Offered job by faith organisation

[SolidGoldBrass]

AIBU either to take it or turn it down?
(I am going to be a bit careful on details so as not to out myself or anyone else).
I do part time admin, public sector work. I provided this faith organisation with temp cover recently and they have been in touch to ask if I want to take on the role regularly (it's still part time). But I am having a bit of a fit of confusion. I don't know which is the less moral choice - to refuse the job on the grounds of powerful disdain for religion, or to take the job despite disapproving of religion on the grounds that it's good money.

I'm confused. if doing temporary work for a faith organisation didn't affect your morals, why would this?

I also agree with laurie.

To be fair to SGB she is forthright but she'd be there supporting you if your husband smacked you or your friend tried to talk you out of an abortion.

I don't think I could do it. Presumably you will be surrounded by people of the faith or engaging with material about it etc and, as someone who cannot abide religion, it would drive me bonkers.

I don't think I could reconcile my dislike of religion with supporting religious activity.

For me, it would really depend on the charity.

A larger charity with a number of staff and no requirement or expectation that you are a member of that religion, and no really big religious theme to the day or how they do things, OK.

A smaller charity (an independent church?) no way. My business provides services to a lot of these. No way could I be in there all day or trying to work within their framework. The whole way of thinking/approach to how they do things would be very difficult for me, and I'm not sure they'd be too happy with me either.

For me, it would depend on the faith group. I just couldn't bring myself to work for anyone who's sincere religious beliefe was that I deserved fewer civil rights than them or who wanted to stone me.

Tricky.

In my fairly limited experience of churches and its paid staff (playgroups, mainly!) I've found them to be overwhelmingly Christian in their language and demeanour. Which is fair enough! As an atheist I know I would stick out like a sore thumb and struggle to embrace the culture there. So for that reason I think you might be better off declining.

OP, I'd treat it like the offer of any other job: is the money OK? What are the working hours like? Are your prospective colleagues pleasant? And most importantly, how do you feel about the organisation per se? Every morning when you go in, will you be thinking: "I hate this organisation and everything it stands for"?

I think it depends a lot on the charity. I work for a christian charity and am a christian. We start the day with devotions and prayer and there is a lot of talk about faith during the day. It's also part of my job to pray for people and things.

I worked for a faith based organisation. The majority of the staff were not members of that faith. About a third were athiests. It wasn't an issue. It was one of the best places I worked and I have very fond memories of it.

However, I think hackmum made a very good point. If you inherently feel that this is against your principles then it doesn't really matter what the organisation is like or/and the other staff members. Feeling conflicted will take its toll on you.

I also think you have to consider whether your powerful disdain for religion will impact on your ability to fulfil your role effectively.

I hardly ever pay attention to user names but OP yours always stands out as a very strong atheist with, as you say, a deep disdain for religious people. So yes I think it would be hypocritical to be paid by an organisation and perhaps work with people you disagree with so emphatically.

In principle, I would say go for it, but in practice I would say be very, very wary. I saw a friend broken by the ostracism and discrimination he experienced when working for a religious employer (Plymouth brethren, in this case). What happens if there are religious limits on others' work hours and you're the person who always has to work those hours? Is there scope for advancement from your role without sharing their religion, or is your role dead-end for outsiders? Even if everyone's lovely, will you have to cope with being the only different one?

Then you have ethical considerations - if you disagree with the stance of this particular religion should you work for them? Would you work for a tobacco company or in the defence industry, if you objected to those?

It depends on the organisation. I'm a firm atheist and I worked for one faith organisation which had the higher ups all Christian and us peons were all evil atheists. They didn't give a crap and I was happy with the general ethos (house the homeless, feed the hungry).

There was supposed to be a spiritual aspect to the service we delivered but since a big proportion of the clients were Muslim, a heavily Christian slant wouldn't have been appropriate anyway.

Also, to be fair to your potential coworkers, are you going to be able to respect them? Will you be able to let them pray, discuss their faith and all the things they can expect to do in what should be a safe place without making digs and being negative?

I think you should put your Mumsnet username on your CV/application form.

Yes, because it's clearly impossible SGB could express personal views about religion on MN yet be perfectly able to behave professionally with religious people offline

I don't think anyone can answer what's the more moral choice, since morality differs. The latter choice would be hypocritical, while the former wouldn't but most people are hypocritical about something in their life.

For me it would depend on these things:

How religious is it and how involved in the religion would you have to be?
Are the rest of the staff religious and would that make you feel okay or uncomfortable?
Could you maintain a respectful air of your colleagues and the organisation if they hold true to attitudes typical of the religion including opinions?

I'm not sure I could do the latter. I'd feel very uncomfortable working for an organisation that was very pro-life, for example, when I'm pro-choice or one which supported the idea that being gay was wrong.

But also it depends on money and how badly you need it: sometimes you'll compromise if you're desperate.

It's not just about being professional though, it's principles. I think tobacco companies are the scum of the earth, peddling their stinky addictive cancer sticks, and however desperate I was for work I'm not sure I could hide my disgust at them. Do you feel that strongly about religion, SGB?

Maybe you will become a convert!

If you'd have had that much objection you wouldn't have provided them with even temporary cover, would you?

I considered a job at a Brethren school, but decided against it as I felt I couldn't respect a faith that cast me as inferior and sinful.

I think for me it would depend whether it did good work without proselytising, and those involved just happened to be Christians who were putting into practice their idea of the gospels based on social justice, equality etc (I knew a London nun who did brilliant, effective work among trafficked women - her organisation was called something religious, but I don't think I ever heard her mention anything to do with religion in all the time I knew her).

Or whether it was something like crisis pregnancy counselling that peddled traumatising myths about abortion, or sponsored evangelical church-planting in Africa.

I'd say turn it down. it is better someone who believes in the objectives and philisophy of any organisation works for that organisation

As others have said, it really depends what this organisation does.

There are some christian organisations which seem to be genuinely purely there to serve other people. The motivation may be religious but the effect might be exactly the same as a secular organisation. That'd be fine.

If it was an organisation which prosletysed, or involved any sort of religious-based discrimination in who it served, I think I'd have a problem with that.

Well I have heard back from them to the effect that being a member of the faith is not compulsory. Still not entirely sure what to do.

The organisation is a school and (given the area I live in, which is very diverse) quite probably has a number of pupils and maybe even full time staff who do not belong to the faith in question (or are only nominally members of it) so I don't expect pressure to join in with religious practice - as religious institutions go it's probably of necessity 'faith-lite'. I do not work in any kind of teaching capacity, I just do admin work for schools on a predominantly part time/temp basis.
The fact that I got asked has given all my FB massive a good laugh at my expense, anyway...

If you're fb is remotely viewable to outside your social group change the settings

My Dh went for a job interview in a school run by monks - he didn't get it and funnily enough a monk got it

They were hardcore though.

Sounds like you can work there - agree that out of necessity it will be faith lite and there will be loads of non faith folks working there.

Well done.