16. Work (Remastered)

Work

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Genesis 1:27-28, and our subject, ‘Work.’

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” 

Our subject today being work, it may strike you as strange that we consider it in relationship to the Sixth Commandment instead of the fourth. Very obviously, it does belong under the fourth. The fourth commandment declares, “Six days shalt thou labor.” Thus, there has to be some compelling reason to consider it in terms of another commandment. It obviously belongs under the fourth, but it also belongs under the sixth. The reason for this classification under the Sixth Commandment is the creation mandate. Man’s calling was to subdue the earth, that is, to work it, to exercise dominion over it, to establish God’s rule over it, over every area of nature by developing its potentialities, and bringing it to its destined purpose under God. 

Work continued after the Fall but with the curse added? Now, the purpose of work after the Fall was restorational. Man, having, through his sin, brought the curse unto the world, whilst after his redemption by work to reestablish his dominion over the earth and to undo the consequences of the fall. The redeemed man’s purpose then is restoration, the restored kingdom of God. The goal of it is described by Isaiah 11:9:

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

This verse as well as others like it bring out the relationship to the Sixth Commandment. 

The goal of our redemption is a world in which the hurt, the killing power of sin, is nullified, so that they do not hurt nor destroy in all God’s realm, and the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters of the sea. Work, thus, has an important part in the law, in all of Scripture. In fact, the book of Proverbs is very extensively devoted to bringing home to us the duty of work and the purpose of work, and it is full of many, many, choice verses: 

[H]e that gathereth by labour shall increase.

Proverbs 13:11.

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule:

But the slothful shall be under tribute.

Proverbs 12:24.

The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing:

But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.

Proverbs 13:4.

Seest thou a man diligent in his business?

He shall stand before kings;

Proverbs 22:29

It would be possible to go on for an hour, dealing with these verses, just citing the verses in Proverbs that deal with work, that emphasize that they who work shall bear rule, shall exercise dominion. 

Now, as we analyze work and its significance, one of the things that we quickly realize is that the Scripture is right, work does have a restorational function, that is, a healing function. Its effect on the mentally retarded has been extensively documented. Whenever morons and mentally sick people have been placed in factories or in a work situation, the effect on them has been dramatic. In a number of cases where morons, for example, have been taken out of mental institutions and put to work in factories, the managers have declared that as far as they’re concerned, they can’t tell the difference between them or any of the other workmen. If anything, the morons are the happiest ones and are as capable. 

The same is true of mentally sick people. Some institutions used to, but very few today do, emphasize work, and those that do find this to be the basic therapy. When people are given useful work, the effect on them is tremendous. 

A few years ago, a very extensive bit of research was done by a couple of doctors entitled Culture and Mental Disorders,ⁱ this was a study of Hutterites. And the point that was made was that the Hutterites do not believe in psychiatrists,ⁱⁱ and they will not institutionalize either their mentally disturbed or their mentally retarded. What do they do? They put them under the strict discipline that characterizes Hutterite life. The Hutterites are an extreme branch of the Amish, and you find them predominantly in the Dakotas and in Canada.

These people are given a working place in the society, they must bend to the discipline that is required of them. And the results are remarkable; they have no problems with these people. And since work is the basic pattern for all in a Hutterite society, these doctors found that the Hutterites show a very low disease rate, because they combine a strong faith with highly disciplined work. The list of diseases and ailments to which they are rarely ever prey to, for there is an extremely low incidence, takes almost two pages; here are a few of them. They have; lower chronic insomnia, drug addiction, asthma, food allergies, hay fever, suicide, urinary tract infections, fear of death, coronary diseases, cancer, constipation, spastic colitis, menstrual disorders, female frigidity and the like. ⁱⁱⁱ

The curative power of faith combined with work, these doctors pointed out, is amazing among the Hutterites, and they have found that in other life societies where you find these two things, the impact is tremendous. Thus we can say that the restorative function of work is well established. Work is necessary, especially necessary for men, and it has been over and over again pointed out that men, who, because of financial circumstances, do not need to work, become, no matter how intelligent, somewhat immature. And as the years progress, such people become progressively more immature, and the gap between them and other men widens. Work is man’s calling and destiny. Work, therefore, brings man to his self-fulfillment. Man was created to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over it; to work the earth under God and bring it to God’s destined purpose, so that when man does not fulfill that purpose under God, he ceases to be truly a man.

