Monthly Archives: May 2023

WSJ: U.S. companies are paying increasing attention to the religious affiliation of their employees, and a growing number are including religion in policies aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

… “This is the next big thing in diversity,” said Brian Grim, president of the foundation, adding that religious affiliation overlaps with other categories of identity such as race or sexual orientation included in policies known as DEI—diversity, equity and inclusion—or more recently, DEIB, to include the value of belonging. “This isn’t a battleground issue, it becomes a thing that brings everybody together.”  Read the full article.

HBR: … “Companies that openly acknowledge and engage religious diversity as an asset, however, can strengthen team cohesion and improve performance. Accenture, for example, is designated as the number one Global 500 “faith and belief friendly company,” according to the 2023 Religious Equity Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) Index. Accenture offers inclusive holiday policies and religious literacy training, among other hallmarks. At the first annual Faith & Belief @ Work case competition, held at Brigham Young University in February, Sumreen Ahmad, a global change management lead at Accenture, spoke to the power of engaging religious diversity: “If leaders want to create an environment where people are not only incentivized to come to work but also where they can thrive for the greater good, they need to start by understanding what matters most.”

Read the full article here.

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Naomi Kraus, a senior content strategist for Google, still recalls the childhood experience of seeing a relative coming home from work with his yarmulke not topping his head because he could not reveal his faith at work.

Kraus, now the head of the technology company’s Inter Belief Network, said Jews like herself and people of other faiths can face discrimination on and off the job.

But, she said, they also feel greater acceptance through faith-related employee resource groups, or ERGs, that are growing in prominence in Fortune 500 firms and smaller companies. (Read the full story.)

Intel Corporation is the most faith-friendly workplace in the country according to this year’s ranking of large companies by the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation.

The Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) Index uses ten measures to determine a company’s ranking. (read more)

DE&I efforts have been atop corporate America’s to-do list in recent years, and faith is becoming part of that push. While many companies have programs to support women, people of color, and LBGTQ+ employees, some are investing in ways to make the workplace feel faith-friendly.

Intel topped the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s 2023 Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Index, an annual analysis of faith-friendly corporate workplaces.

public policy advocacy group has named semiconductor chip maker Intel Corp. as the “most faith-friendly” Fortune 500 company.

The nonprofit Religious Freedom & Business Foundation released its “2023 Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Index” on Monday at the group’s annual conference on faith at work. The index tracks “corporate America’s inclusion of religion as an integral part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives,” and ranks companies on their support of employee religious expression. (read more)

(RNS) — On Jan. 3, ESPN host Dan Orlovsky stunned viewers when he broke into prayer for Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills player who went into cardiac arrest the night before, on a live broadcast.

“God, we come to you in these moments that we don’t understand, that are hard because we believe that you’re God and coming to you and praying to you has impact. We’re sad. We’re angry. And we want answers, but some things are unanswerable,” he said. “We just want to pray, truly come to you and pray for strength for Damar, for healing for Damar, for comfort for Damar.”

This prayer is emblematic of the kind of religious freedom promoted by the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation, said President Brian Grim. The organization released its 2023 benchmark assessment of corporate America’s religious diversity efforts Monday morning (May 22). (read more)

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation is holding its annual conference on faith in the workplace Founder and President Brian Grim joins Inside Sources to discuss why making room for religious diversity and freedom at work is important for the success of the employees and the company as a whole. Listen.

U.S. Fortune 500 companies ranked as the most “faith friendly” in a newly released survey share practices such as providing chaplains and spiritual care in the workplace, openly addressing religion in company diversity training and matching worker contributions to religious charities.

Intel Corp., American Airlines and Equinix ranked first, second and third respectively among American corporations in those and numerous other categories measured in the fourth annual Religious Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Index and Monitor produced by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation. (Read more.)

This strategy also seeks to leverage the fight against other forms of hatred – including discrimination and bias against all religious minorities, race, and gender.

Brian Grim, Ph.D and president of the Religious Freedom Business Foundation is Catholic, working closely with the Biden Administration on this. He’s teaching Fortune 500 companies how all faiths working in business can build a better world.

“So, by having information that helps people overcome something that they think they know about, but really, it’s hard to, unless you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you don’t understand how it continues to imply Jews today,” said Grim. (Read more.)

Why and how we must support the White House strategy to counter antisemitism

By Brian Grim

Some years ago I was at the Vatican with Father David Maria Jaeger OMF, a member of the Roman Rota, the highest ecclesiastical court constituted by the Holy See related to judicial trials conducted in the Catholic Church, akin to being the Vatican’s Supreme Court.

