• • This is part of a series of profiles on faith and work initiatives from various faiths. 

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On February 22, 2019, thousands of Christian business professionals across the country will join in person or via livestream for the second annual Work As Worship Retreat, a one-day event to hear featuring experts on connecting faith and work. Last year, over 13,000 business professionals participated.

With the aim of communicating a complete and biblical picture of work and faith, the organizers defined eight tenets of the Work as Worship message.

1. Work is good.

In the beginning, God created everything—including work. And as with all things He created, work was good. Free from toil and adversity, humans worked in the garden as an expression of worship to God. In its original created form, work was one of the ways humans engaged in relationship with God. As those made in the image of the working God, humans also worked—and it was good. GENESIS 1:28; 2:15

2. Sin corrupted work.

The pure goodness of work didn’t last forever. In one disobedient act, humans severed their relationship with God. Sin caused a ripple of destruction throughout all creation. As a result, work was also broken, corrupt, and cursed because of the Fall. Instead of worshipping God through work, we have a tendency to worship the hollow god of work. Work can cause personal stress, relational tension, and global problems. Work was in desperate need of redemption. GENESIS 3:17–19, 23

3. Jesus makes it possible for work to be redeemed.

God wanted to make things right again, but sin couldn’t go unpunished. Compelled by His love and mercy, He sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the price for sin. Jesus paved the way to redeem us and redeem work through us. He died and rose again not just to save sinners, but also to restore all of life, including work. By grace through faith, Jesus renews us and our approach to work. Work is no longer broken with no hope for repair. Work no longer rules over our lives. With God’s favor upon us, we don’t work to earn His approval. We work motivated by the love of our Savior. In Christ, we are free to work for God’s glory. EPHESIANS 1:7–10; 2:1–10; 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21

4. God gave us a mission.

When Jesus left the earth, He commissioned His followers to the mission of God—to make healthy disciples who grow in Christlikeness and love God’s Word. God gifted us with the Holy Spirit who now lives in us, empowering us to fulfill God’s mission until Jesus returns one day to restore all things. With this new perspective of life, we are on mission for God wherever we go—even at work. Work has a role in the kingdom of God because work is an avenue for fulfilling God’s mission. With a newfound purpose, we chase God’s mission with perseverance— in the boardroom, on lunch break, or at the cubicle. Because of Christ and His mission, we have purpose in all we do, especially our work. MATTHEW 28:18–20; ACTS 1:8; HEBREWS 12:1–3

5. We carry Christ into our work.

Compelled by God’s mission, we carry Christ with us wherever we go. Following Jesus isn’t limited to Sunday morning—spirituality and work aren’t separated. All of life qualifies as spiritual as we carry the truth of Christ into the workplace. We are Jesus’s ambassadors at work—in the conference room, around the water cooler, or at the lunch table. We represent Him as lights in the darkness of the marketplace. Everything we do at work should be done in the name of Jesus, motivated out of adoration for Jesus, and presented with the love of Jesus. COLOSSIANS 3:17, 23–24; 2 CORINTHIANS 5:20

6. God grows us through our work.

When we enter into relationship with God through Jesus, God grows us into the image of His Son. The Spirit of God works in us as we work. He uses our relationships, successes, failures, and experiences at work as a significant tool in our spiritual formation. He teaches us to have the mind of Christ at work, to treat people as Jesus did, and to bear the fruit of the Spirit. We make mistakes, learn, and grow in our jobs under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Through work, God shapes how we view Him, the world, and ourselves. We become mature followers of Jesus as we pursue God at work. EPHESIANS 4:14–16; PHILIPPIANS 1:3–6

7. God can do more with our work than we can imagine.

God does more through us at work than we can ever imagine. He designed work for the good of the world—not just ourselves. God sees our small acts of obedience at work and those actions have a profound impact in His kingdom. Our work impacts our coworkers, clients, and managers. It also provides jobs, fuels the economy, and allows culture to flourish. In some ways, we may never know the profound impact of our work, but we can trust that God uses work to influence people around the world. MATTHEW 13:31–33; 25:29; MARK 10:45

8. Work is worship.

Our work goes beyond being a mission field, a place of growth, and an avenue for impact. Work is also worship. Everything we do—work included—can glorify God and honor His name. God gives our work purpose. He uses it to mature us. And He uses our work to reach people and communities. When we work, we taste the goodness God intended for work in the beginning. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:31; MATTHEW 22:37–39

• This is part of a series of profiles on faith and work initiatives from various faiths. 
  