American society and culture, above all others, has, in its past, been dedicated to work. So much so that, until recent years, we can say until the twenties, wealthy people who did not want to work left the United States and went to France or England to live because the public contempt for the rich was such that a rich man either continued working in America, or he left the country. This of course, has rapidly changed since the twenties. 

Yet we see, in spite of all the evidence, and the body of literature that deals with the healing function of work is tremendous, there is a bitterness against work in our day, a feeling that it’s a burden, and the extensive appeal of Marxism to many people because the heart of Marxism is that man is that man is better than work and he must be freed from work, that work must be abolished. And today of course, the basic teaching in our universities is that we are the nation, we have arrived, utopia is here, and work is no longer necessary, and a society which demands that young people work is a society geared to the past. 

Today’s West magazine in the L.A. Times carried a statement describing college youth as no longer interested in preparing to work, but preparing for life and play. After all, work is obsolete in their estimation. Thus, we have a very curious situation. We have two contradictory facts. We have a growing body of literature which tells us, on the one hand, of the curative, of the healing nature of work. And on the other hand, we have a flight from work as slavery. Here is a real paradox. Work on the one hand declared to be healing, and on the other hand declared to be slavery, and men running from it. How shall we understand this contradiction?

Well, the contradiction exists, first of all, in man’s being, and therefore in man’s society and in man’s thinking. Man knows in his soul that work is his destiny under God. Man knows that he finds his self-realization in assuming the responsibilities of manhood in terms of work and in terms of the responsibility of work. He recognizes in his being that a man’s manhood is essentially tied to his ability to work. But at the same time, man comes face to face with a fact of the fall; God’s curse on his work, the frustration in work, and man runs from this reality. The curse is there, he knows it, the frustration is imbedded there and man recognizes it. 

But rather than recognizing that it is because he is a sinner, that he is in rebellion against God and the world is a fallen world, and it must be subdued by faith and the work of faith, man frets and rebels against work because work reveals to him the fact of the Fall and the curse. So, instead of saying, “I am a sinner, and therefore whatever I do the fact of frustration the fact of the curse reveals itself therein,” man says, “The frustration and curse is in work, and if I get rid of work then I get rid of the curse.” And so, the appeal of Marxism is precisely this. The moron may find contentment in work, but most men as sinners find in it their frustration. Their self-realization and the fact of self-knowledge of what they are, and they run from it. 

And so, the socialist dreamers capitalize on this fact. They offer a man utopia in which curse and work are separated, in which both are abolished by the abolition of a certain class of men. In other words, the Marxist says, “There is a curse, we agree, but the curse is in a certain class; the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, and if we abolish this class, if we eliminate them, execute them, then we abolish the curse from the face of the earth and we restore paradise.” And with paradise restored then there will be no longer any problem for man, nor any curse. If fact, a man will not have to work, but if he works, he can work as he pleases just for the pleasure of it. Karl Marx wrote:

“For as soon as labour is distributed, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing to-day and another to-morrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.” ^iv

In other words, Marx said communism will abolish the necessity of work. Everything will be produced automatically one way or another. So, if you want to be Paganini in evening, you can, if you want to be a cattleman in the afternoon just for the fun of it, get on a horse and ride cattle, you can. Work will now be a hobby, a play. So that you can be a half a dozen things during the day if you so choose. Now, as Gary North has pointed out in Marx’s Religion of Revolution:

“Marx’s concept of human alienation was used by him as a substitute for the Christian doctrine of the fall of man.” ^v

And that is exactly the case. Socialism in every form, whether Marxist or Fabian, recognizes that there is a curse, it recognizes that there is a fall. The Marxist term for it is ‘alienation,’ but this curse, this fall, is to be eliminated by eliminating a class! In other words, sin is in a class, not in the heart of man. Because of their position, these socialists are engaged in a flight from reality, and therefore from work. They cannot exercise dominion; they can kill, but they do not have the ability, because they are not men under God, to exercise dominion, to subdue the earth and to develop it; they cannot work, they cannot produce, they are parasites.

