Considering & Critiquing Agenda 2030 - Part 1 - Theology on Tap Handout

​Theology On Tap Fellowship – Considering and Critiquing Agenda 2030
 
In the year 2015 the leaders of the world, meeting at the United Nations facility in New York, created a set of
global goals for the development of the world by the year 2030. These goals are the product of a massive consultation exercise, and are supposed to describe a more perfect world. Organizations that have embraced these goals include The United Nations (UN), The World Economic Forum (WEF), The World Heath Organization (WHO), The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, mainstream media outlets, and many local governments and municipalities.

 
Agenda 2030 Goals
( https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ )
 
1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2: Realize zero hunger throughout the world
3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4: Provide quality education for the world
5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy
8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
15:
16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies
17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
 
While many of the Agenda 2030 goals sound quite nice to many people, others are troubling; and some of the means that are being implemented to achieve these goals are quite alarming,
especially for traditional, conservative and Christian people.
 
Question to ponder and discuss:
Which of the Agenda 2030 goals sound particularly good or bad to you?

 

 
If the Agenda 2030 goals can be achieved, our world and our existence would be drastically changed. 
For instance, The World Economic Forum has offered the following eight predictions for what the world will look like by the year 2030:

 
WEF Predictions for 2030
( https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153920524981479 )
( https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/8-predictions-for-the-world-in-2030/)
 

1. You will own nothing and you will be happy.  Instead of owning, you will rent things. And many of your necessities will be delivered to your home by drone.
2. The USA won’t be the world’s leading power.  Instead, a handful of countries will dominate
3. People won’t die waiting for an organ transplant; and we won’t transplant organs at all; rather we will print organs on 3D printers
4. You will eat much less meat.  Maybe you can have a little meat as a treat, but it won’t be a staple; and this will be for the good of the environment and your health
5. A billion people will be displaced by climate change; and we will have to do a better job welcoming and integrating refugees
6. Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide; and there will be a global price on carbon (i.e. a carbon tax); and this will help eliminate fossil fuels and carbon emissions
7. You could be preparing to go to Mars, and scientist will have worked out how to keep you healthy in space.  And we will start our journey to find alien life.
8. Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.

 
Question to ponder and discuss:
Which of the WEF predictions sound particularly good or bad to you?

Other questions for the evening

• Why do some people experience poverty and others experience riches?  It is God’s plan to ensure that all people have equal possessions and blessings, either in this life or in the life to come, regardless of moral behavior?  Is it God’s will for people to own private property?  How could the goals of ending poverty and achieving economic equality for the masses be achieved by the United Nations? If people were to own nothing by 2030 but have access to goods and services, who would own and control everything? And how would goods and services be distributed?