Assignment:
Spirituality at Work
Many businesses directly practice Christian principles in the workplace. Hobby Lobby, for example, closes its 525 stores on Sunday, donates Christian counseling services, and buys holiday ads promoting the Christian faith. The top boss of the family-owned business, David Green, says, "We're Christians and we run our business on Christian principles." Responding to employees' personal and spiritual needs and sometimes fulfilling the religious convictions of the owners, many U.S. companies provide on-the-job chaplains. We should note, however, that the growing spirituality movement in business often does not involve religion at all. Rather, managers may see spirituality as an expression of the whole person and a part of the broader search for meaning in life. Business, they think, must acknowledge the soul to maximize performance.
Questions
1. Do you think corporate America must now make room for spirituality and the soul in the workplace to maximize success? Explain.
2. Must we believe in God to be moral? Explain.
3. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare;) requires companies with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance-including birth control coverage-for employees or pay a fine. Hobby Lobby and its owners sued the federal government for an exemption from that law.
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court held that requiring family-owned corporations like Hobby Lobby to pay for insurance coverage for contraception violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The law aside, do you think that corporations and owners should be excused, on religious grounds, from providing contraception coverage? Explain.