And so today the worker runs from reality, he seeks escape in play, liquor, in anything and everything except responsibility. And the condition of man’s life today is one of chronic discontent, he is out of touch with reality. And of course, this is the best definition of insanity that has ever been given. Modern man and society are out of touch with reality! The Marxists, the Fabian Socialists, The Republicans, the Tories and the Liberals, the Labour Party, go all over the face of the earth. Men today are out of touch with reality, and that is insanity.

As one Irish scholar scholar, Niall Brennan, wrote, commenting on our mass insanity he said:

“The poor may suffer from reality, but that is better than suffering from make-believe.” ^vi

And this brings us to an important fact. In a socialist age, in an age that runs from reality, from work, you have a new hero, the master of make-believe. And so, the actor becomes important, the actor sets the style, he sets the pace. Is it any wonder that, in the past two generations, the actor has been so important in our society and one of the best-paid people? A world that is running from work is a world living in make believe, it is a world concerned with appearances rather than production. Socialism cannot produce, it is parasitic, that’s why it’s materialistic. It has to conquer and eat up, it has to function always as a parasite. It believes in appearances, not in production. And as a result, actors and actresses become the public idols and the pacesetters. 

The best politicians are those that are best at putting on an appearance and evoking, as Eisenhower did, a father image. Or as John F. Kennedy did, of the dashing young Galahad and so on. The actor becomes the politician, the new religion becomes appearance, and appearance and the cultivation of appearance becomes a religious matter. 

A very interesting statement appears in a work by an Italian count, who is the leader in the jet set, and he quotes the opinion of one of the most famous hair designers of Europe, who is important in the jet set, and fabulously wealthy. From Count Lanfranco Rasponi: The International Nomads.

“‘Between the hair stylist and the woman,’ Alexandre stated to me, in a most articulate manner, caressing ever so softly his beard, ‘a complete communion is necessary like in a church [sic]. In order to reach this relationship there must be full confession of the client to the man she trusts with one of her most precious possessions: her locks.’” ^vii

Notice the religious language; ‘communion,’ ‘church,’ ‘confession.’ The religion of make-believe takes over when men run from work. And such a society is appearance and consumption-entered, it loses progressively its capacity to produce, it has an insane self-absorption and enchantment with appearance. And this is why, all over the world, the rate of productivity of labor is diminishing, and the consequence of this will be international suicide.

As of now, few countries like the United States and West Germany, and Japan also, are producing, and the rest are living parasitically on their production! But when the rate of production in these countries, which is diminishing, disappears, the world will go down the drain. For the socialist is like the actor, he is enamored with dreams, with appearances. 

The socialist and the actor, as a result, will always have much in common. This is why, inescapably, Hollywood always has leaned to the left; it is concerned with appearances, not with reality, with make belief rather than with work. But God created man to exercise dominion, to subdue the earth, and after the Fall to undo, when redeemed, the killing, destroying effect of the Fall, to restore this earth under God. And to this end, work is the means, its goal is the restored kingdom of God, a world in which:

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:9.

Let us pray.

* * *

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy so great salvation, for the calling thou hast given us to subdue, to work the earth, and to exercise dominion over it. We thank thee that thou hast redeemed us from the world of make-believe and appearances to the world of work and responsibility unto thee. Bless us in our calling, and grant that, by thy grace, we may erect a banner to which godly men may repair, unto the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Grant us this we beseech thee. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray. Amen. 

* * *

Are there any questions now first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience member] Is the process of restoration happening now, do you think, or will it begin happening in the future, Dr. Rushdoony? ^viii

[Rushdoony] Yes. The process of restoration is in its beginning stages now, I do believe. But just as we never see a seed growing until it breaks through the ground, so today much of it is still underground, invisible. I would say first of all one of the greatest areas of restoration is the Christian school movement. 

