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9: Working for Better (Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund) · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
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course.
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Check it out at findinggodatwork.org.
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Our current series is Meaningful Work, Calling, Formation,
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Service, and Love.
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And today we have as a guest with
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us Elaine Howard Eklund.
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Elaine is the Herbert S.
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Autry Chair in Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology,
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and Director of the Boniuk Institute at Rice
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University.
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She is best known for her sociological work
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on the intersection of science and religion, and
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has also published research on religious discrimination, religion
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and immigration, religion and race, and religion in
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the workplace.
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She's the author of numerous books and research
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articles, including Science vs.
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Religion, What Scientists Really Think, and most recently
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co-authored with Denise Daniels, Working for Better,
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A New Approach to Faith at Work, which
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we'll get to look at a little bit
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today.
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Thanks so much for being with us, Elaine.
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Oh, Chris, thanks so much for having me.
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It's great to be here.
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I'm so glad to have you here.
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I'm really excited to dig into the book.
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So many of your ideas are ideas that
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I think will resonate with our listeners.
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But just as a get to know you
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question first, what helps you find God at
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work?
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On a normal workday, how do you welcome
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God's presence?
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Two kinds of things come to mind.
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I should know this one, right, Chris, since
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I wrote a whole book about it.
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But it's a little bit harder when you're
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asked directly about yourself.
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So I often walk to work.
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I am very, very much committed to that
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and to getting as much exercise as I
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can every day.
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And I try to delink myself from when
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I'm leaving at home as much as I
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can, and to pray as I'm walking into
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work.
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And really, what I'm praying as I walk
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into work is from Psalm 46, you know,
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let me be still and know that you
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are God, which is refrain in that Psalm.
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And I find that that really helps me
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to center to enter into what God is
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already doing in my workplace.
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The second thing that comes to mind is
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I am privileged to lead an institute at
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Rice University, which is called the Baniak Institute
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for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance.
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And that's been a journey to figure out
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how to lead that institute as someone who's
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a Christian myself.
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And I think leading that institute has led
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to some of the ideas that Denise and
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I talk about in the book.
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So I'll let you keep asking the questions.
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Sure, sure.
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I love that you're able to weave that
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little prayer moment into your relatively short commute.
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I think those transition moments in our days
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can really help us and kind of fostering
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them as a ritual to connect us to
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God's presence is wonderful.
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I have a question about calling.
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Since that's one of our areas of focus
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in this series, you and Denise mapped out
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four ways to understand calling in your book
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with kind of two different dimensions.
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So visually, you can imagine it as a
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horizontal dimension and a vertical dimension, one having
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to do with our relationship to the work
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itself and the other having to do with
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kind of where our work matters.
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So could you kind of explain those two
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dimensions and how they relate to calling?
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Absolutely.
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So let me start out by saying that
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Denise and I were a little bit surprised
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that so few people see their work as
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a calling.
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So only about a little over 20%
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of people see their work as a calling.
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For Christians, it's a bit higher than that,
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but still nowhere near 50%.
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And so one of the things that we
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did is just starting to look for ways
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in which people see their work as a
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calling.
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And we thought, maybe if we found a
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broader range of ways, then people would have
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some more possibilities for how they can see
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their work as a calling.
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And so what we found from our research
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is that there's two ways of understanding it,
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if you just nicely explained.
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On your horizontal axis, you have whether or
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not the calling is intrinsic to the work
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itself or whether the calling is extrinsic to
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the work itself.
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And on the vertical axis, you have whether
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or not the calling is beyond the workplace
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as the location of service or the calling
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is within the workplace.
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So an example of someone who has a
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calling that's intrinsic to the work itself, but
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beyond the workplace in terms of the location
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of service, is a man we interviewed who's
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a Christian who works at Subway.
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And this is not a paid endorsement for
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Subway or anything.
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But he said that his work making healthy,
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fast food, he thinks is just an extraordinary
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calling from God and really is able to
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serve the world.
