Are Christians Morally Allowed To Deny Employment To Non-Christians?

Great Debates
1

This grew out of Lel’s thread on discrimination.

Even though I am a devout Christian, I’m not comfortable with employers saying they will only hire Christians. As I was working out my thoughts this morning, I was thinking about Christ’s words, and I suspect it may be immoral for Christians to turn someone away based on faith. In the Gospels, Christ regularly makes examples of people whom the Jews of His time regarded as outsiders. In addition to the good old Good Samaritan, I’m thinking of the Samaritan woman at the well, to whom He revealed Himself to be the Messiah, and His work among other untouchables. Even His own hiring practices seem to argue against exclusionary practices, if you check Luke 5:27-32. Even though Levi was Jewish, he a tax collector, and the Pharisees did not consider tax collectors fit people to associate with. Finally, I’ll throw out Matthew 25:34-46, which reads in part, “For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty, you gave me drink; when I was a stranger, you took me into your home, when naked, you clothed me”.

This is a new notion for me, and, in today’s Christian climate in the US, it feels rather radical. I won’t be able to get back to this thread for a while, but I would be interested in hearing what the rest of you think.

Thanks,
CJ

2

I agree with you CJ. Although it is ethically neutral, it is morally dubious.

3

I suppose there might be a case for it when the job in hand actually requires religious input of some sort (I’m struggling to think of an example though).

Otherwise, I can’t see why it would even be a sensible idea to turn away non-believers.

Our church once made the mistake of seeking a contractor for a very large undertaking(I won’t go into details) - for some reason it was decided that the primary selection criterion should be strong belief. It went very badly and we ended up wasting a great deal of time, effort and money over the whole sorry affair.

4

Sorry; that doesn’t read right - the mistake was in the selection criteria, not the decision to contract out.

5

Priest? :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Maybe curator/advisor at a religious library or some sort of counselling position within a religious ministry, I dunno.

7

Which would you rather your priest have: strong faith, or the ability to council, manages crises, comfort the grieving, etc?

Plus, from the evangelical perspective, one would think that a faithless priest, provided he did his job, would be a good idea, as he might well pick up faith in the course of being a priest.

8

I am suspecting cjhoworth as being my twin sister separated at birth and miraculously transported to England. Which is to say that I agree with her. :slight_smile:

9

Why any non-christian would want to work for such an a-hole is beyond me.

10

Well, I think the OP is asking about hiring non-Christians, not about hiring Christians with little faith. It would be silly to hire an atheist for a priest’s position.

I can think of a few others as well. Suppose you run a Christian bookstore. I would imagine that the mission statement for such an enterprise would probably go beyond merely selling books. It might well be perfectly morally legitimate for such a business to only hire clerks who professed to be evangelical Christians.

11

There are some exceptions.
I have no problem requiring that people in religious leadership positions (which I’m defining very narrowly, to differ from people who have subordinates), should believe the same thing the religion teaches.

However, if it isn’t that sort of position, belief is not an acceptable hiring criteria.

For the bookstore example, I don’t care about the employees religious beliefs. I’m sure the bookstore has a mission statement (or something) along the lines of providing Christian resources to people. If the person can do that despite not believing, they should be able to work there. The employees should have to know the books. They should have to have read a some of them, they should have to understand how to find what books a person is looking for, and be able to point people in the right direction. And while they’re at work, they should be trying to sell items to people (which means recommending the Christian books we’ve got in the store, regardless of whether they believe there’s any truth in any of them) and provide good customer service (which means being kind to people, treating them and their beliefs with respect). If they can do that, I don’t care what they believe. And the bookstore manager, though in a leadership position, is not a religious leader. The same would go for her.

12

Though I never had much use for the TV series “Nothing Sacred,” it had one funny line in the first episode. The parish had an accountant/business manager who was a self-professed atheist. When someone asked the pastor how he could hire such a man, the pastor said something like, “Good- our parish is in financial trouble, the last thing we can afford is a business manager who thinks God will provide.”

It all comes down to this: what’s the job, and how important is it that the person doing it share the Church’s beliefs. If my church is hiring a new janitor or groundskeeper, does it really matter if he’s Catholic? I can’t see how.

13

Well, I don’t see any need to deny work in a Xtian enterprise when the job description has no need to be able to witness, etc. Why couldn’t an atheist, deist or buddhist work as a clerk in a Christian store? All they’d have to say if asked for a recommendation is that they hadn’t read it (which I doubt they have), try to find out what the customer is looking for and then show them what the store carries in that area.

If the customer persists for a personal recommendation, they can in all honesty say they haven’t read the book, or that it’s very popular, etc, etc, any number of positive friendly responses which require no reference to your faith or lack thereoff.

[anectdotal]
My youngest sister worked summers at the Christian camp next door to where my parent’s farm is. It was very convenient since she didn’t even have to use her car.

We’re all non-believers, but we’re also very polite about it. Of course, a “proselytizing atheist” wouldn’t have worked out at all, but my sister likes kids and doesn’t really have any agenda on what anyone should believe. She worked maintenance the first year (painting, cleaning, working on trail maintenance), then was the art councilor the next.

Presumably there was a bit of feeling out on both sides about this, since she told them from the start that she wasn’t a Christian, but that she wasn’t going to make that an issue with anyone…and she’s definitely a very tactful and friendly person.

I can think of a lot more alienated type atheists who’d just have waaaay too much emotional baggage on religion to work in a religious setting, but also would they seek to work there?
[/anectodal]

So I’d say, ethically businesses should take it on a case-by-case basis, and those who can interact with their customers or clients without challenging their business or services religious image, they should go ahead and hire.