Now, I’m fully aware of the defects of the school movements and its weaknesses, but it is rearing children in the faith and making tremendous strides in spite of all its shortcomings. It is a growing movement, and the zeal with which it is being accomplished is tremendous.

Last week, when I was in New Jersey, I talked with one young man in Dover, New Jersey, who has begun a small school, a Christian school, and a very fine one and has started in areas ‘round about kindergartens, which will have the first-grade next year. He’s gone as far afield as Connecticut to start these kindergartens, and he has become a kind of traveling bishop over these schools. He hopes, within a few years, to start a hundred such schools; this is one young man. Now, there is tremendous area where there is restorational work. 

Second, in the area of Christian philosophy, the work of men like Van Til and others; there is definitely a tremendous and very important work. And we could go on and cite other such things that are, as yet, in their infancy, they are like sprouts beneath the ground, but they shall appear and grow rapidly. 

[Audience member] But when did this work of restoration begin? ^ix

[Rushdoony] Oh no, no. I thought you had made reference to the present. The work of restoration was begun first of all after the flood through Noah and his family, the line of Shem, then with the calling of Abraham, then with the establishment of the chosen people, then with the establishment, through Christ, of the new chosen people, the church, the true church of God. And through the centuries as this has been developed, and by trial and error one false start after another has been shelved, God has been preparing the way for the real growth. To us, the growth of evil seems very imposing, but we must realize that God says repeatedly in Scripture that even the growth of evil is for a purpose; to prepare the way in terms of His sovereign decree.

Yes?

[Audience member] How can we be a part of this? ^x

[Rushdoony] Every one of us has a purpose in this, we are a part of the restoration to the extent that we bring our lives under the dominion of God and to the extent that day-by-day we are faithful to him and serve him honestly and faithfully in our calling. 

Yes?

[Audience member] The Amish have their own very serious problems, though. ^xi

[Rushdoony] Yes, I didn’t cite the Amish as an ideal order, but simply that they have been studied extensively as to the healing function of work. Of course, their relationship being faith and work. But I also cited the evidence in factories of the healing nature of work when it is applied to people who are mentally sick or mentally retarded. So, I would not agree with the Amish, and especially the Hutterites, I was just citing them as an example here of the healing function of work.

Yes?

[Audience member] Why is it some people don’t seem to like work? ^xii

[Rushdoony] Well, first of all, when man is out of tune with God, he is out of tune with everything, he is under the effect of the curse. And today, a great deal is made out of the fact that work is more demeaning, more mechanical, and so on. Actually, there is less unskilled labor now then there was fifty years ago. Unskilled labor is disappearing, and most jobs do require intelligence and skill. So it isn’t the work, it’s the person who’s working. And because he is chronically discontented, he is running away from life. As a result, you have growing incidence of escape mechanisms; gambling, liquor, drug addiction, anything and everything to run away from life. Because the problem is, as long as they are alive, as it were, they feel the effect of the curse. They know that they’re sinners, they know that they’ve got to reckon with God, and they don’t want to, so they run. And they always begin by running from work, because this is what it means to be a man, a man’s calling is work.

Yes?

[Audience member] Some people see work as a curse.

[Rushdoony] Yes, some people look upon work as the curse and there is no ground for this. In fact, in Revelation we are given a vision of the new creation where, “His servants shall serve him,” there shall be work, but there shall be no more curse, we are told on work in the new creation. So, the attitude that work is a curse, of course, is playing right into the hand of the Marxists.

Yes?

[Audience member] I’ve heard of studies to the effect that it is detrimental to a man’s life expectancy to retire. ^xiii

[Rushdoony] Yes, some years ago a Dr. Chaney of the University of California medical center said that most men died within three years, according to a set of statistics he’d worked up in certain professions, within three years after retiring. Work is a man’s calling, and it is necessary for a man to keep working. Some men are very sensible, when they are compelled to retire, they simply assume another kind of work where they don’t have that problem. But the compulsory retirement age, I believe, if the civil liberties union wanted to get active in a really helpful area, is a violation of a man’s civil liberties. And this is one of the reasons of why we have it; our age is irresponsible. 