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And he talked about all the places that
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Subway is located.
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And he sees that as such an extraordinary
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calling.
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So the location of the service is really
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outside his particular workplace to the people who
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buy the sandwiches.
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But it is actually what he's doing is
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very much intrinsic to the workplace, actually building
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the sandwiches themselves.
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And just one more example, since I know
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our time is short, we had a lovely
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example of a person who works in a
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meatpacking plant, extremely hard, monotonous, difficult work.
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And but he felt extraordinarily called by God.
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And the location of service was very much
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inside the workplace itself.
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But the content of his calling, what he
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was doing with his work, was outside the
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nature of the work itself.
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So very much extrinsic.
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And he said that they actually call him
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Yoda at his workplace because he is seen
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almost as an in-loco counselor to the
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other people in the workplace.
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And he has helped several people with their
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marriages.
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And he never mentioned once the actual packing
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of meat that he does.
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That wasn't mentioned at all.
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And yet his calling was taking place inside
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his workplace through helping people.
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That's such a great example.
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I think of a pilot friend of mine
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who mentioned when he first started working as
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a pilot, he realized, I have so much
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time with my co-pilot and talked about
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how that's an area of ministry.
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So again, the location is definitely work, but
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it didn't have anything particularly to do with
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flying or transportation.
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It was just, I have time with this
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human being.
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That's exactly right.
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I also appreciate how you mentioned, it's not
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like we're limited to one quadrant.
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If we imagine it visually, we got these
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four quadrants, extrinsic and outside of work or
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extrinsic inside of work or the opposites.
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But we can kind of spend some time
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in each of those.
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And that struck me as a really helpful
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perspective.
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Have you noticed that in your respondents or
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in your own experience as well?
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Absolutely.
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I think that if we start to think
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about calling as being in all of these
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different ways, sort of much more imaginative than
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we usually think of it, we usually think
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of it almost in a linear way.
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So we feel the call, whatever that means
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from God for those who are Christians.
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And then we go right into a particular
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job and we stay in that job once
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we found the call.
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But we found that it didn't appear linearly
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for most people who experienced calling.
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Often they got into a particular kind of
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job and then they started to realize what
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the calling was.
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And in an ideal world, you might have
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aspects of your calling that occur in all
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of these quadrants.
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You might, the listeners might think of, you
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know, praying that they might experience some more
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sense of calling in some of these things
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that maybe the book brings to mind that
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they're not experiencing calling in.
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As we think about how we can answer
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God's call in our workplaces, we also think
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of Jesus' teaching to love our neighbors as
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ourselves.
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And that obviously intersects with all of those
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aspects of calling.
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You also spoke in the book about the
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experience of religious discrimination and how we can
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respond either if we feel some pushback about
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our own Christian faith, but also the experience
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of religious discrimination that non-Christians may have.
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So I was wondering if you could speak
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to some of what you saw in your
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research about religious discrimination and how we can
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think about that as followers of Jesus.
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Yeah, that's a really great question.
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So the listeners probably already understand this, but
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throughout the book, we're moving from a kind
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of previous or older way of thinking about
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faith in the workplace to something that we
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think is newer and particularly relevant during these
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shifting demographic times and shifting workplace times.
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And one of the ways Christians have previously
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thought about discrimination is with an emphasis on
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essentially protecting ourselves.
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And some of that's really warranted.
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I think in particular kinds of workplaces, Christians
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might be discriminated against, especially when they're a
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numerical minority or a minority in terms of
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the power that they have in the organization
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or workplace.
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But more often, it's that other people experience
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more discrimination than they do.
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In lots of workplaces, it's the non-religious
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who experience discrimination.
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And especially we know that in American society,
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those who are Jewish and those who are
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Muslim experience a lot of discrimination.
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Over 50, well over 50 percent of Jewish
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people and Muslims say that they experience discrimination
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in their workplaces to some extent.