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One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity

• August Turak, Columbia University Press

August Turak is a successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, and award-winning author who attributes much of his success to living and working alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey for seventeen years. As a frequent monastic guest, he learned firsthand from the monks as they grew an incredibly successful portfolio of businesses.

Service and selflessness are at the heart of the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition’s remarkable business success. It is an ancient though immensely relevant economic model that preserves what is positive and productive about capitalism while transcending its ethical limitations and internal contradictions.

Combining vivid case studies from his thirty-year business career with intimate portraits of the monks at work, Turak shows how Trappist principles can be successfully applied to a variety of secular business settings and to our personal lives as well. He demonstrates that monks and people like Warren Buffett are wildly successful not despite their high principles but because of them. Turak also introduces other “transformational organizations” that share the crucial monastic business strategies so critical for success.

Reaction of Kent Johnson, Senior Corporate Advisor, RFBF:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After a corporate career with companies like MTV, August Turak founded two highly successful software businesses, Raleigh Group International (RGI) and Elsinore Technologies. He received a B.A. in history from the University of Pittsburgh and is pursuing a Masters in theology at St. John’s University, Minnesota.

Turak’s essay “Brother John” received the grand prize in the John Templeton Foundation’s Power of Purpose essay contest. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Selling Magazine, the New York Times, and Business Week, and is a popular leadership contributor at Forbes.com. His website is www.augustturak.com.

A new article by Ali Aslan Gümüsay, Michael Smets and Tim Morris has been published at the Academy of Management Journal. It is entitled ‘God at Work’: Engaging central and incompatible institutional logics through elastic hybridity and examines how the first Islamic Bank in Germany maintains unity in diversity by forming what the authors call an elastic hybrid that remains resilient despite contradictory beliefs and values that persist over time.

Unity in Diversity

The authors explain that existing approaches to managing hybridity focus on solutions that are organizational, structural and static. These approaches manage institutional tensions on behalf of employees. Yet, where competing values are incompatible and central to both the organization and the fundamental beliefs of its employees, it is impractical for an organization to prescribe how individuals manage them.

Gümüsay and colleagues outline polysemy and polyphony as mechanisms that dynamically engage conflicting logics through an organizational-individual interplay. Borrowing from paradox theory, they explain how hybrids can empower individuals to fluidly separate and integrate logics when neither structural compartmentalizing nor organizational blending are feasible because management cannot prescribe a specific balance of logics. The result is a state of elastic hybridity, constituted through the recursive, multi-level relationship between polysemy and polyphony. Elastic hybrids maintain unity in diversity. Like the bank, they are capable of institutionally bending without organizationally breaking and thus enable individuals to practice more of their personal convictions at work while still experiencing a sense of shared organizational purpose.

Implications for politics

According to the authors, implications for politics can be read in-between the lines. They argue that populists advocate for homogeneity as it reduces complexity, put people into boxes and separate them. Effectively, they compartmentalize societies. In contrast, heterogeneity is much more challenging, but also more rewarding. Heterogeneity is not just blending: people do not become all the same, but they cope with this diversity – with unity in diversity. Societies become elastic, accommodating, and enriched by plurality. For Ali Aslan Gümüsay, this is one of the fundamental social and societal challenges of our time: “Do we embrace the complexity of humankind or do we attempt to reduce it?”

• * Dr. Ali Aslan Gümüsay |University of Hamburg | guemuesay.com | tw: @guemuesay

For more discussion, see When organisational purposes conflict: leading with deliberate vagueness, Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.

Executive Trainings and New Index Prepare Executives for Next D&I Challenge

IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Washington, DC: Feb. 13, 3019

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF), the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum Institute (Religious Freedom Center) and the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding (Tanenbaum) today jointly launched a cutting-edge executive training for mid-level corporate executives by RFBF and the Religious Freedom Center, and a groundbreaking Corporate Religious Diversity Assessment by Tanenbaum and RFBF. Both resources are designed to help companies improve the bottom line by addressing religion at work, and both were piloted with major corporations before being made available to companies across the nation and world today.

“Studies show that the most successful businesses enable employees to bring their full self to work,” RFBF’s president Brian Grim notes. “When employees are comfortable, willing, and able to talk about what is important to them, including their religious beliefs and practices, employers’ benefit.”