Fr. Jaeger led Jewish-Christian dialogue and is well known for his role as a member of and juridical expert for the Delegation of the Holy See to the Bilateral Permanent Working Commission between the Holy See and the State of Israel. He contributed greatly to the progress of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel and the negotiations that led to the signing of agreements between the two States in 1993.

I was impacted by his booming voice as he adamantly proclaimed that Catholics cannot have freedom of religion and belief unless everyone, everywhere has this freedom. And of course, the Jewish community was close to his heart.

If anyone doubts that we are in this together, I’d also point an award-winning research article in which Richard Wike and I empirically demonstrated how antisemitism and Islamophobia may rise and fall together. We found that negative attitudes toward Jews were associated with negative attitudes toward Muslims.

And in The Price of Freedom Denied, Roger Finke and I explained how a religious minority anywhere can be the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” Miners used to take canaries with them into the mines as an early warning system – the canaries would pass out form oxygen depravation sooner than humans, warning the miners that they will be next. As we said in the book:

When reviewing human rights throughout European history, Michael Horowitz described Jews as the canaries in the coal mine. Nations persecuting Jews held less democratic commitment and were more likely to deny other freedoms as well. Horowitz also argued that vulnerable Christian communities are now also coal mine canaries around  the world.

And to boom out what Fr. Jaeger would say – everyone is a canary somewhere – we must defend the religious freedoms of every group, from Ahmadi Muslims and atheists to Sikhs and Scientologists and all the way to Zoroastrians! And at this moment in time, the significant rising tide of bias and discrimination toward the U.S. Jewish community documented empirically by the FBI and ADL makes them today’s canaries.

Spurred on by these facts and motivated by love of neighbor, the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation — as recognized in the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism released by the White House on May 25 — PLEDGES the following:

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Jewish Committee (AJC), will ensure that every faith-based Employee Resource Group (ERG) of Fortune 500 companies receives ADL and AJC materials on countering antisemitism and related forms of discrimination and bias, and materials on workplace religious accommodations, as well as on Jewish culture and contributions to American and world history.

Finally, let me share a few resources that are immediately available.

RESOURCES

Anticipating the launch of the National Strategy, we gathered together Fortune 500 companies with faith-based ERGs to recognize their commitment to with the Dare to Overcome Award in a ceremony on May 23, 2023, at the landmark Museum of the Bible in Washington DC for their ERGs’ work in countering antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of discrimination and bias against religious communities in the U.S. including anti-Christian, anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu, and other anti-religious as well as anti-atheism sentiment.

Companies that want to set up or learn about faith-based ERGs, please contact me directly. I’m also happy to connect you to other companies with well-developed and successful programs as well.

Also see AJC materials on countering antisemitism and related forms of discrimination and bias, workplace religious accommodations, and Jewish culture and contributions to American and world history.

Companies can join ADL’s Corporate Partners Against Hate here. To learn more about workplace education offerings, visit ADL at Work.

IN THE NEWS

JNS and The Jerusalem Post

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF) is the preeminent organization dedicated to educating the global business community, policymakers, non-government organizations and consumers about the positive power that faith and religious freedom for all (including those with no religious faith) have on workplaces and the economy.

The original impetus for forming the foundation came with the drafting of the 2013 White Paper Promoting Religious Freedom: A Corporate Social Responsibility and the 2014 research article Is Religious Freedom Good for Business?: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion (IJRR).

The research article found that religious freedom is one of only three factors significantly associated with global economic growth, providing empirical support for the principled findings of the White Paper.

Greg Clark, J.D., vice president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, was integrally involved in both publications, spurred on by his own experience as a corporate lawyer in the Gulf region. Hear his related podcast here.

Christina Clark, Ph.D., senior education engagement fellow at the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, has been sharing the message with business schools and at international gatherings worldwide, especially focusing on the faith-friendly movement within corporations. Hear her related podcast here.

Greg and Christina will discuss the genesis of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and the impact of its message at this year’s Dare to Overcome, May 22-24, in Washington DC.

By Brian Grim

My dad, Carlton L. Grim, 90, passed away Wednesday, May 03, 2023, at the home he built in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. My mom, Estola Grim, his bride of 68 years, my brother and I were with him in his last moments before he went to eternal glory.

A Celebration of Life Service at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Red Lion will be held on Saturday, May 13, where all of his 5 grandchildren and many of the 16 great grandchildren will gather. He’ll be laid to rest at Susquehanna Memorial Gardens with Military Honors, having served in Korea during the war.

Dad was a GI based in Cheorwon 철원군 during the war. In fact, I exist because of the war – dad met my mom when he was stationed in Augusta, Georgia, for training before he deployed to the front. He would sometimes go to a Korean church near his base on Cheorwon. In later years, he looked back on those days with pride in helping South Korea maintain independence and freedom, including religious freedom.

