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?

This is why promoting ‘… bringing your authentic self to work…’ is a bad idea.

No. Bring your professional self to work and leave your ‘authentic’ (‘bullshit excuse for a personality’) self at home.

Get onto HR.

As a Catholic who went to Catholic school, attends Mass and sends my children to Catholic school, I would just like to agree that this guy’s behaviour is offensive and I don’t know anyone who would behave like that. My kids are learning about respecting other people and the planet and stuff like that.

Yabvvvvu to be so tolerant of one person bullying the whole office. I’m Christian and in your position I’d play death metal and say now Jesus taught us to respect everyone’s views, and I reckon he’d have gone to death metal concerts if he turned up today. If he gets angry you say ‘blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’ and if he says anything about women you say firmly and coldly real Christians, like Jesus, understand that we stretch out our hand to the prostitute and we support both Mary and Martha. I’m personally of the view that pseudo anti women Christians like you are just scared of women.
shove back. And if you make him uncomfortable that’s far better than him making everyone uncomfortable.

Oh dear, it would have been a good idea to raise his inappropriate behaviour in the workplace before they signed off on his probation period really.

I would speak to his manager and say you are fed up with the constant evangelising and the misogynistic and homophobic remarks, and you will be calling them out every time, but that it would be better if as his manager they could actually, well, manage him.

I would also buy a stash of earplugs and offer him a pair every time he complains about the radio. Or offer everyone else a pair when he starts talking.

Have a bunch of smart replies prepared.

"OK Jeremy, I don't think Taylor Swift cares whether you think she's living in sin or not, and neither do we, so put a sock in it otherwise we'll have to turn the radio up to drown you out."

Fair enough if the deaf person was struggling to hear what people were saying because they had enough hearing ability but the music was adding to them struggling to hear conversation, but that would be a reasonable adjustment to turn off the music. This is just a man who has decided he doesn't like the music because he's decided it offends him. Women working also offends him. He hasn't got a disability, reasonable adjustments aren't necessary

So difficult OP.
Just wondering if you work for an organisation large enough to have an employee assistance service or some sort of wellbeing champion or mental health first aider, if you do might be worth speaking to them.
The only other thing I can think of is to try and tackle directly by politely closing down such conversations or suggesting the topic isn't appropriate in the workplace.
However you might just want to keep some sort of diary/log as evidence as your colleague might decide to go down the 'bullying' route.
Not suggesting for one minute you are but we all know about political correctness these days and how quickly people will use protected characteristics to their advantage!

How does he know anything about the lives of these singers? He's looking for things to argue about (and sounds like he is unhealthily invested in the personal lives of young female celebrities?).

Going to guess it’s from church. We do have a big, American style church nearby that does all of these types of sermons. I sent my manager an email before I left the office so hopefully it’s dealt with now.

I often think people with extreme and/or repressive views must have an awful lot of time on their hands; they tend to know a great deal about the people they purport to abhor.

The manager in today sort of raised her eyebrow and then laughed and went back to her work.
Bad management. It really shouldn't have got to the point where one of his colleagues is snapping at him. Management needed to have picked up on this and spoken to him about it long ago. Being 'too busy for stuff like this' is not an excuse.

Id ask him what his views are on Charlie Kirk and then ask how it felt when he got slam dunked by a group of Cambridge and then afterwards the fact checks on him were off the scale

He might be Open Plymouth Brethren. (Closed Brethren won't share a meal with non-believers, apparently.) Plymouth Brethren are very patriarchal indeed.

A few of them obtained positions of authority in the LA where I once worked. The worst boss I ever had was PB.

His conversation topics aren't suitable for the office. That needs to be made clear to him. It's a job for his manager or HR.

He’s entitled to his beliefs and not to be discriminated against for them or expressing them in a reasonable way but that doesn’t extend to pushing them on his colleagues. Tell your manager that unless
someone tells him to put a fucking sock in it you’ll raise a grievance. I’d probably have got myself into trouble by telling him to STFU long before now

This is a HR issue. He's not right to be so provocative with his religion.

Gather evidence and submit to HR.

You don’t tackle harassment by harassing back. Or discourage inappropriate conversations by engaging with them.

Enough of the deaf derail. He’s not deaf. No one in the office is deaf. They do not have to and are not making any adjustments for deafness, maybe some posters should start a separate thread for reasonable adjustments to support deaf colleagues.

I'm aghast that he's behaving like this at work. Our HR is very clear that we don't shove our beliefs down other employees' throats, and generally people are careful to stay off the topics of politics, religion, and other employees' appearances. And this is how it should be at work.

HR needs to deal with him. He sounds bloody awful and thoroughly inappropriate. I wonder what Muslim, Sikh, and Jewish people think of his proselytising. Fucking idiot.

As a Christian myself, I agree with @StandFirm . Bet he is apoplectic at the thought of a female Archbishop of Canterbury!

The was about music in venues/shops not deafness per se. The point was there are reasons why music can be a problem.

Bro is just a bigot. I get sick of religion being used as an excuse. I don't care what background you are from. Hating gay people and thinking women need to marry and become a homemaker are not acceptable views.

His religion is a protected belief. But so is your sex, sexuality, etc. Report him to HR.

If he wasn't religious and was expressing this bullshit, everyone would be accusing him of misogyny.

I would absolutely challenge him . Ask him to explain why he holds these beliefs . He must be indoctrinated or in a cult ! I am a very mild mannered , unconfrontational person but this would make me so angry I'd have to speak up .

Anyone who doesn’t like Sam Fender is probably the spawn of Satan.

You can’t ask him to explain his beliefs. That could be seen as harassment. He’s clearly harassing his work colleagues but the answer is not to harass back, but to get it dealt with properly and legally through management or HR.