In-House Executive Education

RFBF and the Religious Freedom Center are unveiling full and half-day executive seminars and trainings to educate mid-level business leaders on how religion at work impacts the bottom line. Developed by expert faculty, the seminars train participants to understand the positive relationship between religious diversity, inclusion and liberty, and business strategy, talent retention and economic growth.

Kristen Farrington, executive director of the Religious Freedom Center, explains: “Businesses thrive when they’re inclusive and their employees have diverse backgrounds and life experiences, but religious diversity is often undervalued. Our executive training prepares business leaders to navigate these issues so they can create religiously inclusive policies and workplaces where religious diversity is respected.”

Real Measurement Using Corporate Religious Diversity Assessment (CRDA)

To provide clear guidelines and measures of success for global corporations to take action, Tanenbaum and RFBF today launched the Corporate Religious Diversity Assessment (CRDA). The CRDA was inspired by RFBF’s 2016 global Corporate Pledge on Religious Diversity & Inclusion and reflects Tanenbaum’s two decades of work on religion in companies.

It offers global companies a framework for self-evaluation of their current and ongoing religious diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The CRDA evaluation covers four overarching criteria: religious discrimination and harassment; religious accommodation; promoting business goals with freedom of religion and belief; and accommodating religious or belief freedom in society.

Mark Fowler, Tanenbaum’s Deputy CEO and leader of its global Corporate Membership program, explains how the CRDA breaks new ground. “Though more and more companies are addressing religion, the subject is often still taboo. The CRDA provides an answer, with a hands-on approach for tackling religion. By self-assessing, corporate leaders will be able to identify realistic action steps and then reap the benefits.”

# # #

For more information regarding the trainings, please contact Erin Shellenberger (202-292-6372 or eshellenberger@freedomforum.org) of Religious Freedom Center.

For more information or to request a review of the CRDA, please contact Dasha Tanner (212-967-7707 or dtanner@tanenbaum.org) of Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.

–> Register

Studies demonstrate that employees who can bring their “whole selves” to the workplace perform better in many bottom line key indicator areas. Bringing one’s whole self includes religious identity. Many companies, however, are struggling to navigate religion and beliefs at work.

In fact, 36 percent of American workers — approximately 50 million people — have experienced or witnessed religious discrimination in the workplace, with religious majorities, minorities and non-religious employees all reporting this experience. This has direct impact on employee and company performance. Additionally, while companies have rightly paid significant attention to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, workplace religious discrimination complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) outnumber sexual orientation complaints two-to-one.

Addressing religion and belief in the workplace is the next big focus. Join us Wednesday, Feb. 13 for an in-depth discussion of workplace religion and beliefs and an introduction to resources to help organizations large and small design successful policies and procedures for honoring religion in the workplace.

Business Case for Workplace religious D&I

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Business Case for Workplace religious D&I

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

During this holy time of year, I’ve been reflecting from my faith tradition on what sets me free to work for religious freedom for all. It’s captured in what St. Ignatius called the Magis, doing all for the greater glory of God (ad majorem Dei gloriam) – a motto of many Jesuit institutions. There’s a wonderful poem by Rebecca Rulz who unpacks what this phrase means. You can find it below. Thank you to all for the work you do to advance such religious freedom in your own families, networks and work. Merry Christmas and Happy 2019!

Brian Grim, RFBF President

Living “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” by Rebecca Rulz

• To live Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam is a way of being that permeates every thought, every deed, every action and inaction—all is contemplated and weighed, all for the greater glory of God.

• To live Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam is to lay claim to a legacy of “other-ness” that sets us apart
•      and puts us at ease with any culture or people,
• A completely integrated other-ness that seeks to make all things whole,
• That approaches the liminal without hesitation,
• Finds God in all things,
•      finds the Good in all things,
•      and seeks to proclaim His glory in all that we do.

• It is a heritage of service
•      However, whenever, and wherever needed,
• Of leadership in service
•      To those impoverished in mind, body, and spirit.

• It is a call to respect the dignity of each human,
• The splendor of all creation,
•      unencumbered by societal constructs.

• It is a complete inability to be unaware of injustice
•      or impervious to inequality,
• A Spirit-driven determination to find a way to right the wrongs,
• To lift the downtrodden,
• To bind the wounds,
• To welcome the stranger, the nationless, the outcast,
• To see the humanity in all those discarded by economies and policies.
• To rise to this challenge—for the glory of God alone.

