THE FAITH FACTOR IN TODAY'S MARKETPLACE

"THROUGH A SEMINAR SERIES CALLED LEADERS LIGHTHOUSE, [Concord, North Carolina, businessman, Glen] Love teaches companies to practice 'servant leadership' and to identify employees' individual talents. 'People are taught leadership is intimidation, abuse of power,' says the former banker and sports marketer. 'Jesus was bottom up.'

"Love and legions of believers like him are marching their religious beliefs, and practices, into the marketplace in multiplying numbers. Increasingly, executives and workers nationwide are saying religion isn't just for Sundays. This faith-in-the-workplace movement stretches from the White House to Ford Motor Co. to Coke Consolidated in Charlotte. It can range from lunchtime Bible studies to company service projects to mission statements that honor God. Some see the movement as a way to improve values and morale on the job. ...

" 'At the root of the movement is a quest for integration,' said David Miller, executive director of the Yale University Center for Faith & Culture. 'People are tired of parking their souls with their cars in the parking lot when they go to work.' ... Changing demographics have helped fuel the trend, said Georgette Bennett, president of Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in New York. ...

"A 2001 survey of human resources representatives by the center and the Society for Human Resource Management found 20 percent of respondents had an increase in religious accommodation requests, such as time off for religious holidays, over the past five years. ... 'I think this will absolutely continue and get much bigger,' Bennett said. 'It's the next big civil rights movement.' "

Rick Rothacker
"Faith in the workplace; visibility of religious beliefs on job burgeoning"
©2005 The Charlotte Observer. www.charlotte.com. Reprinted with permission. January 9, 2005

RELIGION WILL SHAPE CIVILIZATION'S FUTURE

"RELIGION—EVEN MORE THAN NATURE—WILL DETERMINE THE FUTURE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION, said William Grassie, theologian and executive director of the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science. ...

" 'Increasingly, it is not the material basis that determines civilization, but our culturally transmitted belief systems, for better or worse, that will direct the future evolution of both the planet and our species,' he said. ...

"Grassie's keynote lecture kicked off a three-year series of public dialogue at the Devry Local Societies Initiative on Technology, Science, and Culture. For this conference, Grassie directed the conversation to the evolutionary role of religion in an age of biotechnology. ... Using the example of the placebo effect, which demonstrates that 30 percent of medical recovery is based on the patients' belief in medicine, Grassie argued that beliefs really do matter. Religions and philosophies 'shape and guide our technologically empowered civilization,' he said. 'Whatever attitude towards life we adopt, individually and collectively, our beliefs become partially self-fulfilling prophecies.' "

Jaimal Yogis
"Event looks at science and human change"
Science & Theology News. www.stnews.org. Reprinted with permission. January 2005

RESEARCH CONFIRMS UPLIFTING EFFECT OF A SPIRITUAL CONNECTION

"COMFORT AND JOY. INNER PEACE, A SENSE OF WELL-BEING. Sacred texts and sermons have long promised such rewards to the faithful. Now the rigor of scientific research is being applied to this seemingly ineffable tenet of religious belief. According to Dr. Harold Koenig, a co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health at Duke University, from 2000 to 2002 more than 1,000 scholarly articles on the relationship between religion and mental health were published in academic journals—as opposed to just 100 from 1980 to 1982. Such studies indicate that religion buffers its adherents from worry. Religious people are less depressed, less anxious, and less suicidal than nonreligious people. And they are better able to cope with such crises as illness, divorce, and bereavement.

"Even if you compare two people who have symptoms of depression, says McCullough, an associate professor of psychology and religious studies at the University of Miami, 'the more religious person will be a little less sad.' Chances are, he'll also be a little happier. Studies show that the more a believer incorporates religion into daily living—attending services, reading Scripture, praying—the better off he or she appears to be on two measures of happiness: frequency of positive emotions and overall sense of satisfaction with life. Attending services has a particularly strong correlation to feeling happy, and religious certainty—the sense of unshakable faith in God and the truth of one's beliefs—is most closely linked with life satisfaction. ..."

Pamela Paul
"The power to uplift"
©2005 TIME. Reprinted with permission. January 17, 2005

CANADIAN CHURCH CAMPAIGN ENCOURAGES PUBLIC-MINDED CONGREGATIONS

"CELEBRATION 2005, A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO GET CHRISTIANS OUT OF THEIR PEWS and into the community, [was] launched in Ottawa [on January 8] ... "we never pray enough or help enough,' says David Macfarlane, the co-ordinator of the campaign. ...

"The main Celebration 2005 events will take place over three weeks, beginning May 14, and will include concerts by Christian artists and, more important, an outreach to communities across the country. Mr. Macfarlane ... says what moved him to spur churches to make a difference in their communities was HOOPS, a simple project in London and Manchester, England. Churches there organized basketball tournaments for youths, and after 18 months, London police gave the project credit for a 48-percent drop in juvenile crime. Similar results were recorded in Rexdale, a multicultural neighborhood in Toronto. ...

"We hope Celebration 2005 will be a catalyst to draw people together in new and different ways, and will have local, national, and regional impact,' says Mr. Macfarlane. 'If it wakes up a percentage of Christians to the needs of the poor, it will be worth it. And it's not just for the down-and-out. All of us need friends and a sense of community.' "

Bob Harvey
"National church campaign aims to remind Christians they 'follow Christ': Get out of pews and into community"
The Ottawa Citizen. Reprinted with permission. January 8, 2005