Taste of Religion at Pinsent Masons

What follows is the talk on Christianity that I gave today at the Taste of Religion event for Pinsent Masons which marked the launch of their multi-faith group. I was asked, in 5 - 10 minutes, to give a summary of the Christian faith and speak both about how Christianity influences Christians in the workplace and how Christianity fits within the workplace. The other speakers at this event organised by the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion included representatives of the Hindu, Islamic, Jewish and Sikh faiths.

I said: 

Christianity began, Christians believe, when God became a human being through the birth of Jesus Christ as a baby in Bethlehem. What Christians celebrate at Christmas is God becoming flesh and blood and moving into our neighbourhood.

What we call the Incarnation means that, in Jesus, God has become part of the ordinary, everyday business of human life.  Through Jesus’ life, including his work as a carpenter in Nazareth, God experiences, shares and understands human life from the inside. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God provides a way out from our being enmeshed in the selfishness and greed which characterises so much of human life and the societies we create.

As we enter into relationship with him, Christians believe that his Spirit begins to refashion us so that the loving, self-sacrificing characteristics of Jesus start to show up in our lives. As human beings we often continue to resist that change, so the evidence of it in our lives is always partial and this is why the confession of sins and the receiving of forgiveness is so central to Christian worship. Through our services we re-enact the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection and our services – particularly Holy Communion, also known as the Eucharist of Lord’s Supper – are significant times and spaces in which this reshaping and re-orienting of our lives for service takes place.

All this means that everyday life, including work, has real significance for Christians as God has been revealed in everyday living and continues to be found there. Many strands of Christian spirituality foster the expectation that God will be encountered in and through daily life, including our working lives, and encourage prayer and reflection which is prompted by, responds to and meditates on daily tasks and experiences.

One of the things that many Christians in the workplace will wish to do is to pray. There is no required pattern of prayer within Christianity, so for many their praying will be private and personal but, for others, the provision of prayer or quiet rooms will be welcomed; while others will take the opportunity provided by such spaces to meet with other Christians in order to pray together. Workplaces benefit in many ways by accommodating the religious practices of people of faith and to have a group of Christians praying regularly for the company and its employees, whatever you think of prayer itself, sounds to me to be something to be encouraged.

We are currently in a time of significant change for the Christian church in the UK as secularism and the multi-faith composition of the UK gradually change the place that the Christian church has held in this country. A process of moving towards equality across the faiths is underway and, while a necessary and positive development, for the Christian church this involves letting go of the privileged place we have enjoyed within the UK for many years. For some Christians, this process of change is perceived as an attack on Christianity itself and this perception fuels some of the cases and issues which have arisen in recent years under the Religion & Belief regulations.

In many of these cases, more could have been done at an earlier stage to accommodate the specific request being made by the Christian member of staff, whether that was, for example, the wearing of a cross or the displaying of a palm cross in a company vehicle. The key response to any faith-related request by an employee is to fully explore the extent to which that request can be accommodated within your workplace. That involves taking on board the specific expression of faith being requested by that individual. It doesn’t really matter whether Christianity has a requirement that followers wear a cross or not – and, in practice, there are very few hard and fast requirements that hold true across all the Christian denominations – what matters is that your employee wishes to wear a cross and you, then, have to explore whether or not that can be accommodated or whether, for example, uniform or health & safety policies might impact on that request.

Overall, because some Christian festivals are officially sanctioned by governments as days when people are not required to work, Christians do not face the same issues as those of other faiths in negotiating time off work to celebrate their religious festivals. However, this has also changed to some 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.

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 by issuing a statement in 2006 which helpfully states:

“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.”

So, please, do not be taken in by arguments that other faiths are offended by the celebration of Christian festivals or the display of Christian symbols, as that is simply not the case. 

Finally, because Christians are praying that the loving, self-sacrificing characteristics of Jesus are manifest in their lives, it is also likely that issues of corporate social responsibility, diversity and equality, ethics, relationality and values will be important issues for Christians in the workplace. Research has shown that people of faith often experience tensions between "the spiritual side of their values and their work" so the more scope there is within the organisation for discussion of its values and the way in which these impact on its business practices, the more likely it is that synergies can be found between the spiritual values of employees and the values of the organisation. Once again, research indicates that where such synergies can be found employees will be more motivated in their work and their personal investment in the organisation.

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