But I think it is also a valid stance, if 2 people with exactly the same amount of credentials, personability,etc are applying, and one is evangelical and one is not, if it’s an evangelical business, they can validly say that the evangelical candidate is better.

Because a business that also has an evangelical aspect would consider praying over ever damn thing or witnessing to the customers a normal part of a job with them.

And if they REQUIRE that sort of thing, I don’t want to be hired by them and I’d prefer to know this during the interview, cuz I’m not going to be interested in doing that.

BUT legally I wonder how many businesses do this, in the US at least. The example with my sister above, they would have been completely within their legal rights to deny her employment for not being affilitated with their Church, and they could validly (I think) argue that she wouldn’t be able to provide Christian counseling if needed, but they were most open minded about it.

IANAL, but my understanding is under federal lawSMALL businesses (under 15 people) are exempted from religious nondiscrimation law, so are churches and church institutions like schools and camps.

I’ve seen anectdotal accounts of having to sign “faith statements” during the application process, being asked about religion, etc, but I don’t have any personal experience, and Google’s giving me nothing…

When I search “religious descrimination”, seems most court case examples are of employees suing their employers for not accomodating the employees “religious requirements”, rather than employers forcing their own religion on their employees. Interesting.

Can anyone provide cites for articles on documented employers (who aren’t the churches, institutions or small businesses exempted above) requiring applicant to be a particular religion? US, UK, Canada, etc?? Now I’m wondering about it and all…

14

I think that not hiring a qualified person because of religious beliefs is wrong, unless those religious beliefs are an important part of the job requirements. In the religious bookstore example, I can see Christianity as potentially important. If customers enjoy getting recommendations from the clerk as to which books are particularly inspiring, or if they like to discuss their faith, then certainly a Christian clerk would be a big plus.

However, if all of the potential employees in consideration are equally qualified, and you need some arbirtrary tie-breaker, I wouldn’t have a problem with religious beliefs being used as a criteria, in the same way that I may use a love of video games as an arbitrary tie breaker, since it would give the employee and I something in common to chat about.

Jeff

15

Sometimes, when you need a job you take what you can when it comes along. That’s why.

Years ago I was in much need of a job. A catalogue company was hiring for customer service reps. With quite a lot of experience in this field, I applied and was hired. Perhaps I should have looked into this company further before accepting. I soon realised this company touted itself as a Christian camping catalogue. It had a mission statement and scriptures on the inside cover (believe you me, complaints were received daily about this but business thrived). The owners prayed for good business at each morning meeting. There were daily Bible readings in a room specifically set aside for praying and Bible study. Employees were … erm … encouraged to participate. If you didn’t you were assigned other duties and had to cover for those participating. Because I did not join in as requested, my job grew increasingly more stressful and demanding. A budding Buddhist, I requested use of the prayer room one afternoon to meditate and you’d have thought I asked to slaughter a goat and play records backwards… I was forced to leave shortly thereafter. I was not the kind of employee they wanted. Oh well.

As for the OP, I do not think it is morally correct for a Christian employer deny employment to a non-Christian (unless for specifically noted jobs such as priest, etc). A job is a job, regardless of religion… Anyone can clean a toilet. Anyone can can teach. Anyone can answer a phone… As an employer I would welcome the diversity and opportunities to learn about others. That said, I would still run a secular office.

16

In addition to what’s already been mentioned, Christians have a duty to spread the Good News, and one way to do that is by setting a good Christian example to balance against the Fred Phelpses of the world. Turning down a non-Christian because of his faith (or lack thereof) could easily having the effect of lowering that person (and/or those he told about the experience)'s opinion of Christianity.

17

Is it correct for ANY employer to select on the basis of Faith? There was a Jewish deli where I grew up that hired only Jews, for example. You could likely find Muslim businesses in the USA that hire only amoung their fellow faithful, etc.

18

Here’s Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as amended, from the EEOC’s website.

Here’s the text of the religious exemption:

IANAL, and I don’t know whether the law recognizes such an animal as a for-profit religious corporation. Otherwise, the meaning seems clear.

I taught at an evangelical Christian college for five years in the mid-1990s, as some of you may know. (It was definitely not a for-profit institution!) The college didn’t have a specific statement of faith that they required employees to sign to, but they did require their employees (all of them, IIRC, not just the professionals) to be Christian. Applicants gave a description of their own religious beliefs, and the college decided whether you made the cut. Part of the interview process for the faculty, when I was there, was an hour’s friendly discussion with the chaplain; this gave them a bit more insight, I’m sure, in cases such as mine. :wink:

Actually, that part of the interview process was what assured me that they weren’t looking to turn out little Falwell clones, but in fact had a religious POV that was reasonably compatible with my own. The student body was far more evangelically correct than the faculty; the Christian schools and churches were sending us the cookie-cutter Christians, and we were trying to help show them that it wasn’t quite that simple.

I think some sort of profession of Christian faith was an absolute necessity for faculty and administrators; the college would have ceased to be what it was, had it abandoned that requirement. I’m five years removed from an understanding of why maintenance staff and the like were also required to be Christians; I remember that their arguments in favor of that policy were strong enough to satisfy me at the time, but I can’t remember what they were, let alone defend them.

19

We are building a religion.

In the U.S. it does not matter whether something is morally right or wrong (i.e. abortion, homosexuality, prostitution, etc. ) just as long as it is legal.

:ducks and runs from barrage of replies to ensue:

20

Legality is oft based on Morality.

In any event, Jesus himself did not exclude on the basis of religion. He taught Jewish precpts, though he also sought to change other aspects of Jewish law. Given his own views on the subject (see the “Good Samaitan” parable) I expect that with a few exceptions under religious leadership positions, one should not discriminate.

That said, there is nothign wrong with taking it into account, but it should be about the last thing to be considered.