Should bringing your whole self to work include your religious beliefs?

"The entire global workweek structure stems from Judeo-Christian theology. Saturdays and Sundays are considered “days of rest,” so many institutions suspend organized work to observe the Sabbath. The country shuts down for Christmas. We hand out candy in October because of All Hallows' Eve, a pagan tradition with a Christian association. And once we're in the office, we use words like evangelist, convert, mission, believers, devotion—religious vocabulary is so embedded in the discourse of marketing and management that we've stopped hearing it as religious at all."

"In fact, the source material for much of social living is founded on religious imaginations that have been secularized, even in the workplace; we have just agreed to pretend otherwise. That's why we invited Julie Wenah onto the latest episode of the FROM THE CULTURE podcast to sit with this contradiction. Wenah is the chairwoman of the Digital Civil Rights Coalition and a global product leader who's done AI equity work at Meta and Airbnb."

"She's also a filmmaker, an Alvin Ailey-trained dancer, and a woman who will, without flinching, tell you what God said to her last Thursday. Wenah is what the no-Jesus-at-work crowd insists is impossible: a senior operator"

The United States separates church and state, but workplace neutrality is often enforced as if religion must be excluded from work. Many global workweek conventions stem from Judeo-Christian theology, including weekend rest tied to the Sabbath and institutional shutdowns for Christmas. Cultural practices such as Halloween-related candy also reflect religious and pagan traditions with Christian associations. Religious vocabulary like evangelist, convert, mission, and believers is embedded in marketing and management and is frequently treated as secular. Social living structures are therefore influenced by religious imaginations that have been secularized, while people agree to treat them as nonreligious. A civil rights leader and product leader is presented as evidence that religious expression can coexist with senior professional roles.

Read at Fast Company