Taste of Religion

Yesterday I spoke about Christian Festivals at the Taste of Religion event organised by the Employer's Forum on Belief at KPMG.

Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer, Senior Rabbi at Borehamwood & Elstree United Synagogue, spoke about the significance of rest based on the Jewish understanding of sabbath. Khola Hasan, Director of Albatross Consultancy Limited, spoke about the disciplines of Islamic prayer and the two main Islamic Festivals of Ramadan and the Hajj. Shaunaka Rishi Das, Director, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Hindu Chaplain to the University of Oxford, spoke about the way in which Hinduism integrates religion and philosophy. Dr Satinder Singh, Sikh Human Rights Group, highlighted the significance of equality within Sikhism. Simon Webley, Institute of Business Ethics, described their report: Religious Practices in the Workplace.


I briefly summarised the main Christian Festivals before concluding there are two main points arising for employers from such information:

"The first is that because some Christian festivals are officially sanctioned by governments as days when people are not required to work, Christians have not faced the same issues as those of other faiths in negotiating time off work to celebrate their religious festivals. However, this has also changed to a significant extent in more recent years as a result of flexible working patterns and Sunday opening, meaning that, as with those of other faiths, employers should sympathetically consider holiday requests from Christian employees in order to celebrate festivals or attend ceremonies where it is reasonable and practical for the employee to be away from work, and they have sufficient holiday entitlement in hand.


The second involves the perception that Christianity is not treated equally to other faiths, either because it is privileged or because it is disadvantaged. Every year the media features stories of Christian festivals, often Christmas, being 'banned' or constrained in some fashion, and often on the basis that their celebration offends those of other faiths. This is simply not the case. The Christian Muslim Forum, for example, has tried to address the issue by making a statement in 2006 which says:

“As Muslims and Christians together we are wholeheartedly committed to the recognition of Christian festivals. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus and we wish this significant part of the Christian heritage of this country to remain an acknowledged part of national life. We believe that the only beneficiaries of a declining Christian presence in public life are those committed to a totally non-religious standpoint. We value the presence of clear institutional markers within society of the reality and mystery of God in public life, rather than its absence.”

How can employers respond to these issues? The EFB has pointed out that the tendency among employers has been “to try to get information about faiths rather than to consider whether a request is reasonable”:

“Employers need to ask whether their policies can accommodate the issue rather than whether the request is relevant to the employee’s professed beliefs. For example if someone wants to wear particular head gear; the place to start is by asking whether your uniform policy accommodates the wearing of headgear. If the employee is prepared to wear the allowable headgear and reach a compromise, perhaps on colour or style, then the issue is resolved.”

The worth of this advice can be seen in a recent case linked to the celebration of Palm Sunday. In a case which hit national headlines, electrician Colin Atkinson had said he was prepared to lose his job rather than comply with a request from his employer the Wakefield and District Housing Trust to remove a palm cross from the dashboard of his company van. He had been asked to do so in line with a policy which bans all personal items from WDH vans, from religious symbols to logos and flags supporting sports teams.

The case was resolved when WDH and Mr Atkinson agreed that he will in future keep his palm cross on his glove compartment, out of sight of the general public. He said: ‘WDH have been very reasonable and supportive in reaching this agreement and are even now assisting in every way for me to have a comfortable return to work, allowing me to be close to my faith and end the matter.’ Yet, that reasonable accommodation could easily have been agreed when the matter arose without there being any need for the threat of disciplinary action or the resulting publicity that followed it. So, following the EFB's guidance from the start can often mean that such issues don't arise.

The 2001 Census found that over three-quarters of the population reported belonging to a religion. ‘The Management Agenda 2003’, produced by Roffey Park, claimed that nearly three-quarters of workers are interested in "learning to live the spiritual side of their values," with more than 40% of UK managers saying they would value the opportunity to discuss workplace spirituality with their colleagues and 53% experiencing tensions between "the spiritual side of their values and their work."

Making reasonable accommodations for religious or belief observance in the workplace and sympathetic consideration of requests to celebrate festivals or attend ceremonies for Christians, as for those of other faiths, will go some way to acknowledging the reality of religious faith or belief in our society and also to addressing some of the tensions that those who hold a religious faith or belief experience within the workplace.

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Emmylou Harris: Goodnight Old World.