Category Archives: All

Join the UK Faith@Work network for engaging reflections on Ramadan, Holi, Purim, and Lent. If you haven’t registered for the monthly series, you can do so here.

• Thursday, 13th March, 1-1:30pm UK (9-9:30am ET; 6-6:30am PT)
• Monthly Zoom (register here)

Featured speakers are Moushin Sikder, Co-lead for the Ethnicity and Culture Network at SSE; Jag Jethwa, Lead BA and member of the Ethnicity and Culture Network at SSE; Naomi Kraus, co-founder and board member of Jewish ERGs; and Brian Grim, President of RFBF and senior advisor for Faith@Work UK.

Ramadan, Holi, Purim, and Lent are significant religious observances being celebrated this month. Ramadan is a holy month in Islam marked by fasting from dawn to sunset, prayer, reflection, and charity. Holi, a Hindu festival, is known as the “Festival of Colors,” celebrating the arrival of spring, love, and the victory of good over evil with vibrant festivities. Purim, in Judaism, commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people from Haman’s plot in ancient Persia, celebrated with feasting, costumes, and charity. The Fast of Esther, or Ta’anit Esther, is a Jewish fast that takes place on the day before Purim. Lent, observed by Christians, is a 40-day period of fasting, prayer, and repentance leading up to Easter, symbolizing Jesus’ time of sacrifice in the desert.

A replica of the tribute to Lou Groen displayed on the wall of the McDonald’s franchise at 5425 West North Bend Road in Cincinnati, where he created the Filet-O-Fish sandwich. (Credit: Erica Shadoin.)

Article by John Lavenburg, Crux

Summary

By Brian Grim, full article on Patheos

The Trump administration is removing Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) programs from government agencies. Critics of DEI argue that these initiatives can sometimes prioritize surface-level diversity over merit, leading to hiring and promotions based more on identity than qualifications.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump established a White House Faith Office tasked with safeguarding religious communities. Its responsibilities include identifying instances where the executive branch fails to uphold constitutional and federal protections for religious liberty.

One unintended consequence of eliminating DEI programs has been the negative impact on religious liberty. As federal agencies discontinued their DEI initiatives, many faith-based programs for government employees, which were supported by DEI, were also shut down. …

Read full article on Patheos.

America’s success is largely driven by the active contributions of religious communities. In fact, religion generates nearly $1.2 trillion in socio-economic value for the U.S. economy each year—equivalent to the world’s 15th largest national economy, surpassing roughly 180 other countries.

To uphold this vital economic and social asset, the Administration’s America First agenda should reconsider policies that weaken this unique strength of the nation.

Religion in a Changing Workplace, by Elaine Howard Ecklund, Denise Daniels, and Christopher P. Scheitle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024)

• Review by: Akpan Ubong-Abasi and Rachel C. Schneider
• Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance
• Rice University

A new book Religion in a Changing Workplace draws on over 15,000 surveys and 300 in-depth interviews to investigate the multifaceted role of religion in United States workplaces. The culmination of five years of research, the book explores religion’s role in the lives of workers—how it can contribute to a sense of meaning and purpose at work, but also how it can be a source of conflict and discrimination—and the implications for an increasingly religiously pluralistic workplace.

Many workplace leaders avoid addressing religion explicitly for fear of conflict. But Ecklund, Daniels, and Scheitle argue that ignoring religion’s presence at work can cause more harm than good. This is the case because many employees want to express or practice their faith at work as part of bringing their authentic selves to work, and they feel excluded or stifled if discouraged from doing so. Further, faith is often deeply connected to one’s sense of purpose and meaning around work. This means that expressing one’s whole self at work, including one’s faith, can encourage a sense of organizational belonging and commitment. Finally, religion/spirituality can also be a resource for dealing with workplace conflict and stress, ultimately providing positive coping tools.  At the same time, faith in the workplace must be navigated thoughtfully to avoid marginalization and discrimination between individuals and groups.

Because the workplace is one of the few places in society where individuals get to meet people of different religions and interact with those who are different from them, there is the possibility for both negative and positive interactions. However, Ecklund and her coauthors make a compelling case that it is time for leaders to stop neglecting religion at work out of fear or ignorance. Rather, employees and employers should see religion as a form of workplace diversity that can support beneficial outcomes on multiple levels, if accommodated in nuanced ways.  Over the course of ten chapters, the authors then draw on their expertise in sociology and business management to offer a clear but nuanced picture of how people are grappling with religion in the workplace. They discuss opportunities for religion to integrated into the workplace ways to serve works and organizations. Finally, they provide guidance to organization leaders about how they can support religious expressions at workplaces while respecting the identities of all religious and non-religious identities.

