LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

While reading an article on Talk To Action, I found links to two articles about evangelism in the workplace. I thought I'd share them with you.

Christianity in the workplace
Can faith and work share space?

The U.S. Small Business Administration, the Better Business Bureau and the commissioner of the revenue have no category for them. They have no official logo and no trade union. These businesses rank from the Fortune 500 to the not so fortunate. They employ handfuls or hundreds and string from Honolulu to Hartford.

They are Christian-owned and Christian-run businesses, and depending on your persuasion, you may be inclined to swear by them – or at them. But one thing is for certain: It’s harder these days to spot what’s what.

“It’s such an organic thing,” said Randy Singer, an attorney-turned-missions-executive from Hampton Roads who travels across the country teaching what it means to be a Christian businessperson. He is also an adjunct professor at Regent University.

“I’m seeing a lot of blurring between what a Christian business is and what a secular business is. People are integrating spiritual aspects of their lives into the workplace, which is driven by this macro-force of blurring the lines between work and other parts of our lives. Many people are working from home. Fewer people are punching time clocks. When that happens, you can’t compartmentalize faith and work. They blend together.”

But do they blend, or do they slam into a head-on collision? When should Christian employers ’fess up to their faith, and when will their transparency land them in the middle of a lawsuit? What follows is a look at how some Christian business educators and Christian business owners approach those questions, and how a sampling of the secular community responds.

This article has some excellent questions about handling religion in the workplace.

The following article is a stark illustration of that 'stealth dominionism' that is creeping out under the cover of government and starting to strangle our rights.

Justice Unit Puts Its Focus on Faith --
A little-known civil rights office has been busily defending religious groups.

One of the main jobs at the Justice Department is enforcing the nation's civil rights laws. So when a nonprofit group was accused of employment discrimination last year in New York, the department moved swiftly to intervene -- but not on the side one might expect.

The Salvation Army was accused in a lawsuit of imposing a new religious litmus test on employees hired with millions of dollars in public funds.

When employees complained that they were being required to embrace Jesus Christ to keep their jobs, the Justice Department's civil rights division took the side of the Salvation Army.

Defending the right of an employer using public funds to discriminate is one of the more provocative steps taken by a little-known arm of the civil rights division and its special counsel for religious discrimination.

The Justice Department's religious-rights unit, established three years ago, has launched a quiet but ambitious effort aimed at rectifying what the Bush administration views as years of illegal discrimination against religious groups and their followers.

Many court decisions have affirmed the rights of individuals in the public sector not to have religious beliefs imposed on them -- the Supreme Court ruling banning school-sponsored prayer in public schools among them. And courts have ruled that the rights of religious groups sometimes need protection too -- upholding, for example, their right to have access to public buildings for meetings.

But the argument that a religious institution spending public funds has the right to require employees to embrace its beliefs -- and that it will be backed by the Justice Department in doing so -- has changed the debate. It is an argument the Bush administration is making in Congress as well as in the courts.

If anyone knows if this case has been ruled on yet, let me know. It's a very critical case, as you can see.