtle proposal by Schwab and his ilk of totalitarianism. One can debate if what is being proposed is an unmitigated, hard totalitarianism, such as one that would have been found in the Eastern Bloc, or simply the younger sibling, which has entered into the vernacular of conservative religious people via Rod Dreher, “soft totalitarianism.” This form is perhaps more insidious than its historical predecessor since it deftly creeps in donning the guise of therapeutics, convenience, and fairness (often called equality, which is actually equity, two similar but different concepts).
I digress. The premise of the Great Reset is that things will never go back to normal, that the world must adapt and adjust to the “new” in order to correct for social and economic necessity and inequality, to stave off the impending doom of climate change, and to harness the unbridled power of technology in order to implement and institutionalize these changes.
The Great Reset and the Nature of History
The legitimization of Schwab and Davos for their reset are the shifting paradigms of post-pandemic periods in humanity’s past, these crises ushered in radical changes that, for posterity, drew a line of demarcation between the old and new worlds. Schwab points to the Black Death as a catalyst for the Renaissance (I’ve written about this connection before). Interpreting history through the lens of causality has its problems. For one it takes a Newtonian, mechanistic view of history, i.e. history can be best understood as a chain of causality, one event causing another, then another. This is overly simplistic. And because of this, one tends to see history in terms of power and conflict. If one were to follow this path to its inevitable terminus, then one comes to Hegel and Marx; believing that history is a march towards an absolute, a dialectical force progressing forward, becomes the definition of history.
Charles Taylor would not necessarily dismiss history as a chain of causality, of facts, yet he would rather one focus on the minutiae of gradual changes, the ebb and flow that alters the conditions of belief. These conditions allow for certain beliefs and practices to fade away and for new ones to replace them, and often times these overlap. His approach to history is apt because one can not simply call for a great reset of everything because in the past pandemics have “caused” certain changes to take “effect”. In the case of the shift from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, it was more than just the bubonic plague that caused this, one also has to factor in prevailing theological and philosophical ideas, socio-cultural mores, and scientific discoveries, along with familial behaviors and attitudes to hierarchy and authority, the immigration of diverse people groups, war….the list goes on. To assert that past pandemics have led to large scale changes so, therefore, this must be the case now, is a fallacy of causation.
Furthermore, Schwab unequivocally says these changes will be forced. At the end of the section on the micro reset:
The micro reset will force every company in every industry to experiment new ways of doing business, working and operating. Those tempted to revert to the old ways of doing things will fail. Those that adapt with agility and imagination will eventually turn the COVID-19 crisis to their advantage.
One may counter this by postulating that what he is talking about is not coercion per se by some other group or person, but forcing to adapt much like Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” Be that as it may, taking this idea of “force” together with the whole picture that is presented in his book, Schwab stresses the role of technology as a means to control and regulate (essentially technocracy) and the preeminence of government. One can easily grasp here that the government will wield the power of technology for its own ends.
What is most disconcerting for Christians is the idea of redefining humanity. If we are created in the image and likeness of God, composed of soul and body, what does that mean in terms of the transhumanist movement that often runs parallel and, at times, within Davos and the Great Reset? Transhumanism in its banal form can be something as simple as augmenting a person with eyeglasses so they can better see. However, this is not the pervasive philosophy that is part of the Great Reset, which is about becoming more than human. At its core, transhumanism is gnostic, and it directly conflicts with the dogmas of the Incarnation and theosis. This is something I hope to address more in depth in the future.
What this Means for the Church
For now I would like to answer the question regarding how the Church should act with three passages from Scripture. These guiding passages are to remind us of our condition, our mission, and their relationship
Scripture
The first is the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11.
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
One reads of the culmination of humanity’s arrogance and determination to ascend to the Heavens. Babel is the archetype of mankind’s attempt at recreating paradise, salvation without God, and constructing things for their own glory. The story of Cain’s descendants–which is one of progress, technology, and art–seemingly ends with the Flood, however, these ideas survive the flood and climax at Babel. The great tower, the formidable city, and the vying for power which leads to empire and eventually to tyranny, these are expressions of the ultimate artificial covering, like the alleged fig leaf of Eden used to hide brokenness and sinfulness, in the end desiring to usurp God. We are no different today. Whether at the local level or the geopolitical, humans have a proclivity to construct babels. The Great Reset is just another babel. Fundamentally, it is about human progress, constructing a great empire, and saving ourselves from death. (For more about Babel, mountains and missiology read this and this)
St. Matthew closes out his gospel with the Great Commission. I often write about the Church’s mission to and in the world–after all it is one of the concerns of this blog. This is the next guiding Scriptural passage.
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Christ commands us to make disciples of all nations. By doing this one must submit to baptism, which is the sacrament of passage from death and corruption to resurrection and life. One is cleansed and illuminated during the two sacraments of initiation. Baptism is one’s entry into the Kingdom and enlistment into the Church Militant; chrismation is one’s anointing to be an active agent in the world (as priest, prophet, and king). The passage starts in Babel–one can also say, Egypt– and ends in the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Heaven. Our allegiance is to the King of Kings, not to an ideology or political party or politician.
