Spirituality in the Work Place

By ROB MOLL

New England's Puritan settlers brought with them two ideas that have driven American society ever since: Calvinism and capitalism. From Calvinism's birth in 16th-century Switzerland, its descendants, including the Puritans, developed ever more rigorous arguments for individual liberty, freedom of conscience, the rule of law, and the freedom to associate and to enter into contracts. Combined with a strong work ethic and high moral standards, these social arguments came to propel the modern commercial economy. By the early 20th century, the sociologist Max Weber could give a systematic analysis to the whole potent formula, in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism."

A century later, as Lake Lambert III explains in "Spirituality, Inc.," religious faith is on display in American business as perhaps never before, from Tyson Foods' "workplace chaplains [who] roam the corporate halls and processing floors" to the never-open-on-Sunday Chick-fil-A's policy of dedicating each new restaurant to God's glory. The rise of companies with an explicitly religious underpinning has been accompanied by an increase of general spiritual awareness in the workplace, Mr. Lambert says. "Corporations like Ford and Xerox sponsor spiritual retreats to spark creativity." Even companies with no overt religious or spiritual interests may be the site of spiritual expression, whether that means a Bible study in a conference room or a weekly meeting hosted by the Spiritual Unfoldment Society at the World Bank.

Workplace spirituality, then, can take many forms, but its overall theme, Mr. Lambert says, is an attempt to transform business "from an egotistic survival of the fittest built around greed to a new vision of commerce grounded in compassion and enlightened self-interest that is, at its heart, a spiritual phenomenon."

In a country where the line defining the separation of church and state is well drawn—lawsuits over Christmas manger scenes aside—the separation of church and work is hardly defined at all. An employee's spiritual expression may be seen by his cubicle-mate as an admirable emblem of shared values or as a troubling imposition. When a boss places, say, a Bible prominently on his desk, what should his subordinates think? Should it be regarded like a family photo or thought to be a source of intimidation? The legal guidelines here are surprisingly vague. The courts still haven't fully worked out what is allowed.

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Spirituality, Inc.

By Lake Lambert III
New York University Press, 216 pages, $35

Expressions of spirituality with no specific religious affiliation are considered less likely to cause complaint. In Mr. Lambert's telling, this sort of spirituality is in fact linked to the advent of the knowledge-based economy. "Creativity, community, autonomy, and holistic concern became new employee benefits that supported the productivity of the new knowledge class," he writes, "and a particular type of spirituality found a partner in knowledge work." Today's workplace spirituality is a search for meaning, but it embraces questions rather than looks for answers. It is essentially, Mr. Lambert says, "the quest for wholeness."

In addition to citing Xerox's "vision quest" outings and Ford's "creativity-building exercises," Mr. Lambert tells us about the storytelling sessions advocated by the popular management theorist Peter Senge and about the efforts of personal-care-products maker Tom's of Maine "to build partnerships with sales outlets . . . so that values and relationships replace deals and competition."

Mr. Lambert worries that corporate executives may have less-than-high-minded motives in fostering workplace spirituality. Is being allowed to contemplate the meaning of life on company time, Mr. Lambert wonders, "a response to the real needs of workers or a rhetorical strategy" intended to buttress demands for higher productivity? One suspects that workers are not so easily duped.

The classical tie between Christianity and work has not entirely devolved into creative exercises with Native American talking sticks. Tyson Foods and Chick-fil-A are hardly the only Christianity-based enterprises in this country. Mr. Lambert also writes about Orthodox Jewish diamond brokers and the Maharishi University of Management. But Christian companies dominate this multifaceted scene.

One such company is ServiceMaster, a national franchise operation that provides home and office cleaning, lawn care, pest control, and other services through companies including ChemLawn and Terminix. Mr. Lambert quotes C. William Pollard, a former ServiceMaster chief executive officer, who writes in a book of his own that the company operates on the Judeo-Christian concept of the "Imago Dei"—the image of God that is placed in every human being, according to Genesis. ServiceMaster would thus regard every employee—from exterminators to executives—in an equal way. The company headquarters in Memphis prominently display an 11-foot statue of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. "Masters of service, serving the Master," was the slogan of Marion Wade, who founded company half a century ago. As Mr. Pollard explains: "The leaders of our firm should never ask anyone to do anything they are unwilling to do themselves. The leader exists for the benefit of the firm, not the firm for the benefit of the leader."

How we got from Calvinism and the Bible-based idea of vocation to the widespread and vaguely spiritual workplace of today is clearly told by Mr. Lambert in "Spirituality, Inc." What he does not discuss is whether the intersection of the workplace with religious or spiritual matters is good for business, or for workers. Less indulgence in the obligatory academic critiques of "hegemony"—the uses of power to, in this case, impose religion on workers—and more thoughtful analysis would have been welcome.

Mr. Moll is editor at large for Christianity Today and author of "The Art of Dying: Living Fully Into the Life to Come," to be published by InterVarsity Press.