Christianity in the Workplace Part 1

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast. On Finishing Well, we help you make godly choices about Medicare, long-term care, and your money. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

And challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Well, well, well, I want to know, and I know you want to know, listeners too. I'm sitting across from this man here and I want to know what did happen to Roy. Where is Roy, people?

That's what we all want to know. Where is Roy? Where is the white guy, the big white guy, the bald-headed white guy? I am back, Will. You are back, sir. It's so good to be back.

It is, sir. It's good to see you. Good to have you. Good that you had an opportunity to get some time, take some time away, and reflect and refresh. So you're all ready to go.

I'm ready to go, Will. Thank you so much. And on behalf of my absence, just want to say thank you for filling in that first week I wasn't feeling well and then the last time I was on vacation. But thank you so much. It's good to be back with the team. Praise God.

Praise God. So listeners, what would happen if, and I'm talking to the men now, you go home and you look at your wife right in the face and she says, what are you doing home? What are you doing home? And you say, honey, I got fired. What? You got fired?

Why did you get fired? For sharing my faith. For spreading the gospel. See, so today's show, Roy, is important because, men, you need to know your rights.

That's exactly right. And see, rights, just as it's written in scripture, we can read over there a course in Romans 13 where it talks about, you know, God established government. So if God established government and the laws thereof, there are laws that protect you for sharing the gospel. That's great, Will.

Great lead in. And the reason the laws and the government was created was to govern unrighteousness and to govern immorality. Exactly. So that's important that we recognize that. So we're going to be talking about, listeners, today, we're going to be talking about Title VII. Title VII is actually a, it's a title that's under the Civil Rights Movement Act or the Civil Rights Act of 1967. And so this comes from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC, as most of you would know it.

Yeah, exactly. And so we're going to give you an overview of some of the rights that you have as a born again believer, because we're not attorneys here. We're not lawyers. But we, what we want to do is heighten your awareness when it comes to what your rights are from a very, very high level perspective. Everybody needs to know their rights. Yeah, exactly, Will. And one of the things that you, when we try to teach and bring the facts forward, and this is from the ACLJ, I believe you said it like that, Will, that we're going to share this information from you. A well-educated follower is an equipped follower, is an armed follower. And we're not talking about intimidation, we're talking about you need the knowledge to know what your rights are so that you're, you're comfortable in sharing in the right situations at work and know if someone tries to back you down about your sharing of your faith, what you're able to do legally.

Exactly. And of course, when Roy talked about ACLJ, that's the American Center for Law and Justice. So these folks have done excellent work. They have helped individuals out who have been in crises. And so this is the resource that we're using today.

And a great job that you've done here, Will, pulling this information together for us. So, Will, why don't you lead off and the first header is about sincerely held religious belief. What does that mean exactly? And see, this is a sincere belief is something that consistently may be considered evidence that the belief is not sincere, but it is sincere to the point if you as an individual, your belief or the religion in which you practice says that certain periods or times, and this is an example, certain periods or times of the day that you must do this to fulfill that sincere belief that you have.

Now, an employer is going to be watching and what, Roy, they want to do is they want to make sure that you are indeed sincere and you're not just giving this up as a means of getting out of work or getting out of some responsibility. Exactly, yeah. And generally speaking, the sincerely held religious belief, according to ACLJ, is not normally what goes into question.

It's other components which we'll address here later, but that's exactly right, Will, about that. And if it's something, it may not be necessarily related to your doctrine. It may not necessarily be related to Scripture. It could be something that is just part of your practicing of your faith, which is really unique in how they describe this. Exactly.

So it doesn't have to be called out in the doctrinal issues or any of those other items in order for it to be legitimate. But you have to make it known, too. You have to make it known to the employer. And see, that's something as we go through this that the ACLJ points out that it doesn't necessarily have to be in writing, but it's best to put it in writing so that you can have a referral or actually some of this can go into your record.

That's right. And when you put in a simple email or simple memo to your boss that says, hey, based on my beliefs, I do not wish to participate in this particular issue or item or activity. And once you do that, you've gone on record and you've basically taken a stand that says, this is where I stand based on my beliefs. And then your employer has a record of it. And then if the conversation comes up again or there's some issue around the work or around the activity, you've got that to talk to your employer about. Absolutely. And your employer, according to Title 7, must make a reasonable effort in order to ensure that the sincere belief or practice which you hold based on your religious belief, that they can accommodate that. That is up to the point where it will not interfere with your work or the environment in which you are working. So that's important, I think, to the sense, Roy, that you are ensuring that you're capturing everything that you need to capture with respect to your sincere belief.

