Post by RPankn on Feb 7, 2005 4:53:01 GMT -5
Published Monday
February 7, 2005
THE BOSTON GLOBE
Christian consultants such as Drew Crandall are encouraging workers to persuade employers that diversity programs should include religious faith, too.
"Cultural diversity is now very much in vogue. So, our goal is to help corporations to recognize that Christians are part of that diversity," said Crandall, director of Northeast Christians at Work, a Connecticut nonprofit that aids in the creation of workplace ministries in New England, New York and New Jersey.
"We want to widen the net to include anyone in the workplace, from the CEO to the janitor to the cashier," he said.
That net is spreading as more workers attempt to integrate their work and personal lives.
More than 1,300 workplace ministries were operating by 2004, up from just 50 a dozen years ago, said Os Hillman, founder of the International Coalition of Workplace Ministries in Georgia.
About 900 are nonprofits that reach out to workers, he said. The rest have sprung up at companies across the country, including Intel, the computer chip maker, and California-based Silicon Graphics, a maker of computing, storage, and visualization systems.
"There has been a proliferation of corporate groups in the last few years," Hillman said. "One reason is the failure of ethics in corporate America, and another factor is that people are spending more time at work than they did 10 years ago. Corporations are realizing that the employees' total life must be represented." [What does that say about us as a society that we spend so much time at work that there are those who seek to integrate home with work life?]
At Intel in Hudson, engineer David Romano, 46, of Cumberland, R.I., says he cannot separate faith from work. Romano heads a lunchtime Bible study group, but confines his discussions about God to co-workers who wish to talk about their beliefs.
"Intel prohibits outward evangelism," he said. "We cannot go from cube to cube to bring people into the faith."
Engineer Paul Dormitzer, 39, of Acton, sits three cubicles from Romano, but the two men never talk about religion, and Dormitzer likes it that way.
"I've never felt that anyone was proselytizing in this workplace," he said.
Dormitzer says he doesn't attend Bible study meetings, but feels his peers should if they want to.
At a recent lunchtime meeting, Romano and several colleagues read Scripture, including Colossians 3:15. "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful," Romano said as members followed on laptops, Palm Pilots, and bound volumes of the Bible.
"God doesn't want religion," Romano told members in the meeting room. "He wants a relationship."
Until recently, most employers frowned on religious expression at work, Carmel Chiswik, a religious economist at the University of Illinois, Chicago, said. But that's changing.
"People with higher incomes are paying attention to religion and expressing it at work," Chiswik said.
But as religious expression increases at work, so do disputes over the way religious speech and behavior should be governed and the degree to which employers are legally required to accommodate religious practices.
Disputes over religion are increasing because companies are more diverse, said Washington lawyer Eric Siegel. He believes such conflicts are due, in part, to the influx of immigrants whose Muslim faith requires strict adherence to prayer as well as the spread of Christian evangelism.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that religious bias charges jumped to 2,532 in fiscal 2003, up from 1,388 in fiscal 1992, an 82 percent increase.
Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers cannot discriminate because of workers' religious beliefs and must provide reasonable accommodations as long as those accommodations do not cause undue hardship.
Copyright ©2005 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or distributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=46&u_sid=1329936
February 7, 2005
THE BOSTON GLOBE
Christian consultants such as Drew Crandall are encouraging workers to persuade employers that diversity programs should include religious faith, too.
"Cultural diversity is now very much in vogue. So, our goal is to help corporations to recognize that Christians are part of that diversity," said Crandall, director of Northeast Christians at Work, a Connecticut nonprofit that aids in the creation of workplace ministries in New England, New York and New Jersey.
"We want to widen the net to include anyone in the workplace, from the CEO to the janitor to the cashier," he said.
That net is spreading as more workers attempt to integrate their work and personal lives.
More than 1,300 workplace ministries were operating by 2004, up from just 50 a dozen years ago, said Os Hillman, founder of the International Coalition of Workplace Ministries in Georgia.
About 900 are nonprofits that reach out to workers, he said. The rest have sprung up at companies across the country, including Intel, the computer chip maker, and California-based Silicon Graphics, a maker of computing, storage, and visualization systems.
"There has been a proliferation of corporate groups in the last few years," Hillman said. "One reason is the failure of ethics in corporate America, and another factor is that people are spending more time at work than they did 10 years ago. Corporations are realizing that the employees' total life must be represented." [What does that say about us as a society that we spend so much time at work that there are those who seek to integrate home with work life?]
At Intel in Hudson, engineer David Romano, 46, of Cumberland, R.I., says he cannot separate faith from work. Romano heads a lunchtime Bible study group, but confines his discussions about God to co-workers who wish to talk about their beliefs.
"Intel prohibits outward evangelism," he said. "We cannot go from cube to cube to bring people into the faith."
Engineer Paul Dormitzer, 39, of Acton, sits three cubicles from Romano, but the two men never talk about religion, and Dormitzer likes it that way.
"I've never felt that anyone was proselytizing in this workplace," he said.
Dormitzer says he doesn't attend Bible study meetings, but feels his peers should if they want to.
At a recent lunchtime meeting, Romano and several colleagues read Scripture, including Colossians 3:15. "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful," Romano said as members followed on laptops, Palm Pilots, and bound volumes of the Bible.
"God doesn't want religion," Romano told members in the meeting room. "He wants a relationship."
Until recently, most employers frowned on religious expression at work, Carmel Chiswik, a religious economist at the University of Illinois, Chicago, said. But that's changing.
"People with higher incomes are paying attention to religion and expressing it at work," Chiswik said.
But as religious expression increases at work, so do disputes over the way religious speech and behavior should be governed and the degree to which employers are legally required to accommodate religious practices.
Disputes over religion are increasing because companies are more diverse, said Washington lawyer Eric Siegel. He believes such conflicts are due, in part, to the influx of immigrants whose Muslim faith requires strict adherence to prayer as well as the spread of Christian evangelism.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that religious bias charges jumped to 2,532 in fiscal 2003, up from 1,388 in fiscal 1992, an 82 percent increase.
Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers cannot discriminate because of workers' religious beliefs and must provide reasonable accommodations as long as those accommodations do not cause undue hardship.
Copyright ©2005 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or distributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=46&u_sid=1329936
