Cynics Unlimited

The issue of religious symbols and images in the workplace seems to crop up time and time again in various locations. In Toronto, Canada, a judge ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from a courthouse on the grounds that the tree was a Christian symbol and thus violated the separation of church and state. An employee of British Airways lost her position for insisting on wearing a cross necklace on the job – a decision that was criticized because Sikh and Muslim workers were allowed to wear turbans and headscarves respectively. The president of an Italian courier company made his delivery people wear shirts with the words “God loves you” on them. Finally, a couple who owned a business in Chile installed statues of the Virgin Mary at their headquarters – on the advice of their son, a seminarian – in an effort to bring employees closer to the Virgin and “change their lives.” All these cases raise the question: do religious symbols belong in the workplace or should they be confined to the comfort of the employee’s (or employer’s) own home?

In the Toronto instance, the judge’s decision to remove the Christmas tree struck many people as a bit overblown. The Christmas tree strictly speaking is not a Christian symbol. Rather, it’s a pagan relic that was eventually incorporated into Christian festivities (nowhere in the account of Jesus’ birth in the Gospels do we find any mention of an evergreen tree). On reading of the judge’s decree, I had to laugh at the irony that I, a practising Lutheran, have never once put up a Christmas tree in my own house, whereas Russian-American journalist Cathy Young, a self-described Jewish agnostic, claims to have always had a Christmas tree at home during the winter holidays. I’m not even too bothered by the presence of more overtly religious images, such as a crèche or a menorah (for the Jewish celebration of Hanukah), at government buildings at the appropriate time of year.

However, at times government employees may overstep their boundaries in injecting their personal religious beliefs into the public sphere. Roy Moore, a Chief Justice, installed a 5,000-pound granite sculpture of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama State Judicial Building. Many commentators, including the aforementioned Ms. Young, did not have a problem with the posting of the Ten Commandments per se but felt it should be balanced by other legal codes that have influenced the Western justice system, like the Code of Hammurabi or Magna Carta. There was a consensus that Justice Moore – who among other things had denied a lesbian mother custody of her children on supposedly Biblical grounds, even though all references to homosexuality in the Bible deal with male-male sexual relations – was indeed seeking to impose his own religious views in the public domain.

What about religious images in private places of employment? I don’t see any problem with individual workers – or bosses or managers, for that matter – having religious symbols on their person (example: a cross necklace) or at their desks. At my old insurance company a Chinese Buddhist colleague kept a statue of the Buddha at his desk. While the Buddha means nothing to me religiously, I was not at all offended by the statue. My (non-Buddhist) friends and I even jokingly rubbed the Buddha’s belly for good luck. I myself wore a crucifix, less out of religious sentiment than out of the desire to emulate my then idol Madonna, who by the way has been decried by conservative religionists for using Christian images in her stage acts. My philosophy is that if you’re bothered by a colleague’s cross, menorah, Buddha, etcetera, there’s a simple remedy: look the other way (just as if your next-door neighbour is a nudist and that goes against your sense of decency, put up a fence).

The matter of course gets thornier when the religious images are placed on the worksite not by individual employees but by employers and/or managers. The contention here is that the company should represent all workers, so setting up a symbol of a faith in which they do not personally believe violates and imposes on their rights. I myself don’t think I’d feel uncomfortable at a company where a Hindu boss put up a statue of the god Ganesh in the lobby or a Jewish manager installed a menorah on the outside of the building. On the other hand, seemingly blatant displays of religiosity, particularly Christianity, leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Jesus Himself spoke against ostentatiously exhibiting one’s faith in public. As he stated in Matthew 6:5-6, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.” He preferred more humble folk, like the Roman centurion whose servant He healed.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I will concede that the couple in Chile are not showcasing what great Christians they supposedly are but are genuinely trying to influence their workers for the better. Still, it’s doubtful whether simply seeing a statue (or a cross or rosary or picture of Jesus) is going to transform anyone’s lives to any appreciable extent. It might on the contrary turn away more touchy individuals who consider the presence of the statue a blatant disregard of their beliefs or lack of them. Not to mention some Protestants who view the Catholic veneration of Mary as a form of idolatry. A statue of Mary wouldn’t convince me to convert to Catholicism, for instance (then again, half my extended family members are Catholic, so I guess I’ve already missed that boat).

In the end, though, a private employer is free to decide what he or she puts in his or her company. Employees who are truly bothered by the presence of a religious symbol in their workplace might simply find another job. Lest I be accused of a pro-religion bias, I’ll state the same for those who claim discrimination on not being permitted to wear crosses and other religious paraphernalia at work: I sympathize with them, but perhaps they should change workplaces if this really means so much to them. But the best way of resolving the issue is to have open discussions between employees and employers on this increasingly visible matter.