Very religious colleague

[ThatLadyLady]

I have a new colleague who is young, and very very religious. He isn’t quiet about his beliefs and in some ways I think that’s great, because he feels comfortable enough to be that way.

But in others it’s becoming quite uncomfortable. He will regularly ask people in the office what their opinion is on things like evolution, abortion and gay marriage. If they express a “non-Christian” belief he will laugh, tell them they’re wrong and explain what the bible says about these things. He won’t drop the subject even if people are visibly uncomfortable.

We listen to music in the office and he will object to almost anything that isn’t worship music. Someone played Sam Fender the other day (the consensus amongst the office was that it was a good playlist and we all enjoyed it), he asked for it to be changed because he doesn’t align with “Christian values”. So they switched on a different playlist, the first song was an Olivia Dean song and he started ranting about how she promotes sexual activity outside of marriage and that it’s wrong, women should be waiting until marriage etc.

He also expresses pretty strong views about women dating and it not being for marriage, that it’s “great” he has so many young female colleagues but he thinks we should be looking for marriage and to be a homemaker, etc etc.

I obviously don’t dispute his right to have these views, even if I disagree with them it’s his right. But would I be unreasonable to mention it to my manager quietly because his constant expression of these feelings is becoming quite uncomfortable?

And yet he is actively discriminating against everyone else in the office.

The best analogy for religion and its place for me is this.

Having a religion is like having a penis. It is perfectly OK to have one but it is not OK to take it out swing it around in polite company.

Go to HR with a discrimination claim.

Yeah that’s true but people need to toughen up and when he starts speaking they walk away or say they aren’t interested.

By letting him promote his views and dictate music choices you are caving to the patriarchy. There is no discrimination in telling him everyone has a right to different views in society, we are to are here to work not discuss those views...then hand him a pair of earplugs/headphones. This level of appeasement/fear of rocking the boat is how the Rotherham grooming gangs remained unchallenged for years.

@CatchingtheCat if he doesn't know that his views on women etc are not widely shared and are generally deemed unacceptable in our society, and he is old enough to have a job, then he must have been living under a rock. He knows exactly what he is doing (and probably doing it in a majority female environment, which will not be accidental).

Blimey- I’ve never ever come across any Christian like this in the work place and I’ve worked with Plymouth Bretheren, JW and very Evangelical church ones. Whilst all would share their beliefs if asked none would try and control others actions etc. whilst I have worked with colleagues who would use their religion to control things like team nights out and even pub lunches were stopped as he felt excluded - I’ve always found Christians just quietly remove themselves from situations they find uncomfortable

I was meaning don't play songs with potentially offensive lyrics, it's easy enough to avoid e.g. Katy Perry "I kissed a girl" would, I imagine, cause him upset and there is no need for it to be on a playlist even if most people simply find it to be a pleasant catchy tune.

If the complaint is simply that he disagrees with a singer's lifestyle then he needs to shut up (as per his disagreements with colleagues' lifestyles)

Probably evangelical, as it’s part of their whole thing to pester everyone else around them to be recruited into the fold.

Tbf sometimes I wish it was! Especially the endless Christmas soundtracks in December. I definitely celebrate Christmas but the continuous repetitions of various Christmas hits drive me potty! I have also left pubs and other venues due to the volume of music.

On a more serious note though, music can be discriminatory on the basis of disability including to deaf people and those with sensory issues. Many venues have started doing ‘quiet hours’ to make themselves more accessible.

Most of the women I worked with wouldn’t enter into a discussion around his beliefs or dialogue but would say “Inappropriate” and carry on and (ghost) his comeback comments.

The workplace is fraught with all this type of thing now. I’m happy to be retired.

I miss my youth, but not all this crap...

Having a religion is like having a penis. It is perfectly OK to have one but it is not OK to take it out swing it around in polite company.

I love that!

Evangelism means spreading the word/trying to gain converts. Any denomination of Christian can be evangelical.

Yes, but evangelical Christians are a lot more proactive than for example, catholics. That’s why you’ll often see evangelical types street preaching and so on. They’re very focused on outreach and people “being saved”.

He obviously knows they are not widely shared - trying convince others of them is the problem! But no one so far has told him that is an issue.

You can have evangelical Catholics.

