Faith at Work

While J was off getting a post-surgical check-up this morning, I was busying myself with the media archive that is a waiting room magazine collection. I came across a New York Times magazine article called, “Faith at Work” by Russell Shorto (10/31/04), featuring various businesses where prayer and “saving” are common with co-workers and customers. This paragraph particularly gave me pause:

On-the-job evangelism extends far beyond [the highlighted Minneapolis community]. In 2001, Angie Tracey, an employee at the Centers for Disease Control, organized what she calls a "comprehensive workplace ministry," among the first officially sanctioned employee religious groups within the federal government. She says that many colleagues have been "saved" at her group's Bible studies and other gatherings on government property, and she describes the federal agency's not-yet-saved employees as "fertile ground." Her program has spread rapidly within the C.D.C., and employees at other divisions of the federal government -- the Census Bureau, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management -- have contacted her about bringing the Word into their workplaces, too.

Fertile ground?

Reads more like a hostile work environment to me.

I certainly don’t discount Christianity. In fact, I grew up in a Christian household and have many family and friends who are to varying degrees casually to profoundly religious.

For me, Christianity is simply not the one, absolute truth. With so much similarity in world faith and so many valuable truths in secular philosophy, I don’t imagine that our flawed society would possess or otherwise know the absolute about anything…

That said, if there is a single barrier between me and a renewed relationship with a church, it is America’s religious (as a group – as represented by their leadership).

Alternately used as a haughty platform for judgment or a junkie’s opiate for surviving day-to-day unhappiness (think, prozac through prayer), America’s brand of Christianity often strikes me as anything but….

Principles of empathy, shared welfare and service that I’ve drawn from a Christian background as well as secular philosophy, seem secondary in mainstream religion. I remember reading an article before the election about how true Christians could not be liberals (because of issues of tolerance and choice), but I can’t imagine a Christianity that’s not liberal – particularly in supporting peace, understanding, social welfare, social justice and opportunity.

There, I suppose, our paths diverge.

One of the highlighted boss-missionaries in the article prays over things like mortgages and home sales with his customers. Does that strike you as small and selfish in a world at War – a conflict he likely supports? Somehow it doesn’t strike me as particularly, well, Good – if we’re applying capital letters to absolute things.

This article concerns me greatly – especially from my place here in the Midwest (certainly part of the Bible Belt). I believe our founders made the right choice in drawing a line between the public and private, in recognizing the both great and terrible power of religion. Although some Christian values could do well to improve the culture of work, proselytizing and intolerance (a necessary tenant of any philosophy that believes itself the final truth) can serve no greater good…

Buy the article here.

Read more excerpts here.

Comments

[Lisa]

I know how you feel, last night I was at a party and this woman started talking about how terrible it was that a nearby state veteran's building took down a cross it had put up in it's yard b/c it violated sep of church and state laws. She was saying, "What's next, they are going to want to take crosses out of our homes." So I asked her, "Did you decorate your house for Christmas this year?" She said "Yes." I said, "Did you put a big cross out in your front yard." She said, "No." So I said, "Well, call them and ask them if you can have it for your yard." She didn't get it.

[df]

the crux of it for me is this:
can you tell anyone anything in sincere desire for their good or the good of those around them?

can you teach people to find food? maybe people shouldn't eat so much. should you show people how to meditate? perhaps it violates firmly held traditions and beliefs unique to their cultural perspective.

anyone who functions in absolutes is a missionary a million times over every day.

the question is, what are you proselytizing? exercise, work ethic, time saving traffic routes, a tasty dish, or god forbid, spiritual things?

to completely leave that thought hanging and address your other comment:
"With so much similarity in world faith and so many valuable truths in secular philosophy, I don’t imagine that our flawed society would possess or otherwise know the absolute about anything…"

maybe the problem doesn't lie within the similarity of "American 'c'hristianity"
to other helpful thoughts and worldview systems. I propose that the problem is for anyone to take Christ's teachings seriously (and i agree with you about them being much more liberal than you would ever think by visiting an evangelical church or listening to NPR) requires such mind-bending self-denial and devotion that most people could not handle it. Subsequently, they create communities with similar values, emphases and political positions in order to effectively relativize the high call that they refuse to follow. The dopamine isn't prayer, it is the unconscious structuring of ones community of faith around ideas that don't cause them to feel too uncomfortable. Communities fill with syncretist thought that mix the values of this age with what proports itself to be eternal.

and what my friend does that leave you with. a meeting on sunday morning and a whole load of bullshit with Jesus' face on the cover.

[leigh]

Very intriguing comments there, daniel...

I wonder, do you think that work carries some special rules? That the opportunities for pressuring religious decisions or conformity are greater than in every day life? Telling someone something that might help them is one thing - making it a part of the job is another ... I think that crosses the line from invitation / information to compulsion.

And, then, too, I wrestle with how mundane people make prayer and how much more so in the workplace. Truly, that one example they gave was a banker who prays over mortgages (please, let them qualify) with his customers. It seems.... slimey or manipulative or just too mundane for a real relationship with your god. It seems to me that religion (or, faith, really) has as much to gain from the private as those of us with secular concerns do.

[df]

i think i owe a bit of an apology as my comments were a bit off the topic of proselytizing in the workplace. would you suffer me some more space to respond to your questions?

all things being equal, i think work is for working. but if one is living an integrated life whereby their beliefs and values inform their thoughts, words and actions everywhere they go, i can imagine that for such a person creating a duality between "work" and "life" would amount to compartmentalization and falsehood (ironically the same character flaws that get "born-agains" to sign off on "just wars")

I think we've got our guns pointed at the wrong institution though. Why do we expect corporate environments to be scrubbed clean of many of the more gritty or controversial elements of our humanity. The corporation, or any workplace functioning on capitalist principles operates as a machine subordinate ultimately to the Bottom Line. Many SAY they value diversity in the workplace, but only insofar as it is scrubbed clean of anything politically or religiously offensive or exclusive and is repressed sexually and holds the same value of financial security and success high.

People are not productive if they are unable to repress themselves sexually or morally, they get in fights and affairs, they proselytize. All very bad things when you're running a machine. You need your people, to a reasonable degree, to be lockstep with you. All that to say, why are we criticizing people who are acting with integrity based on their strongly held belief system because it doesn't fit nicely into the corporate culture executives have developed in order to make more money. these are just some thoughts. .

with regard to the mortgage broker in your example; something strikes me immediately as odd as well. but, we can't forget that we live in somewhat odd times where there is little integration of prayer with the greater world around us. It is that dualism between secular and sacred that jars us so in response to your example.

Our real estate agent prayed a very similarly prayer with amy and i when we met with him to make our first offer. He was also an old friend of mine and an old pastor of my church, so it wasn't too weird.

I think, practically, if i'm honest with myself, and i take the biblical charge literally (heaven forbid) to "pray without ceasing", then everything from the poor and oppressed to finding a parking space has merit as a message to God.

However, if i am caught in a season of life similar to the one i find myself in now, where prayer is at a premium, and the contents of my prayers must be prioritized, then yes, i think praying for a mortgage is dumb, considering we're bombing the fuck out of half the world.

print it off, and give it to your local barista with $2.50, and you'll score yourself a small breve latte'.