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And so we argue in the book that
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it's part of recognizing the Imago Dei that
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others are really made in the image of
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God that actually mandates that Christians look out
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for the welfare of others.
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And we move from a posture of thinking
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only about protecting ourselves to actually emphasizing maybe
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even foregrounding under certain conditions that we protect
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the other very much out of our Christian
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understanding.
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Not because it's a politically correct thing to
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do or there's a particular kind of program
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at work that says that we ought to
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do it, but very much born from a
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genuine Christian faith that we have a clear
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understanding of the humanity of everyone that we
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work with is being made in the image
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of God.
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And that means that we're looking out for
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others in our workplaces.
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I was thinking about some of the experiences
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you described of Muslims facing discrimination.
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And we know that this varies a little
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bit from region to region.
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And you found that sometimes it was the
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most difficult for Muslims in the American South.
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I thought it was really striking that it
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was most difficult for Jews in the American
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Midwest because that's home to me.
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And that was surprising to me like, oh,
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wow, I'm not sure why that might be.
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But thinking about ways that workplaces could accommodate
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for other faiths or ways that we as
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Christians could love our Jewish neighbor as ourself,
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love our Muslim neighbor as ourself.
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I think of things like making accommodation for
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religious practices like Muslim prayer during the day.
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But I also know that I might have
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some Midwestern friends.
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I once was talking with an older couple
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at our church and they expressed real fear
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about Muslims.
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And I was trying to know how to
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speak to them.
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And I imagine someone like this lovely older
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couple might also express a concern like, if
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I help accommodate a Muslim for Muslim prayer,
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am I like participating in idolatry or am
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I somehow contradicting my faith?
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So could you speak into that?
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How can we make accommodations for others out
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of Jesus's teaching without it contradicting our uniquely
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Christian convictions?
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That's one of my favorite questions and something
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I've struggled with and something in the audiences
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that we've already spoken to about this book
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that people kind of push back on a
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little bit and they struggle with.
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We have a chapter that's titled Systems Thinking.
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And we have a chapter that talks about
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pluralism and principled pluralism.
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And I think what we're verging into right
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now is understanding our workplace systems and practicing
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a kind of principled pluralism.
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So we understand that it's principled in that
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we are really called to have convicted sensibilities
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about our faith, about our Christian belief, and
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about our Christian practices.
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So in no way should we pretend we're
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not Christian should we compromise the Christian message.
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I think we need to be nuanced about
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it and express our faith in ways that
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are appropriate in the particular cultural context that
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we find ourselves in, in our particular kind
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of work that we do.
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But we should no way water that down.
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I'm very much opposed to interfaith kinds of
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efforts that encourage people to water down or
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come down to a lowest common denominator.
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And believe me, my Muslim colleagues and my
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Jewish colleagues are opposed to those as well.
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So no one wants that kind of pluralism.
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On the other hand, I think Christians have
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a special responsibility to really be leaders in
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such efforts because we are the majority religious
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tradition in the U.S. And we can
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really point the way for others to understand
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humanity, really other Christians to understand humanity is
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made in the image of God.
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And as part of that, we understand that
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we have a kind of humility because we
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know that God is God and we are
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not.
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And that means that we can potentially learn
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from others of different traditions, not necessarily to
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change our minds, but learn more authentically about
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who God is as expressed in another person.
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It's really a hard road.
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It's a hard road to keep those things
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in tension, that kind of conviction, but yet
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a kind of openness, a kind of humility
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that we can learn from another who's part
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of a different faith than we are.
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That's really, that's really helpful.
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You touched on the idea of systems change.
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And to me, that also kind of falls
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under the banner of loving your neighbor as
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yourself.
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So there was a story in the book
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where someone was asked to fudge some numbers,
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essentially to do something dishonest.
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And from a personal responsibility standpoint, he refused
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to do that.
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But then he also tried to persuade his
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boss that it was bad for the company's
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culture, values, etc.