Now, under this irresponsibility you find that most administrators today admit that this works a hardship on them, in that they have to retire some of their most valuable men. But they don’t have the courage to fire those who say, at sixty-seven, or sixty-eight, or seventy-five, or seventy-nine, or eighty-three, begin to show incompetence. In other words, they’re gutless, they don’t have the gumption to say, “Sorry, we’re going to have to retire you.” They prefer to have everything mechanical, so it’s done automatically. The ability to fire is disappearing in business today.

Yes? 

[Audience member] What is the image of God in man, Dr. Rushdoony? ^xiv

[Rushdoony] Yes. We have a number of scattered verses in the Bible which identify the image of God, and I can, if you’ll remind me during the week, give you those verses. The image of God as defined by the Bible is; knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion. 

The image of God in us is this knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion we’ve been created to exercise. And in the Fall, of course, these things are obliterated in us, and with redemption, we again can function in terms of the image of God; we are recreated in His image. 

If you will check the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechism, you’ll find all the texts cited. 

Any other questions?

[Audience member] It seems to be that the young men with good character are encouraged to go into the pastorate, rather than other legitimate callings. It always seemed a bit off to me.

[Rushdoony] Yes, for a long, long, time it’s been the attitude, “Well, he’s such a fine young boy he should go into the ministry!” as though the ministry has a corner on virtue. Well, this is not Biblical. The minister should be a godly man, but not in any special sense. In other words, the Christian, in every calling, should be equally a man of virtue, and a man of godly attributes. And it is a part of the very unBiblical identification of the church with the kingdom of God. Now, this is a very important point. 

During the Middle Ages, the church and the kingdom of God were identified. So that, if you wanted to be in the kingdom of God, you were either in the church or under the church, therefore it was believed that the church should dominate the state and the school, the family, a man’s calling, every area of life, or else they were not Christian. 

Now, this, of course, led to ecclesiastical totalitarianism. The reaction to this on the part of the various monarchies was to assert instead the totalitarianism of the state. The church, school, family, every area should be under the state, and its rule is to be in the kingdom. So, the kingdom of God was identified with the state. And of course, socialism was an aspect of this civil totalitarianism. But, as Christians, we must believe, in terms of Scripture, that every area that is under God is a part of the kingdom of God and that no institution has an overall jurisdiction; the area of the church is the ministry of grace, the area of the state is the ministry of justice, the area of the school is education, the area of the family of course, an obvious one, for the wife to be a helpmeet to the man in his calling under God, and the children to be reared up under the discipline and authority of their parents and the nurture and admonition of the Lord. A man’s vocation is, wherever he is, to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth, to extend the sway of godly civilization and culture in that area.

Every area is equally under God, no one area is over another. Thus, the school has no right to govern the state or the church any more than the state and the church have a right to govern the school. Every area is on an equality with the other, and equally under God. The kingdom of God is every area of life. 

Now, this identification of the kingdom with the church still plagues Christians; Protestant and Catholic alike. They feel, “Well, if you’re an especially good boy you should be in ministry because that’s the place for good people!” And every other man is somehow on a cut below because he’s not as holy because he’s not in a holy calling. This is very, very wrong, and it is hostile to the Reformation principles. 

Well, our time is up, and we are adjourned.

i. Ralph Linton. Culture and Mental Disorders. Springfield, Illinois, U.S.A.: Charles C. Thomas, 1956.

ii. Niall Brennan: The Making of a Moron (New York: Shield and Ward, 1953), p. 166.

iii. Niall Brennan: The Making of a Moron (New York: Shield and Ward, 1953), pp. 234ff.

iv. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The German Ideology, Parts I & II (New York: International Publishers, 1947), p. 22.

v. Gary North: Marx’s Religion of Revolution (Nutley, New Jersey: The Craig Press, 1968), p. 53. Emphasis in the original.

vi. Niall Brennan: The Making of a Moron (New York: Shield and Ward, 1953), p. 140.

vii. Lanfranco Rasponi: The International Nomads (New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1966), p. 153^.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.