• To offer one’s heart and one’s hands,
• One’s whole self, a Suscipe,
• In desolation and in consolation.
• To give up even liberty
•      for the sake of the love of the other.

• To be held to a higher standard,
• To see through a lens that sees the good and the possible
•      in every impossible situation.

• To be aware of our place as privileged children of a living God
•      who demands only that we abandon all status and privilege.
• To be the voice for the voiceless
• Responding to the call of the Spirit
• One with the harmonious resonance of all creation praising God.

• To seek Him and to find Him in all things, people, circumstances, and places,
• Unafraid to speak Truth to injustice
• To embrace the contradiction of Love
• Clothed in the power
•      of the One who died naked and penniless.

• To be unattached to any outcome except that which God wills,
• Leaving behind comfort zones,
• Releasing the ego into the bosom of the Creator.
• Rooted in the confident security
•      and the joy of knowing Love beyond words.
• Unattached to and surrendered to
•      none but that Love.

• Called together at one table, unity in diversity,
• One family, working together to realize heaven on earth.
• Answering the call to serve and to glorify, in all ways,
• The Love that always finds a way.

by Rebecca Rulz

Launching Leaders Rolls Out Personal Development and Leadership Course to United Religions Initiative Cooperation Circles in Africa

Young adults in Kampala, Uganda, are the first United Religions Initiative (URI) group globally to participate in the Launching Leaders course. Sponsored by URI Cooperation Circles, the course teaches personal development and leadership principles, coupled with individual faith or belief. As Cooperation Circle members of various faith traditions work together developing plans for their lives, interfaith cooperation, understanding, and empowerment are natural products.

“Launching leaders will help the participants as they listen to and learn from each other through sharing purposeful life experiences during the group sessions,” said Kizito Nganda, the local URI facilitator in Kampala. “I believe the mentorship part of the course will inspire and encourage participants to do more with their lives.”

The interfaith Launching Leaders course, offered by Launching Leaders Worldwide, Inc., is a cornerstone of the Empowerment Plus program at Religious Freedom & Business Foundation  (RFBF). RFBF, Launching Leaders and URI have formed a partnership to work together to bring the powerful course initially to young people in Africa. URI is the largest grassroots interfaith peacebuilding network in the world.

The Launching Leaders course has been taught in various parts of the world for multiple years. Roll out for URI is in three URI sub-regions in Africa – Great Lakes, Western Africa, and Southern Africa. Course start-up includes identifying local facilitators, who receive training and all the materials needed to begin – online access to the course and book, a facilitator’s guide, and other support materials.  The course is offered a no charge for URI Cooperation Circle members.

Participants learn both online and in-person, identifying their core values, making plans for their lives, finding and adopting mentors, and learning principles and skills that will help them lead out in their own lives and give back to others. Those who complete the full course receive a certificate from Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and Launching Leaders Worldwide Inc.

Emmanuel Ivorgba, PhD, URI’s Regional Coordinator for West Africa, recently completed the course in advance of introducing it to his region. “The Launching Leaders course is designed in such a way that anybody can benefit from taking it – whether a highly intellectual professor, someone just finishing college, or an individual with little formal education.”

Ivorgba is initially introducing the Launching Leaders course to URI Cooperation Circle members in Abuja, Nigeria, this month. He then intends to roll out the course for Cooperation Circles in Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast.

Despina Namwembe, URI Great Lakes Regional Coordinator, recently introduced the course to URI’s young adult leadership team with members from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.

Southern Africa Regional Coordinator, Karen Barensche, will introduce the course to Cooperation Circles in South Africa and then Malawi.

Ambassador Mussie Hailu, URI Global Envoy and Representative to the United Nations and Continental Director for URI-Africa, introduced RFBF and Launching Leaders to URI, and initiated the global partnership.

“We are anxious to improve the lives of URI Cooperation Circle participants through the Launching Leaders course, and in the process create interpersonal bonds of peace, interfaith cooperation, and understanding,” said Hailu.

For information on starting a Launching Leaders group within a URI Cooperation Circle, please contact: Launching Leaders Executive Director Michael Leonard or URI.

Interfaith Empowerment+ from Religious Freedom & Business Fnd on Vimeo.

by Shirin Taber*

Tunisia is now the front runner in expanding women’s rights and religious liberties among Muslims.  And the world is watching.

