ABSTRACT:

In this post, I explore how Genesis 1:28—God’s command to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion—shapes my understanding of work, especially as a librarian. I reflect on how this “cultural mandate” calls me to actively participate in developing culture, harnessing creation, and empowering others through my professional tasks, such as teaching information literacy and organizing knowledge. Rather than seeing my vocation as separate from my faith, I view librarianship as a way to fulfill God’s original purpose for humanity: to cultivate, steward, and restore creation in ways that reflect His character and kingdom. I also wrestle with the complexities and potential misuses of concepts like dominion and subduing, advocating for a humble, biblically grounded approach that seeks the flourishing of both people and the world. Ultimately, I see my work as a librarian as an integral part of God’s ongoing mission, both anticipating the future restoration of creation and participating in it here and now.

FULL ENTRY:

For many of us, librarianship is our career. We have invested time, effort, and fiscal resources in this profession. In many respects, due at least partly to how our economy is designed, most of us must work to sustain ourselves and, at times, our families. Some of us are privileged to choose a field of interest; unfortunately, others have little choice. What does Scripture tell us about work? Many suggest that a foundational dynamic of how an individual sees their job, vocation, or profession comes from Genesis 1:28: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth'” (ESV).

Some have phrased this passage as the “cultural mandate.” Long before the Ten Commandments or the Great Commission, God established the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28: be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. In his discussion of this passage, John Frame (1987) notes that a vital component of the cultural mandate is entailed with the idea of subduing a “bewildering variety of tasks” (p. 67). This variety includes investigating the world God created, which resulted in many components of prosperity. For example, we discovered hydroelectric power and created the COVID-19 vaccine by studying and analyzing God’s creations and their elements (humanity’s effort to subdue the earth). The idea of “subduction” noted in the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28 often generates prosperity (Frame, 1987, p. 67).

Likewise, the cultural mandate empowers the professor who explores (increasing their dominion in a specific arena), the practitioner who works with clientele (empowering the client’s drive to be fruitful in various arenas of life), and the librarian who aims to make all this new knowledge discoverable (enabling further exploration) (Kaemingk and Willson, 2020, pp. 48-49). The additional commands in Scripture do not by any means lessen the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28, “(i)nstead, these later commands elucidate important dimensions of their holy vocations that are grounded in creation” (Kaemingk and Willson, 2020, p. 49). Every fact we learn tells us something about God: his nature, character, and laws (Frame, 1987, p. 67). Subsequently, many efforts to learn, grow, and develop simultaneously draw us closer to God and make us stronger professional practitioners.

Nancy Pearcey (2004) develops this idea further in her work, Total Truth. When discussing the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28, she argues that: “(t)he first phrase, ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, ‘subdue the earth,’ means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, and compose music. This passage is sometimes called the cultural mandate because it tells us our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations – nothing less” (p. 47). In other words, God mandates us to use the talents and gifts given to us to play a role in developing society, learning, and transforming the cultures in which we play a part. As a librarian, I further the cultural mandate of Genesis by instructing students in information literacy, cataloging electronic resources, and managing student workers. I am furthering the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28 through these actions because they assist in creating an educational context where students are learning how to play a role in creating culture and building civilization. As a follower of Jesus Christ and a librarian, I intentionally aim to use the cultural mandate, confirmed by the gospel, as a framework through which these services to students are critical tools for them as they learn to be future learners, nurses, accountants, entrepreneurs, educators, and leaders.

Kaemingk and Willson (2020) continue their development of the cultural mandate, building on Pearcey’s definition, when they argue that: “… God’s mission in the world did not begin with Christ’s commands to love one’s neighbor and to make disciples. God’s mission begins with creation and is grounded in creation. In the fall, God did not give up on the world, its restoration, or its development. The command to work and to care for creation did not cease. Loving one’s neighbor, sharing the gospel, and working in the garden are all part of God’s mission in the world” (p. 49). In stating this, Kaemingk and Willson have no intention of demeaning the gospel nor the display of God’s love to our neighbor. Still, the nature of God’s good news must be all-encompassing, and one’s work in librarianship reflects God’s redemptive work. In a context where librarians assist patrons in learning how to use a database, the librarian provides instruction empowering them to subdue God’s creation: to discover and learn how God created the world and how patrons can use their God-given gifts and talents to impact others. Librarianship as a means to reflect the discovery of God’s work can be a beautiful expression of the gospel when done with a humble demeanor.