Now this takes us to the next guiding passage. Regardless of our membership in the people of God, we still live in Babel. The tension here is resolved when one heeds St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans (ch. 13) concerning governing authorities.
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
The Apostle is quite lucid in his point that all are subject to governing authorities, and no authority exists apart from God. This is difficult to grasp, especially when Christians have lived under tyranny. Before balking at this, keep in mind that when St. Paul was writing this Nero was emperor. And Nero used to use Christians as torches to light his courtyard. What St. Paul is teaching is that one must live peacefully under whomever rules, the Kingdom of God is not of this world, we have no stake in it. Yet, the martyrs testify that when it comes to worship and allegiance it is to Christ alone, and one must be willing to die at the hands of the powerful. As a Christian, one’s political opinions and beliefs regarding economics, geopolitics, contemporary issues, and even civil rights come second to Christ. So taxes are paid and laws observed so long as those do not deny Christ.
The Church must approach this precarious period in history like every other period which has led to oppression and persecution. Hold fast to the Tradition of our Faith, and continue the mandate of Christ to make disciples of all nations. Now this also does not mean that the whole Church must be pacifists. That’s not what is being stated here. There have been times when it has been necessary for a city or nation to resist evil, and there a means to do this without violence, and there have been times when violence seems like the only response. Needless to say, this does not adhere to just war theories or redemptive violence. Ivan Ilyin addresses this complex issue in On the Resistance to Evil by Force. As he observed the nefarious, dehumanizing and atheistic wave that was the Red Army destroy Russia and the attempt of the White Army to fight for Church, Autocracy and Tradition, he works out a Christian approach to the resistance to evil (much of the book addresses the moralizing pacifism of Tolstoy). He theorizes ways to confront evil whether it be mental or physical resistance, and he proposes that there comes a point when external compulsion is the way to save others from evil. The question remains for our time, how do we –or should we even–respond to a blatantly anti-Christian ideology that is sweeping our country? Do we just sit back and hope for the best? Or is there a way to resist–perhaps to the point when martyrdom is the ultimate way to resist? There are no easy answers to these questions. It is something worth praying about and discussing with your priest.
Monastic or Statesman
I present two seemingly dichotomous opinions on the role of Christians in the world that adhere to the above guiding Scriptural texts. The first is what has been commonly called the “Benedict option”. I have not read Rod Dreher’s book thus titled, but from interviews with him, I surmise that this option is about Christocentric community building. Some have criticized him for proposing a barricaded Christianity, cut off from the world. In an interview, Dreher denies that that was his intention. The thrust of his book is to become more traditional and communal, not overtly engaged with the fallen world. The other option is less known, but no less impactful. In a lecture, Catholic professor and author Dr. Anthony Esolen presents, in response to Dreher, the “Boethius option” (you can find the lecture on YouTube). Esolen suggests that there are a minority of Christians who must be active within society, whether politically or apolitically, but involved at some level of society, engaging with politicians or organizations that affect change, judicially, legislatively, and culturally. These individuals must have an indomitable spirit because this path will destroy the faint of heart. The basis for this is Boethius who had much power under Theodoric as the magister officiorum. He was of the old world, knowing Greek and steeped in pre-Christian philosophy, bridging both East and West that, at his time, was beginning to sunder. Eventually, Boethius was imprisoned by the emperor of the West. Regardless of his fate, Boethius was a Christian witness within the upper echelons of the Roman state during a time that the West was gradually waning in its former glory.
I present these two tasks because they exemplify what the Church should be continuing to do. It is our mission. As there are many parts of the Body of Christ, there are varying roles that Christians must fill, all the while being guided by Scripture and Tradition. It is the time to build our communities and instill the Christian story, to pray and serve, and to bear witness to the Kingdom. We need to recognize the sinfulness of our own hearts and work to heal the damage inflicted by our passions, this is the first step before anything else can truly be done. We also must not be deceived by the reigning powers of this age while they tempt us with dazzling images and novel, benevolent ideas. If it comes to coercion, we must hold fast to our Faith and remember the martyrs who went before us. The move towards a great resetting of the world is nothing but another Babel, another Rome…but remember the Church conquered Rome, and it was not by compromising the Gospel or adopting culturally acceptable ideas and practices, it was by a steadfastness to Christ and the blood of the martyrs. Until that time comes, however, the Church must also not only build communities and live peacefully with the authorities, but also, for those individuals with the fortitude, to affect change in the public sector. Taking into consideration Ivan Ilyin, when we can we must resist evil and not hand over our culture to those people who want to destroy it. However, when the culture is no longer a godly culture, we must recognize it for what it is, Babel. And God will deal with Babel.
Conclusion
Brothers and sisters, we must not live in fear and paranoia, these are not of God, they are of the devil. If there are powerful people plotting behind the scenes, then that means really very little to us. If a great reset is coming, then it is not the Great Reset proposed by Davos, but it is a great resetting or renewal of the cosmos that God Himself will accomplish. We must trust in Christ and keep ourselves from the influence of the evil one. Remember the principalities and powers of this age are not presidents or corporations or banks, but the fallen angelic beings that rule only because God allows them time still to bring about our repentance. St. John ends his first epistle with an admonition which is most apposite, which is how I will close this out:
We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