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And you noted, hey, he moved from just
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a personal responsibility to influencing a broader system
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in that moment.
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So you can, can you speak more about
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that?
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Like how we may have more opportunity than
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we think as Christians to influence the systems
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of our workplaces?
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Oh, this is so, so interesting for me
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to talk about as a sociologist, right?
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So sociologists take seriously the group as a
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kind of actor in society.
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And we have a sober understanding that groups
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really impact what individuals do.
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And so it's super hard to change group
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cultures, to change group systems.
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But I think we're called to think about
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it as Christians, especially those of us who
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are in leadership positions or have particular kinds
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of power in our organizations.
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And we often have a lot more power
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than we think we do.
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And so that's pretty much all of us.
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So when I think about individual responsibility, I
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think about like the example you gave that
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we wrote about, Chris.
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Someone doing the right thing, but maybe not
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telling anyone.
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So there was a lot of discussion about
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people not stealing office supplies.
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I don't know who these office supply thieves
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are, but that was like a go-to
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example for people when we interviewed them about
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conducting themselves ethically in a workplace.
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But when you have a situation where perhaps
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a company is essentially stealing or a company
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is lying or a workplace is lying, or
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perhaps a class of people is being discriminated
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against.
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We had an example of a man who
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worked in the business world who really noticed
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that women were being discriminated against in his
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workplace in very systemic ways.
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And he decided to be a whistleblower on
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that discrimination.
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And he noticed, he said, that when people
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decided to act against the company, a little
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by little over time, the company found a
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way to get rid of them.
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And that happened to him.
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But he said that he would have done
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it all over again because he understood his
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responsibility to stand up to others.
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And it went on in the interview to
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say how he really felt his responsibility was
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to stand up to others for the good
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of those who are oppressed.
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And that is what God has done for
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us often.
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And so he felt that that was very
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much, I'm not encouraging that everyone act in
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the way he did.
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But it was a really striking example that
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sometimes systems thinking comes at a cost.
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In another example of someone we interviewed, it
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didn't come at a cost.
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And actually, the employers in the example that
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you just mentioned, the employers thought, wow, maybe
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we don't want people fudging in numbers in
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this way.
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And we want to kind of change how
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things are done so that we can feel
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better about the kind of workplace that we
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have rather than encouraging our employees to act
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in ways even if it's perceived as only
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being a little bit unethical.
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To me, that's a really empowering vision.
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As we think about what makes work meaningful,
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sometimes it's easy and natural to think about
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answering a calling or loving others in our
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interpersonal relationships.
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And obviously, those are hugely important.
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But also that there's even an opportunity when
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there's ethical conflict for us to love others
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by influencing our cultures, by influencing our systems,
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maybe in some small way, even by influencing
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our society.
17:54
And to me, that speaks to, hey, maybe
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we really can move the bar on some
17:58
of these things that affect so many people's
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lives.
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That's good news.
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I wish we had more time, but we
18:05
want to keep our commute length podcast to
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that length.
18:07
So just as a reminder to listeners, the
18:10
book is Working for Better, A New Approach
18:12
to Faith at Work by Elaine Howard Eklund
18:14
and Denise Daniels.
18:15
It's available from InterVarsity Press and we'll include
18:17
a link in the show notes like usual.
18:19
But Elaine, to close us out, would you
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be willing to just pray for our listeners
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as they lean into these things?
18:24
Elaine Howard Eklund Absolutely, Chris.
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And thank you so much.
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God, we are grateful for you that you
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have given the possibility of doing good work
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that really serves the world, serves the people
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in it.
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And we pray that you would lead each
18:42
of us to the best form of work
18:44
that we can do, that you might help
18:45
us realize our calling, that you might help
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us understand the power we do have to
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bring change in our workplaces and to care
18:54
for others.
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And we pray that you would help us
18:57
also grow nearer to you through the kind
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of work that we do.
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And we pray these things in your name.
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Amen.
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Amen.
19:10
Thanks for listening.
19:11
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