This book is for policymakers, employers, employees, and managers who want to learn how to integrate and attend to religion in the workplace using the best available data. It is also a great resource for sociologists, religious studies, and scholars of organization and management.

A huge asset of this book is that it gives insight into workers in many different occupations and organizational levels think about (and experience) faith in the workplace in positive and negative ways. The book shows that many employees are looking for clarity about ways to express their faith without violating laws or company or company policies. At the same time, individuals and groups experience religious conflict and discrimination in the workplace often in informal ways that many policies do not address. Thus, the authors draw on their research to encourage organizations and business leaders to develop thoughtful policies around expressing and accommodating faith in workplaces that can promote healthy pluralism. In challenging workplace leaders to listen to the voices and experiences of workers of all types, the authors of this book compellingly show how workplaces can become spaces where all people can thrive. The hope is for future workplaces where religion and spirituality are not seen as problems to be solved but assets to creating healthy organizational cultures.

The research in this book was conducted before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: a period that pushed workplace leaders to pay greater attention to the everyday experiences of employees. One overlooked dimension in these conversations has been issues of religious freedom, belonging, and inclusion. Ultimately, this book makes the strong case that religion has to be part of the conversation if we are to create workplaces that serve both workers and businesses well.

When Patrick Regan’s meeting with The Princess of Wales made headlines, it seemed like he was on the top of the world. But, as you can learn in his May 20, 2025, keynote at Dare to Overcome, the reality was different. As he’ll share, “People relate more to your scars than your successes.”

Patrick Regan OBE, is founder of Brighter Days, Wellbeing & Resilience Training that helps your people flourish and thrive. Meet him at #Dare2Overcome

Patrick Regan OBE is an activist who is passionate about speaking on themes such as wellbeing , spirituality, and compassionate leadership. He has founded two award winning charities; XLP, a Schools and Community Charity which he ran for 22 years and pioneered Kintsugi Hope which has Wellbeing Groups all over the UK to help people in their emotional and mental health. He was awarded the London Peace Award by Boris Johnson for his work in the prevention of knife crime. He is a mental health first aider, a campaigner on issues of social justice and was awarded an OBE for his services to young people by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the London South Bank University for his contribution to Justice and Wellbeing. He is an accredited trainer of the Compassionate leadership course and recently was awarded CEO of the Year 2023 for mental health training. He has written 7 books on topics such as Justice, Gang Culture, Faith, Suffering and Courage.

His latest book is Brighter Days, 12 Steps to Strengthen your Wellbeing which reached number 2 on the Popular psychology charts on Amazon. He is married to Diane and has 4 children.

By Brian Grim

This week, I had the tremendous opportunity to observe four of the 10 schools in India that participated in our “Human Rights & Business Skills” secondary school curriculum pilot. We supplemented the curriculum, which is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Indian Constitution, with business skills that reinforce and apply the human rights.

Roundtable

MIT World Peace University School of Education professors and student teachers kicked off the week with a roundtable demonstrating how they adapted the curriculum to the Indian context and piloted the curriculum (see the picture above). The professors include the department head Dr Shalini Tonpe, Asst Prof Rahul Landge and Asst Prof Priya Kale.

The Roundtable conference began with Asst Prof Rahul Landge, in the picture below, reading a comprehensive report on the implementation of human rights curriculum, which was piloted across different schools of Pune city. The report provided valuable insights into curriculum’s execution, identified opportunities for growth, highlighted the challenges encountered, and included series of accountable recommendations for enhancing future efforts. This review played a crucial role in assessing the curriculum impact its adaptability within diverse educational settings.

The human rights were very well received, and each of the 10 school principals were especially attracted to the practical business skills tied to higher values. Asst Prof Priya Kale, in the photo below, shows that while none of the schools has a business skills curriculum and only four are aware of such a curriculum, they all would like to implement such a curriculum in their schools.