But it also holds the employer responsible to ensure that they have taken your requests with respect to your belief and attempt to reasonably accommodate you to come and pass. Very good, Will. And that's one of the things, folks, as you're jotting notes down, we'll try to maybe, we haven't thought about this, but we could potentially put a few of these notes out there on the website if we'd like to make it accessible, or at least a hyperlink over to this article for the listeners.

And that's at www.tawcm.com. And we'll try to get that out for you next week. And so the next thing, when we've talked about, back to what Will had shared earlier, employee-informed, employee of religious belief. Now this is the number two component within this requirement. And as Will shared earlier, it's important to do it in writing. So what it says is, next thing plus, employee must show the employer was aware of the belief if they were having a complaint related to this Title VII. And when they say that, they mean you have notified your employer, i.e. the thing back in writing, that says, here, this is my religious belief.

This is the reason I can't participate or don't want to be a part of this or don't want to be subject to this particular subject matter that you're pushing or talking about or asking me to participate in. An employer has sufficient notice of an employee's religious belief if he has enough information about the employee's religious needs to permit the employer to understand, this is key, folks, to understand the existence of a conflict between the employee's religious practices and the employer's job requirements. And the best way to inform your employer is in writing with a simple letter or email to your employer, I, employer, accommodate this sincerely held religious belief by allowing me to or not to, require me to blank.

Employees should sign the note and date it and keep a record of what you've sent to your employer. So you're saying, I'm requesting that you, my employer, accommodate this sincerely held religious belief by allowing me to or not to, requiring me to blank. Whatever the activity is that you feel is a conflict within your belief, you're just basically describing a very simple form with an email to your boss. And then that way it's handled. And then your boss, if they're worth their weight in gold, would turn around and say, okay, let's sit down and talk about what we need to do to accommodate or how we can help you out here so that we don't have an issue.

And it best serves your personal beliefs. And folks, in today's time, you know, there are so many people searching out there for answers that there's a big void in their lives. And we've basically created that void with all the distractions Satan's used throughout time and has had more tools as we've talked about in previous shows. If your boss might be one of those people that's searching and if you handle this conversation properly and your need and your desire, it may be an opportunity to share the gospel with you. Share the gospel with your supervisor if you've not had the opportunity because it's an open door because they're addressing your needs and you have a door open there. And we're going to talk about the ability to witness in the workplace here in just a little bit as well. Absolutely. And see, and it's not that you are attempting to force or if you, when you join the company, the employer may come back and say, well, hey, you hadn't brought this up to my attention before. Well, Title 7 addresses that too.

Because it doesn't necessarily mean that when you join the company that you were at the point of observing that religious belief. Right. It could be instantaneous.

It could have just happened yesterday. That's right. And so that does not permit them from not making a reasonable attempt to accommodate you even though you have been working for the company 10, 15, 20 years. Excellent point, Will.

And that's a very key there. And just to reiterate what Will just shared again, let's mirror back, is that if you've just become a new believer, you've been with this company for 20 years, you're a new believer and new follower of Christ. And all of a sudden now things are offensive to you that you once were asked to be a part of or asked to do. Now you have ground to stand on, just a simple email to your supervisor to say, look, I'm now born again Christian. I no longer accept support of abortion and I don't want to go be a part of whatever organization or things that are going on that go against the will of God. So to Will's point, it doesn't have to be a long standing.

It could have just happened in your life or conviction that's come on your heart in just the last few days. Indeed. And religion, that particular word, and we understand we who are born again in belief understand religion, but religion is a broad-based term.

But Title VII does not include religion and expand religion into extremist groups. We need to make sure we make that known too. Yeah. And one of the ones they illustrated was like the Clu Clucks Clan, obviously, because of some of their standings in their history.

To be on some sort of foundation that we all shake our head at, but that was one of the extremes that they specifically called it out in their examples. So what a great topic we have. Great selection for the week. Folks, I hope you're enjoying where we're headed with this.

Great information and we'll certainly make this available to you next week as we share it on our website. So we'll be back here in just a few seconds after the break. Thank you again for joining us. And Will, great to be home. Good to have you back.

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Call 336-885-1987. Praise the Lord, everybody. That's that bump in music. That's all right, ain't it? Some things have changed. I like the changes, I have to say.

I know Roy was looking at me with like bug eyes over here going, what's going on, Will? I like it, Keith. Nice job, Keith.