In 2017, Tunisia’s President Essibsi celebrated his country’s National Women’s Day calling for a change in the constitution to allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

Historically, Islam has prohibited Muslim women from marrying men from other faiths, unless they convert to Islam. However, Muslim men are allowed to marry non-Muslims.

President Essibsi called on leaders to make changes to Article 73, arguing that the Tunisian constitution, in its sixth chapter, grants citizens the freedom of belief and conscience.

In his mission to achieve gender equality, President Essibsi also called for amendments to women’s inheritance. According to Islamic law, women inherit only one half of men’s inheritance.

President Essibsi shared, “The state is committed to achieving full equality between women and men … and equal opportunities for them in assuming all responsibilities, as stipulated in Article 46 of the Constitution.”

On November 23, 2018, Tunisia became the first Arab country to achieve gender equality in inheritance, after the Tunisian Cabinet approved a law that would allow men and women to inherit equal amounts, contrary to what is stipulated in the Quran and Islamic world.

Some Muslims object to the new law, claiming it contradicts Quranic verses which state that males should inherit twice the amount as females.

However, President Essibsi shared that citizens should be given the choice to follow Sharia Law in inheritance if they so wish. But not through compulsion or force.

President Essibsi shared that “Tunisia’s Constitution supports a civil country that is based on three elements: citizenship, the will of the people, and the supremacy of law. The rights and duties of Tunisian men and women are equal, and the state is committed to defending women’s rights, and supporting and developing them.”

For the Muslim world, the Quran reads in Sura 2:256, “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” Accordingly, faith under force is not genuine. Therefore, it is never in the public’s interest to force belief on individuals, and restrict their right to question, explore and fulfill their purpose.

The Muslim world is complex, and in growing numbers, Muslims value the ideals of religious liberty and pluralism. Muslims are writing and speaking about Islam and religious freedom.

When women are allowed to exercise freedom of conscience and contribute to the economy, communities experience greater peace and prosperity long term.

Namely, religious freedom, is an antidote to extremism.

* Shirin Taber is director of the Middle East Women’s Leadership Network, and leads Empower Women Media and Film Competition. Contact: Shirin@visualstory.org

Photo Credit: Roya News

Further Reading

– Tunisia becomes first Arab country to approve gender equality in inheritance

– Tunisia’s President calls for legalising interfaith marriage for Muslim women

Enrique Shaw: the Argentine businessman whom Francis may soon beatify

Fernán de Elizalde, an Argentinian businessman and member of the Christian Association of Business Executives (ACDE), told CNA he is “convinced Shaw was a man of outstanding holiness. We’ll probably have in the future the first businessman saint in the world.” Elizalde is also vice postulator – or presenter – of Shaw’s cause for beatification.

CNA also reported an interview with Pope Francis on the Mexican TV station Televisa, in which the Pontiff said, “I’ve known rich people and I’m moving forward with the cause for beatification over there [in Argentina] of a rich Argentine businessman. Enrique Shaw was rich, yet saintly. A person can have money. God gives it to him so he can administer it well. And this man administered it well. Not with paternalism, but by fostering the [personal] growth of people who needed help.”

Enrique Ernesto Shaw (1921 – 1962). Shaw was an Argentine Roman Catholic businessman. He was born in France and later emigrated to Argentina where he served in the marines. He promoted and encouraged business growth in accordance with the social doctrine of the faith and he founded both the Christian Association of Business Executives (ACDE). He was also a prolific writer and published a range of books. His cause of sainthood commenced in 2001 and he has been accorded the title Servant of God to recognize the commencement of the process.

ACDE is an association of business leaders, which aims to become an area of ​​analysis and reflection of the business theme in the light of Christian values; and of action, through its social commitment in a business work governed by ethical principles and at the service of the common good. ACDE is an association of people and not of companies, this being a distinctive element with respect to other organizations.

Writings & Resources by and on Enrique Shaw

Below are links to English versions of a short video introduction of Enrique Shaw and some of his speeches and writings.

– Shaw: Subdue the earth

– Shaw: The Business Company. It’s nature – Goals and economic development

– Shaw: The Mission of Business Executives

– Shaw: Eucharist and Business Life

– Shaw: Memo to staff about work reduction due to lower demand

– Jesuit Business School speech by Dr. Thomas A. Bausch, including support for Shaw’s beatification and canonization

– Pope Francis mentioning Enrique Shaw on EWTN

See recent talk by ACDE member Roberto Murchison at the G20 Interfaith Forum.