Of course, Christianity was strongest in North Korea before the war. So, there is a sort of unnatural religious situation today that I believe will be corrected when peace comes. Indeed, Christianity is even part of the ruling Kim family’s background. So, we have a prayer for hope.

Those early memories of him sharing about the war, and later learning how religion was forced out of the north as the communists took over, impacted me deeply. It inspired my own work that has taken me back to Korea, the People’s Republic of China, and many other places where religious freedom is under duress.

He spent his entire working career at Dentsply International, the world’s largest manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies. He retired as the Director of Operations for Dentsply’s Preventative Care Division, and his work resulted in numerous new and innovative products and involved regular overseas trips to coordinate engineering across divisions of the global company. Growing up with him traveling the world left a mark, indeed.

Faith was the motivator of his life, and even though he retired long before the current faith@work movement, I saw him day after day seek to live his work life as a life of service to God and others.

During the past several months in home hospice care, he helped plan for his funeral. I went with him and my mom to design his grave marker, and the verse he wanted inscribed attests to how his saw the labor of his career as a calling and not just a job:

“I know that there is nothing better for mankind than to be happy and to do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil — this is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13).

There’s a line in my dad’s obituary that hints at the tremendous support he was for the work I do and have done for the past 40+ years:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he served as President of the Central Asian Foundation, which worked for religious freedom in the Soviet Union.

The Central Asian Foundation (CAF) was established to facilitate the work I was doing in Soviet Central Asia to “build” religious freedom, a concept I described recently in The bridge builder: How religious engagement increases freedoms around the world.

I served as CAF’s vice president, and the impact of that work is described in the article Perestroika ‘Kazakh-style’.

But the story of my dad’s support for my calling was that his home was always our home as my wife, our four kids and I spent 20 years coming and going from living not only in Soviet Central Asia and China, but also Saudi Arabia, Malta, Hong Kong, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and Germany.

When my dad retired some 20 years ago, I wrote a poem that captured the faithful and principled life he lived, which he has passed down father to son, to grandsons, and to great grandsons.

• Scout of Scouts
• In Memoriam, Carlton L. Grim, 1933-2023
• – – –
• Within our times there lived a law
• that guided boys as they grew tall;
• it had twelve points—twelve ways to live,
• twelve ways to serve, twelve ways to give.
• –
• To those who took that oath when young
• and passed it down through son to son,
• let’s pledge anew to live that way,
• even in, yes, these PC days.
• –
• This honors one who lived them out:
• Dad—Great Grandpa now—a Scout of Scouts.
• Let’s say them now, without a tear,
• and let these laws extend their years …
• –
• A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful,
• Friendly, Courteous, Kind,
• Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty,
• Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9-10). Rest in peace, Dad.

Obituary

Carlton L. Grim, 90, passed away Wednesday, May 03, 2023 at his residence in York Township. He was the husband of Estola M. (Leaptrotte) Grim to whom he was married for 68 years.

A Celebration of Life Service will be 11AM, Saturday, May 13, 2023 at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 45 First Ave, Red Lion. Officiating the service will be the Rev. Christopher Nauta and Chaplain Mary Kay Alpaugh. A viewing will be held from 10:00-11:00AM, Saturday, at the church. Burial will be held in Susquehanna Memorial Gardens with Military Honors provided by the York County Veterans Honor Guard.

Born January 27, 1933, in Springvale, he was the son of the late Quedar C. and E. Pauline (Barshinger) Grim. He served his country in the United States Army and was a Veteran of the Korean War, serving in the Army Security Agency, a precursor to the NSA. Carlton also was known to his schoolmates as Quedar based boys at the time going by their father’s names. One of his grandsons and a great grandson have Quedar as middle names.

He was employed for 44 years until his retirement in 1995 as an Engineer with Dentsply International, the world’s largest manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies. He retired as the Director of Operations for Dentsply’s Preventative Care Division. His work resulted in numerous new and innovative products and involved regular overseas trips to coordinate engineering across divisions of the global company.

An avid golfer, he also loved traveling, visiting 49 of the 50 states as well as China, Germany, Italy, Malta, France, Switzerland, England, Japan, Canada, Brazil and Puerto Rico. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he served as President of the Central Asian Foundation, which worked for religious freedom in the Soviet Union.

Carlton graduated from Dallastown High School in 1950, where he was a star athlete. He attended York Junior College, where he played baseball, and he graduated from Penn State University-York with a degree in Machine and Tool Design. With one of his schoolmates, he also cofounded the Eagle Woodcraft Co., hand manufacturing Benjamin Franklin 4-hour clocks and steeple chime clocks.