Very nice job. Well, we are talking about your rights in the workplace. Don't let the employer intimidate you with respect to sharing your faith again on the job. So this next point we're going to talk about is basically discriminatory treatment of an employee. So this is a person who is sharing their faith and all of us, I think, who have shared our faith with some type of, any type of conviction, have came across that employee who works for the employer who attempts, Roy, to sort of like ruffle your feathers, so to speak, or to do things in such a way as to either try you or to intimidate you either to quit or to say, I want another area of the plant to work in or something to that effect. All of us, I think, who have worked in any type of job has had that person that we would have to deal with. Yeah, Will, good lead-in into this thing about discriminatory treatment of an employee, and the ACLJ quotes as part of Title VII, if an employee can show they have a sincerely held religious belief and that the employer knew about it, Title VII prohibits the employer from discriminating against the employee because of the belief. Discrimination includes demotion, layoff, transfer, failure to promote, discharge, harassment or intimidation, or the threat of these adverse employment actions. And as a co-worker, that would hold true, too, so someone should not treat you with any of those actions or any of those methods of intimidation or separation, harassment, et cetera.

So that's something you really need to hold on to. And as we move down the line in some of the other topics, Will, which is going to come right in behind this, is some of those conversations that can be had at your place of work. And they speak to this in breaks and those sort of things when we get into the next area. But it's important, folks, to know that you can't be harassed because of your beliefs. You can't be discriminated against. And we've talked about this in the past with other fellow workers, friends, and they're afraid because everyone will say a separation of church and state, that's not in the Constitution. It's not written that way.

It wasn't intended the way people were using it. Much like we sometimes do as followers of Christ, we grab a piece of scripture and want to say, quote, just that element without having the before and after scriptures to go along with it so the whole context is understood. But oftentimes we just are intimidated just by the sheer nature of what society has done as of late, Will, in the workplace, in the social media place. And Christianity has become a really bad word for a lot of folks in terms of the way they think of us. That's why I most times talk about being a follower of Christ because a lot of folks have given us some tough time because of the way they behaved as Christians. And so, followers of Christ is what we need to be known as.

And I like even using the term, Roy, kingdom citizen. Amen to that. Because even though I am on this earth, that I am no longer part of this earth. And so my walk now is a kingdom walk. Amen. And I need to be thinking kingdomly instead of no longer naturally because of what Ephesians chapter 2 verse 5 talk about that we are already seated, Roy, in heavenly places. Amen. So if I'm already seated in heavenly places and I got my seat. Then you need to behave like a heavenly place citizen. Absolutely. And if I keep my mind on Jesus Christ, then I will have no problem doing that. Amen.

Absolutely none. Folks, I think let's just pause there for a moment. I want you to just let that percolate in your mind for just a second. He said that he's in the world but he's not of the world. He's already got his seat at the table. And if you're a follower of Christ, you have your seat at the table.

Absolutely. And your seat in the kingdom. And let's not allow what's going on in our politics, not what's going on in our society, what's going on in social media, distract you or detract you from your mission. Your mission is to be a follower of Christ, to disciple, be discipled and grow the kingdom and be doing the work of the kingdom.

Amen. And see, Roy, every state, as we were talking about the EEOC, every state has a field office somewhere. Typically, it might be, you might have more than one. But typically, it's in the capital of that state. It's where you have an EEOC field office. Now, if you want to dig deeper into these conversations and the actual Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1967, then again, we're going to supply you the link on the TAWCMM website. But I also want to mention, Roy, that there may be state laws in the state that you live in that might garner you more protection than the federal laws do. So it's good to also check out what your state laws say. Don't be slack in this, men, because we want you to be, as we talk about, we want you to be followers of Christ, but you also have to be aware of the things that you need to be aware of so you don't be taken advantage of.

Yeah, and being a follower of Christ doesn't mean sitting on the sidelines and waiting for somebody to bring this to you. If this is a problem in your workplace or you're having difficulty or you're not sure, to Will's point, reach out there and do the research or reach out and ask someone to help you with the research if you're not sure. We're certainly reachable on email. We've provided that to you. It's on our website. We'll try to link you up with the right person.

And one of the things that you're going to hear throughout this as well is if you're unsure or if you think there's been some issues, you can't get resolved, they encourage you through the ACLJ to reach out to your local attorney and speak with him or her to have a conversation around this topic, and they can quickly identify and help you work through it. And we're not promoting lawsuits and litigation and all that. No. Please be clear. We're just wanting you to know that as a follower of Christ, you are protected by our Constitution and by these acts that have been in place since the 60s, I guess, and some of these things have addressed these issues.

