Other Faiths at Work
Yale Law Professor Stephen L. Carter’s book The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion got my attention back in 1993. Carter pointed to studies that show how influential religion has been not just in the past but in the present lives of most people. Even among those who no longer attend church, mosque, synagogue, or other religious fellowship, “religion” is often identified as the primary (or at least original) source of people’s ethics and values. If we really want to understand and respect our fellow-workers (and customers, business partners, et al) in their wholeness as human beings, we should listen to their views on religion, not expect them to bracket it all out of their lives. “Respect” does not mean agreement but it does mean understanding and inter-personal acceptance.
Our workplaces are focused on production and delivery of products and services. Proselytization (seeking to make converts) is something that usually gets in the way of our teams at work and is for that reason explicitly prohibited in most organizations. But getting to know someone’s religious background or commitments (during work breaks or before or after work hours)—just like knowing and empathizing with their other life interests and challenges—can actually build trust, respect, and teamwork. Not least, it can help us avoid any insensitive language or comments about religion.
In our globalized world of business and work, some of us will be making deals with people in deeply religious parts of the world’s marketplaces. Doing so with respect and full awareness of the religiously-based economic and social values, practices, and laws of these people and companies is essential to business success. For example, anyone doing business in predominantly Muslim contexts should get to know some basics about Islamic economic and social guidelines and practices.
It is also true that the world’s various religions contain insights and perspectives on good and bad work that could be helpful to the rest of us and to our organizations. Christians believe that workplace and economic truth is anchored in Jesus Christ and Scripture. But those anchors themselves teach us that God can speak truth through nature, through culture, through the consciences and moral intuitions of people who have God’s “law written on their heart,” as Paul wrote to the first-century Roman church. Back at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, I organized a symposium on “Constructive Insights on Business from the World’s Religions” with presentations from representatives of the Sikh, Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, Islamic, and Protestant faiths. It was a phenomenally rich and positive conversation in which we all shared from our faith positions, learned from each other, and then reflected on the implications for doing business in such a context of diversity.
Listening to others also “wins the right to be heard.” Listen to others and they are likely to be ready to listen to you. “Truth has nothing to be feared in a free and open encounter,” as the great Puritan writer John Milton observed in his “Areopagitica” speech (1644). It may be that our jaded, secularized Western culture prefers to ignore or silence religious concerns, especially those of Christians, but the answer is neither to hide our candle under a bushel-basket nor to seek a “Christian privilege,” but to work together with other religious groups for an open-minded, “faith friendly” workplace (just as others are lobbying for “LGBTQ-friendly,” “disability-friendly,” “ethnically-friendly,” and “age-friendly” workplaces). Francis Schaeffer used to urge Christians to be “co-belligerent” with other groups when appropriate.
Find a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu colleague or two and go for it!
—David W. Gill www.davidwgill.org