He was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church—Red Lion and took pleasure in maintaining his home. For many years he taught Sunday School, led the church education building committee at St. Paul’s Chapel Church, and served as a Stephens Minister and Boy Scout leader. His favorite Bible verses were Ecclesiastes 3:12-15 – “I know that there is nothing better for mankind than to be happy and to do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil — this is the gift of God.”

In addition to his wife, Carlton is also survived by two sons, Dr. Brian Grim and his wife, Julia Beth of Annapolis, Maryland and Keith Grim of Dallastown; five grandchildren, Melissa Grim, J.D., Joel Grim, Ph.D., Andrew Grim, M.D., Abigail Talavera, R.N., and Nicole Grim; sixteen great grandchildren and his cousin, Charlene Bonekemper. He was preceded in death by his cousin, Palmer Grim.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Amedisys Hospice of York, 984 Loucks Rd, Suite I, York, Pa 17404 or St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 45 First Ave, Red Lion, Pa 17356.

Send Condolences at HeffnerCare.com.

Washington DC: Day 3 of Dare to Overcome (May 22-24) will have two tracks: A workplace chaplaincy track and an international religious freedom (IRF) and business track.

Speaking at the IRF track is Charmaine Hedding is a Senior Advisor for Global Strategy and Development for the IRF Secretariat.

Charmaine is also President of Shai Fund, a non-profit working to support religious minorities in conflict and disaster zones. Formerly from the business sector in Southern Africa, she uses business to build economic empowerment programs, which help religious minority communities that have suffered persecution or survived genocide to get back on their feet economically and become more resilient.

Her economic revitalization projects underway in conflict-ridden areas of the Middle East and Africa have created thriving livelihoods dealing with underlying issues such as poverty, migration, and instability, that otherwise would continue to form barriers to their presence let alone their inclusion and ultimately the peace and stability of the region.

Since 2014, Shai Fund has directly assisted over 170,000 people with practical and immediate assistance and created job opportunities and sustainable futures for thousands.

Join us at Dare to Overcome to see how business can offer solutions to some of the world’s pressing problems.

Walking the Talk: Advancing Religious Inclusion at State

Join State Department officials at Dare to Overcome (May 22-24 in Washington DC) as they discuss how employees of diverse faith backgrounds established faith-based employee organizations within the Department. Learn how these organizations collaborate and advise management, work to embed religious diversity into the Department’s broader DEIA framework, and share best practices and lessons learned with others across the federal government to advance religious freedom and inclusion in the workplace and build coalitions to facilitate internal policy changes. See how living religious inclusion at home creates conditions for employees to flourish, making our institution stronger, and bolsters the credibility of our advocacy for respecting human dignity and human differences abroad.

Moderator:

• – Mariyam Cementwala, Senior Advisor in the Secretary’s of State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and member of American Muslims and Friends at State

Panelists:

• – Al Gombis, a Founding Board Member of GRACE, a faith-based employee organization
• – Sarah Swatzburg, Chair of Jewish Americans in Diplomacy (JAD) at the U.S. Department of State

Join them at Dare to Overcome! Register today!

Join top business leaders, Fortune 500 faith-oriented employee resource group (ERG) leaders, and corporate chaplains to share best practices and to build supportive, intersecting networks nationally and globally! The mission: Shine a light on successes in promoting mutual respect and allyship among diverse communities.

American Express (AMEX) has three global faith-based networks: SALT (Christian), PEACE (Muslim) and CHAI (Jewish). They have added many chapters in the past year and have locations in dozens of countries. In the past year, SALT has added chapters in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Mexico.

Lori Joe Brown, a leader of SALT and On-boarding Manager for American Express, will share how they have expanded from a US base to the world at the upcoming Dare to Overcome conference in Washington, DC.

Join top business leaders, Fortune 500 faith-oriented employee resource group (ERG) leaders, and corporate chaplains to share best practices and to build supportive, intersecting networks nationally and globally! The mission: Shine a light on successes in promoting mutual respect and allyship among diverse communities.

American Express is a sponsor of Dare to Overcome.

The national faith@work Dare to Overcome conference featured a panel of BYU MBA students who led the first-ever case competition on faith and belief in the workplace.

In February 2023, the first annual Faith and Belief at Work MBA case competition was held at Brigham Young University. A case competition is a unique experiential learning event where business students compete to solve a particular business problem in a constrained time frame. In this case competition MBA students looked at how companies can systematize faith and belief inclusion efforts in a corporate setting. Students came from 11 top MBA programs across the nation to compete for sponsored prizes from Equinix and American Airlines. PayPal and the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation also sponsored the event, hosted by the Sorensen Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership and the BYU MBA program.

Members of the student team that led the case competition will discuss the importance of including faith and belief curriculum in MBA student learning, the details of the case competition experience, the vision for future years, and how companies can get involved in this and other business school initiatives.

See more at Dare to Overcome!