The team’s student teachers demonstrated as part of the roundtable four of the 10 human rights lessons that they piloted in the fall: Freedom of Religion, Protection from Child Labor, Right to Marriage and Family, and Freedom from Bullying.

In the Schools

The class teacher at Anjuman Islam Peer Mohamed High School – Pune, an all-girls Muslim school (pictured below, bottom right), gave a ringing endorsement after the demonstration lesson, Freedom from Bullying. She and the chief school administrator invited us to implement the curriculum on an ongoing basis.

At a Punbe school for underprivileged students, the Bharati Vidyapeet School, the pilot was on the fundamental human right to Marriage and Family. The class was executed effectively, with a variety of engaging activities designed to raise awareness about this right. Students actively participated in role-playing exercises, group discussions and case studies, which helped them explore marriage laws, family dynamics and personal freedoms.

A highlight was the performance of one of the 10 original songs written by one of the Hindu student teachers. He partnered with a Christian student teacher (both pictured below) to write the songs to go with each of the 10 lessons.

At a prep school attached to MIT WPU, the pilot class on Religious Freedom was animated through “gamification” – using games and competition to motivate learning. In one game, teams competed to see who could find the most similarities between India’s multiple religions. My minor but really fun part was to come on stage and hand out the awards.

The final demonstration pilot was at a tutoring center giving evening classes for underprivileged students. The center is an act of love by a husband and wife team who offer daily coaching classes on English and math as well as other subjects as needed. The lesson was one that hits close to home for these students: Freedom from Bullying.

The Impact and Next Steps

Comments from students ranged from, “I didn’t realize we had universal rights at birth,” to coming up for strategies on how to combat discrimination.

We are working towards sustainability and expansion of the initiative across India and worldwide through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding. Indian companies must spend a minimum of 2% of their average net profit over the preceding three years on CSR activities.

In recognition of the leadership making this pilot possible, we will be conferring the Global Business & Interfaith Peace Gold Medal to MIT-WPU’s Executive President, Dr. Rahul V. Karad (pictured below, center). The award will take place during our upcoming Dare to Overcome conference in Washington DC on May 20-22, 2025.

I made the announcement of this prestigious award during MIT-WPU’s Executive Board meeting. Also present was the founder, Revered Prof (Dr.) Vishwanath D. Karad. He established the university’s guiding principle based on the teachings of India’s Noble Son Swami Vivekananda, “The union of science and spirituality will bring peace and harmony to mankind.”

Last week in London, ee had our planning meeting for the 2nd annual Faith at Work UK Summit at Equinix HQ (pic below). Equinix and NATS are sponsors of this year’s summit.

Just before that, a great discussion at PwC UK sponsored by Premier Christian Communications on “Narrowing the Gap Between Sunday and Monday.” (Pic below)

By Brian Grim

I spent most of last week in meetings in Washington DC. I was struck by how closely politics and religion intermingle. U.S. Vice President JD Vance spoke at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit. President Donald Trump addressed the National Prayer Breakfast.

But the relationship between politics and religion is often uneasy. This uneasiness was on display a week after New York Catholic archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan gave a warmly received invocation at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Fellow Catholic, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, leveled criticism against the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which ‘hurt’ the cardinal.

You can read my reflection on this uneasy relationship in my latest Patheos blog, The Moth and the Flame: When Politics and Religion Collide. The title is a nod the late sociologist of religion N.J. Demerath III.

By Brian Grim

Yesterday, I sent U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio a letter. In it I draw attention to the latest Pew Research data showing that the state of religious freedom worldwide is at its lowest point in 16 years and that current strategies for combatting the deterioration of this universal human right are insufficient. The solution is to adopt a new strategy that harnesses a powerful and untapped force with a vested interest in building religious freedom worldwide. That’s business.

The good news is that top global businesses are already engaged in building religious freedom for millions of working people by making their workplaces faith friendly at home and abroad. Accordingly, I offered five recommendations including that the next Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom be a senior business leader with a passion for international religious freedom:

You can read my full letter here.

The latest data (2022) show that governments harassed religious groups in 186 countries and territories, up from 118 in 2007, the year I led the first Pew Research Center annual study of restrictions on religious freedom. Compounding the problem is that when harassment by social actors is included, religious groups in 192 out of the world’s 198 countries and territories (97%) experienced such harassment, which is a new peak level. (This also includes harassment of non-religious people by religious groups.)