Both Pearcey (2004) and Kaemingk and Willson (2020) provide believers in Jesus Christ with a framework through which we can see our work as part of developing God’s kingdom. I have often seen God’s kingdom in an eschatological sense, intertwined with the hope in Christ’s second coming, which will restore God’s creation and relationships. While this is not illegitimate, one component that has helped me is that God’s kingdom is an “already/not yet” reality. The kingdom of God is one of those components we eagerly anticipate that God will bring about in His timing (not yet). Still, in the same breath, followers of Jesus Christ play a role in manifesting God’s kingdom (already). When considering this eschatological hope, I have had to ask how the cultural mandate fits into this. Where does this leave the tasks that the cultural mandate demands? My job? My vocation? My professional endeavors? If I believe that God’s kingdom is not yet, doesn’t this provide a warrant for inaction? Does the idea that God will make all things new (again, a “not yet” understanding of God’s kingdom) make investment in things like our vocation meaningless? While I have heard this argument and seen it manifested through my own passivity, it is not a legitimate lens through which followers of Jesus Christ should view their work. Dooyeweerd (1960), in his work In the Twilight of Western Thought, suggests that “in the historical process of cultural development, a normative human vocation reveals itself, a cultural task committed to man at his creation” (p. 98). My role as a librarian, “a cultural task committed to man at his creation” (Dooyeweerd, 1960, p. 98), plays a role in cultural development. In the larger context, many would agree that higher education (the context in which I serve as a librarian) is a critical piece of cultural development. Subsequently, my role in that context is to restore creation and relationships and manifest the cultural mandate. Perhaps librarianship plays a role in manifesting an eschatological hope through my professional endeavors to restore creation and relationships.

Some have argued that God’s command to Adam and Eve to subdue the earth and have dominion over it is to be “understood by the Christian and the Christian Church today as being their task to bring the world into conformity to God’s will, to make the world Christian in every sphere of society” (Mare, 1973, p. 139). Many feel that actions like these (and the many tasks that librarians do, including teaching, administration, organization, etc.) minimize the effect of the fall of man and, subsequently, a venue through which one manifests the gospel.

I want to suggest that the cultural mandate of Genesis 1 calls for humanity, including librarians, to play a role in the progressive growth of culture, explicitly empowering our culture to develop in a way that brings it closer to the characteristics of God and His kingdom. Greg Smith (2002), in his essay entitled “The Cultural Mandate, The Pursuit of Knowledge, and the Christian Librarian,” provides some intriguing insight regarding how Christian librarians should look at the cultural mandate. In his essay, Smith references Erich Sauer’s work. Sauer (1962) suggests that Genesis 1:26-28 “plainly declare(s) the vocation of the human race to rule. They also call him to progressive growth in culture. Far from being something in conflict with God, cultural achievements are an essential attribute of man’s nobility, as he possessed them in Paradise. Inventions and discoveries, the sciences and the arts, refinement, and ennobling, in short, the advance of the human mind are throughout the will of God” (pp. 80-81). As a venue for research, rest, and discovery, libraries and their librarians play a critical role in many institutions that empower knowledge development and further discovery of the will of God.

I would like to note that some of the ideas mentioned in Genesis 1:28 may be unsettling in the modern-day context. For example, dominion and subduction (parts of the cultural mandate) carry negative tones in much of today’s dialog. While I do not aim to neglect this, I feel these ideas can bring positive tones. For example, humanity’s dominion over the natural sciences has empowered much of the prosperity in modernity. Likewise, the concept of subduction mentioned in the cultural mandate often carries the idea of oppression, which is a legitimate concern. In the context of the cultural mandate, this idea of subduction has also led some to argue that humanity has God-given rights to utilize the earth’s resources while simultaneously lacking care. However, subduction often carries the idea of bringing something under control. Subduction is used in building bridges over rivers, as they need to ‘subdue’ the river and somehow get it under control to make the bridge’s foundational components. Perhaps it is contexts like this that this text refers to when God states humanity’s task of subduing the earth. One should also recall that the cultural mandate was established before humanity’s sinful nature. I don’t feel that this dismisses the relevance of the cultural mandate, but it should help us understand that our sinful nature tends to abuse and misuse things for our own sinful desires that God created for good. In light of this, perhaps we should not wholly reject the cultural mandate because it asks us to pursue dominion and subduction. Still, we should investigate how these can be done in light of a biblical framework, working this out in a context of humility, as we understand that our efforts to utilize the earth for the prosperity of humanity have been corrupted by the fall. Subsequently, protocols that might lead us to further care for God’s creation, which reflect both the creation mandate and humanity’s sinful nature, should be established.

The development of this blog is how I am responding to the cultural mandate. The cultural mandate states that we should have dominion over all facets of life. I desire to investigate what it might look like to utilize the responsibility given to me in the cultural mandate and to understand what it might look like to give Jesus Christ dominion over librarianship. I will refer to the cultural mandate throughout my blogs (as I believe it is a crucial dynamic to looking at a faithful librarian). Hopefully, this blog entry provided some context of what I aim to do in seeing librarianship through the lens of Genesis 1:26-28.

References

Dooyeweerd, H. (1960). In the Twilight of Western Thought. Reformed Publishing.

Frame, J. M. (1987). The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Baker.

Kaemingk, M. & Willson, C. (2020). Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy. Baker Academic.

Mare, H. W. (1973). The Cultural Mandate and the New Testament Gospel Imperative. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 16, 139-47.

Pearcey, N. (2004). Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. Crossway Books.

Sauer, E. (1962). The King of the Earth: the Nobility of Man according to the Bible and Science. Paternoster Press.

Smith, G. A. (2002). The Cultural Mandate, The Pursuit of Knowledge, and the Christian Librarian. In G. A. Smith (Ed.), Christian Librarianship: Essays on the Integration of Faith and Librarianship (pp. 28–39). McFarland & Co.