The “New Social Contract”
With the “unexpected” ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States of America, it may be time to continue our line of thought on the Heresy of Social Gospel.
The mainstream media and the press would like us to believe that Mr Trump phenomena was the result of a random act of chance, or even occurred by God’s providence. Like with most of the other events happening in the world today, we hesitate to jump to such conclusion, and would rather state that Trump may be in fact the result of a spiritual force acting from behind the scenes that becomes stronger and stronger in nature.
A recent article we read (written in Romanian) drew our attention to this relatively new concept of a “new social contract” (link here). This is interesting, because this concept seems to be deeply rooted in Catholic doctrine of recent times. Some of the first references to this new concept can be attributed to Pope Leo XIII with his famous 1891 social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, on capital and labor:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/labor-day-bishops-call-new-social-contract
The article above states:
“Workers need a new ‘social contract,'” says the 2010 Labor Day statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
It compares the massive changes in today’s global economy with the social upheavals of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution that led to Pope Leo XIII’s famous 1891 social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, on capital and labor.
It suggests that Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”) offers a similar 21st-century response to the challenges of globalization, putting the life and dignity of the worker at the center of economic renewal.
The millions of long-term unemployed and underemployed mark “a pervasive failure of our economy today,” it says.
Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, wrote this year’s statement, which was released two weeks before Labor Day. The five-page statement is titled “A New ‘Social Contract’ for Today’s ‘New Things'” – a reference to the Latin title of the 1891 encyclical.
Murphy said many believe “that this is a crucial moment in American history in which America is undergoing a rare economic transformation, shedding jobs and testing safety nets as the nation searches for new ways to govern and grow our economy.”
In the 19th century, he said, Pope Leo found the ideologies of capitalism and socialism inadequate, and instead “insisted on the value and dignity of the worker as a human being endowed with rights and responsibilities. He commended free association or unions as legitimate and he insisted on a family wage that corresponded to the needs of the worker and family. He opened the way to humanize the Industrial Revolution” through Catholic principles about the person in society.
“That encyclical provided moral, and even spiritual, guidance for many of the great social reforms of the last century, including advances in public health, the banking system, public education, living wages, unions and income security” he said.
“Then as today, the church was concerned about the balance between capital and labor, between owners and workers, when new technologies … disrupt the balance and put economic justice and the social contract up for renegotiation”
This is interesting. London’s Financial Times, also seem to be pushing this idea of a “new social contract” coming from the new administration of the United States:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/144718c0-dce3-11e6-86ac-f253db7791c6
Some of the other well-known liberal media outlets are already completely subscribing to this idea. Here is Huffington Post:
“Election Rage Shows Why America Needs A New Social Contract To Ensure The Economy Works For All”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-us/election-rage-shows-why-a_b_13155774.html
A simple google search for “trump new social contract” will reveal more recent references to this in the mainstream media. These terms vehiculated by the mainstream media are not random, but rather carefully chosen in out view. Looked at from this perspective, Trump seems to actually be the result of some sort of a “spiritual awakening” movement, rather than a random act of change. The idea of a “social contract” was also put forth by the Russian Orthodox Church’s “Social Concept Document” in 2000 and more recently observed in the “Missions Document” adopted at the Synod in Crete in June 2016. Slowly this new trend has made its way into the mainstream Orthodoxy. This is concerning.
We cannot fail to bring up the point that this idea of a “new social contract” seems to become some sort of a “new covenant”. This term was actually used by non other than the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the Sep 2015 UN’s address of Pope Francis:
“This is a moment in history, today you are signing a new covenant”
With this article we have only scratched the surface. Upon research much deeper aspects of this contemporary issue will be revealed we are sure. Having considered these facts, we can now observe a trend which cannot simply occur by chance. There must be a spiritual force behind it trying to push it to the forefront. In our opinion, the events we are seeing unfolding in the world today are meant to create the proper worldwide environment for this new idea of a “new social contract” to be pushed forth on a global scale in a unified way. This can only be the coming “social contract” of the Antichrist, and this is very much in line with the heresy of Social Gospel of which we wrote recently.
