Episode 15 - Religion at Work: Moving from Passive Tolerance to Active Inclusion with Rev. Mark Fowler

May 5

Religion is the diversity dimension most leaders avoid. Not because they're hostile to it, but because they feel unprepared and afraid to get it wrong. Reverend Mark Fowler, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, argues that the solution isn't more policy or more training. Rather, it's all about better hospitality: that same instinct that makes someone a thoughtful host at a dinner party? Apply that to how you run your team.

Why is religion still a taboo topic in most workplaces?

This week we’re bringing you a scorching hot topic: religion at work. Almost everyone we told about this episode topic visibly cringed – no one wants to talk about it, much less engage with it. So they default to silence and call it neutrality. It's the workplace equivalent of “not seeing color” – well-intentioned, though largely fictional, and not particularly useful to anyone.

Reverend Mark Fowler, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, has spent nearly two decades making the case that silence isn't neutral – rather, it's a choice with measurable costs. When organizations treat religion as a liability to manage rather than a dimension of their people to understand, they create friction that shows up everywhere: in who feels able to ask for time off, in who stays, and in how much of themselves people are willing to bring to their work.

The scale of what's being ignored is striking. Approximately 75% of the global population identifies with a religious or spiritual tradition. And yet Tanenbaum's survey of American workers found that only about 22% report discussing religion at work on even a weekly basis — not because their religion isn't present, but because the culture signals that it shouldn't be.

"I would love to suspend the conversation about whether or not people are comfortable talking about religion at work and really start getting to the work of dealing with the reality of your workforce, your workplace, and your marketplace."

– Reverend Mark Fowler, CEO, Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding

Most leaders aren't scared of religion at work. They're just unskilled at it.

"Are you really afraid? Is your life in danger? Or are you just uncomfortable and unprepared?"

– Reverend Mark Fowler

What's the difference between religious tolerance and religious hospitality?

The distinction at the center of Fowler's entire framework is a bold one. Tolerance is passive. It says: I won't make this harder for you than it needs to be. Whereas hospitality is active. It says: I've thought about what you might need before you had to ask. One creates a bare minimum. The other creates belonging. Think of it this way: tolerance is remembering a colleague's name. Hospitality is remembering how they take their coffee.

The gap between the two shows up most clearly in what Fowler calls default Christianity: the invisible architecture of American professional life that was built around one tradition's calendar, one tradition's holidays, one tradition's dietary norms. If you're Christian, you don't have to ask for Christmas off or explain what Good Friday is. Your accommodations are already built in. But if you observe Eid, Diwali, or Yom Kippur, you may have to request time off, explain yourself, and hope the answer is yes.

"We're not giving people special treatment. People are trying to get approval for time that they've already worked for."

– Reverend Mark Fowler

The business case for inclusive hospitality is just as compelling as the ethical one. Roughly three out of four of all of your customers, clients, and prospective employees hold a faith identity. The organizations that build competency around religious difference don't just create better workplaces, they can access more of the market. For instance, a prayer space and a Mecca-facing map on a long-haul Turkish Airlines flight doesn’t just serve Muslim passengers. It serves everyone who needs a quiet space, and it potentially creates an invaluable loyalty to the brand. It’s about considering the needs of all when making plans for the company.

"Would you ask people to [take a meeting] on Christmas Day? There are 364 other days in this calendar year. I'm sure we can find one that's less intrusive to more people."

– Reverend Mark Fowler

How do you handle religious differences you don't fully understand?

The fear of getting it wrong is real. Rev. Mark says the answer isn't caution. It's accountability paired with curiosity.

Tanenbaum's data on where religious inclusion actually breaks down is clarifying. The two highest-reported instances of religious non-accommodation in the workplace are time off requests and food availability at required meetings. Neither requires a policy overhaul. Both are entirely solvable with a modest amount of forethought.

Rev. Mark offers three practical principles from Tanenbaum's competencies for respectful communication:

Avoid stereotypes — which starts with acknowledging that everyone uses them, including you.
Manage behavior, not beliefs.
- "We all still have the right to believe exactly what we want to believe. Your behavior matters. Simply because you believe in something is not a free pass to abuse people."

– Reverend Mark Fowler

Acknowledge and apologize when you get it wrong, and do it properly. Not as a deescalation tactic, but as a genuine repair. Acknowledge what happened, apologize directly, ask what it would take to make it right, and recommit your future behavior. The relationship may not be restored immediately, and it will need to be tended to.

There’s also the legal dimension. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, religious discrimination in hiring and in the workplace has been illegal since 1964. That means denying a reasonable religious accommodation isn't a cultural blind spot – it's a legal exposure. The employees asking for it aren't asking for favors, they are simply expecting to exercise their protected rights.

What to do this week:

Before your next major team event, all-hands, or offsite, do two things:

Cross-reference the date against a multi-faith religious calendar (Google Calendar has this built in; it takes about ninety seconds to check a calendar – but considerably longer to rebuild trust with an employee who had to go to the all-hands during Rosh Hashanah.)
- If the date conflicts with a significant observance, move it.
Examine the food/catering offerings: does it require anyone to explain their dietary needs out loud in order to participate? If so, adjust it before the event.

These are not large investments. They are the hospitality moves that signal, before a single policy is written, that this is a place where people can show up as they are.

For a practical primer on navigating religious differences across traditions and lifecycle events, check out How to Be a Perfect Stranger.

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