Ughhh. I'm a committed Christian with a strong faith and go to church at least twice a week. I'm on the Tea and coffee rota for after the service, and the Welcome Team on the front door. I help clean the church and volunteer helping refugees and asylum seekers. And even I want to punch him. He's being a dick. How on earth is this persuading people they might like to follow in his footsteps? You have my full permission to tell him he's being a complete knob.

Ask if he's trying to be a good Christian or trying to be more like Christ. There's a massive difference.

Religious tolerance needs to go both ways. You are very tolerant and accommodating of his views, he needs to be tolerant and accommodating of other viewpoints too.

Are there any other religious people in the office who might be able to have a quiet words about what’s appropriate at work?

Religious and political discussions are and always have been, no-go areas at work. Except if you work in that area I suppose. He must extremely young and naive to be behaving like that.

I'm a Christian who has worked in Christian organisations and I would take this to HR/management off the back of the sexist comments towards women alone. It's not acceptable. He is making people uncomfortable with his views and the workplace isn't the place for these kind of comments.

Yes, I think that would be a good start. ‘No thank you, not interested’ can’t be misconstrued.

You weren't speaking as a randomer, you came in explicitly touting your expertise as a EDI professional to position yourself as given expert professional advice to people in how to proceed with this specific case in the workplace, citing legislation to back your case up. In other words, you came in as a professional giving professional advice on a professional matter.

In that context, you cannot hide behind ' oh I was just being informal as its just mumsnet, innit',

You did not ' simplify' you were wrong. You did not ' 'potentially mislead' , you were wrong. No one who knows their arse from their elbow about the Equality Act would talk about LGBTA being protected characteristics. Q does not appear at all and neither does T - its gender reassignment. The only people who talk like this (and who use brain dead statements like ' freedom of speech is protected but freedom of consequence are not' to justify their bullying out of the workplace people who disagree with them) are the lobby groups who you have clearly being obeying the dictates of for ten years as you are replicating their language and thinking in your post.

Its EDI ' experts' like you, who were too stupid or lazy or ideologically captured to understand the law, who have got us into this whole mess that resulted in the Supreme Court case.

You came on here parading your expertise to give what you fondly imagined was your professionally advice but instead revealed yourself as an activist who is part of the problem.

So have you made a complaint yet to your manager? If not why not?

I cannot believe that the other 39 people in the office are allowing this one newcomer to dictate the office culture. Everywhere I've worked he'd have been shut down on day 1 and if he persisted management would have been informed.

Yes.
However there are strands within the CofE, and other Protestant denominations which aren’t small e evangelical, they’re specifically ‘Evangelical’. In addition to more overt ‘preaching the gospel’ than other types, they’re typically less socially liberal (to put it mildly). The status of women and the stance on homosexuality is more likely to be at odds with principles (and laws) of equality.

So not one person in this office of 40 feels able to report, or even respond to someone who’s very vocal with their own opinions, because “it’s such a tense time at the moment,” and the OP “sees him as the type who would cry discrimination.”

Now, having stirred the pot, appeared to take no one’s advice, or offered reasonable arguments and explanations for anything, the OP disappears.

Do tell. Where precisely in the Bible does it say, clearly and without ambiguity, that the earth is a sphere? And please do take into consideration the original languages the Bible was written in (Hebrew and Aramaic, and later a translation in 'koine' Greek - god is clearly polyglot) and whether there has been any 'migration of meaning' in subsequent translations?

And as for visiting the British Museum, I'd urge EVERYONE who's able to go, to visit this amazing treasure house of global culture and history. Lots of different groups operate licensed tours of various parts of the collection and there are certainly a few that do 'Bible tours' of the BM. I remember watching them as a teenager while I was sketching in the Egyptian galleries. They were only apparently interested in a few specific things in that gallery that they could link to events or people in the Bible (I mean, obviously the BM is stuffed to the rafters with artefacts that AREN'T mentioned in the Bible or have obvious Biblical links).

As a one-time archaeologist and one who's excavated adjacent to 'Bible lands' as those tours like to term it, I could try telling you that there is virtually nothing you can tie in to events in the Bible that in some way legitimises the veracity of those events. Archaeology is not that precise a science. Things are messy: archaeology in that part of the Levant, even more so, and geopolitics and local competing religions complicate matters.