So you are protected. And that's what's key. Absolutely. We as followers of Christ, I believe, have been intimidated over the last several years to believe that we don't have a say, because we know what happens when you try to make a stand on anything that's Bible-based these days. It becomes a point, accusations of hatred and all these other things which are so untrue, so untrue. So we're just trying to educate you.

Absolutely, Roy. In order to be made this available. And edification is part of what the Scripture says we need to be doing anyway. So if you need to be edified with respect to educating in the Scriptures, then we need to be educated in the other areas as well.

Exactly. And so that's what we're attempting to do. So can, can, Roy, I share the Gospel with my co-workers?

You sure can. And then we're going to tell you exactly what the ACLJ has narrated back off of this Title VII. So I'm going to read it off the paper here for some notes. So, A, if required by their religious beliefs, an employee's religiously motivated expressions of faith are protected by Title VII. For instance, in conversations with other employees, you may refer to biblical passages on slothfulness.

I think that's kind of interesting they use that as an example. Because usually that's where we're getting upset with our co-workers. They're not doing half the work we're doing and they get paid the same amount of money, right? And it also, the Scripture also tells us if you don't work, you don't eat.

That's right. And work ethics. Employees can engage in religious speech at work as long as there's no actual imposition on co-workers or disruption of the work routine.

So let me repeat that again. Employees can engage in religious speech at work as long as there's no actual imposition on co-workers or disruption of the work routine. Generally, no disruption of the work routine will occur if an employee's witnessing takes place during breaks or other free time. If other employees are permitted to use electronic mail and screensavers for speech that is not related to work, an employee who has a sincerely held religious belief to communicate their faith with others should also be able to use these modes of communication. So if we think about the Great Commission, right, that was to go make disciples of the nations, right, which means let's share the gospel, right? So that is our religious held belief, you know, sincerely held belief that we are supposed to go make disciples of all the nations if you're truly a follower of Christ. It means getting off the sidelines, sharing the gospel when you have an opportunity. But don't preach to them. Don't overrun their work day and don't tie up their time if it's during a normal break or an opportunity to share a good word. You're perfectly within your rights to do that according to what has been written in law.

Darrell Bock Exactly. And this also leads you just sort of like mirroring back what Roy is saying here is that it is probably best to ask someone, is it okay if I share the gospel? Because if you start sharing the gospel and an individual will say, you're interfering with my work.

I don't want to hear that right now. I got work I need to concentrate on in doing. But if you approach them and say, hey, you know, sitting down with them or if they see you reading the scripture or they may be having a bad day and you can ask them, you know, about sharing the gospel with them, Jesus Christ, that will open the door because now you have permission to do so rather than confronting someone who simply don't want to hear the gospel. And then all of a sudden now they're going to the supervisor saying this individual is interfering with my work. Darrell Bock Great example, Will. Great example.

I've done the same. Somebody's come in with basically a tough topic and wanted to talk about it. And I said, may I have permission to speak freely, you know, because they wanted to share it was on their heart. And I said, may I have permission to speak freely because they knew where I stood on my walk. I said, but I may have permission to speak freely and they granted permission and it opened the door. And it was just a short conversation, but it allowed me the opportunity to share my beliefs and what this subject matter was about.

So yeah, and see, and, and having the, I think the ability to share the gospel not only fulfills the great commission, as you mentioned, Roy, but I think it also lets other individuals who may work around you understand who you are because certain individuals, they may not say anything, but they'll be watching you. And if they, if they, if they see, Hey, this individual is coming under attack and they're not like, they're keeping it cool and calm and collected. Maybe I need to have a conversation with them. So they may come back and say to you, uh, you know, supervisor or the manager jumped in your case and you just kept it cool.

Can you tell me how you were able to do that? What is different about your life than mine? And you know, this comes back to one of our old sayings that uncle Dale Marshall used to always say is your actions are speaking so loud. I cannot hear a word you're saying. So you'd much rather for people to see it through your actions and then your words back it up and then to see, hear your words and not see the actions back in the way. Hey, exactly. I knew you do have a couple of them. I knew it. There's certain things folks in your life you get exposed to that stay with you for a lifetime. And uncle Dale was one of those guys that, uh, it was an elderly senior Saint in my old church.

And when he would come up with some kind of like, yeah, but when he said something, he wanted to listen because it generally had some value to it. And this was one of those times, folks, we, it's so good to be back with you. Will. It's great to see you. We'll see you back next week with part two of Christianity in the workplace. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that T A W C M M talking and walking Christian men's ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on man talk today. Find us at www t a w c m m.com men walking the talk. This is the truth network.