As workplaces continue to grow more diverse and dynamic, many workers are thinking more deeply about how to stay true to their spiritual values while actively contributing to their organizations. A new book by a Rice University expert explores this growing need and offers a thoughtful framework for navigating faith at work.
Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of Rice’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance and the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, partnered with business scholar Denise Daniels, the Hudson T. Harrison Professor of Entrepreneurship at Wheaton College, to co-author Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work. Drawing from their distinct professional backgrounds and the largest study on faith at work to date, the two scholars focus specifically on the experiences of Christians from different traditions and how they negotiate faith in pluralistic work environments. Ecklund and Daniels also offer practical guidance for people of faith in the modern workplace.
“We felt personally and morally compelled to write a book for this audience,” Ecklund said. “This is part of my public scholarship. I’ve written op-eds before, but this book is really for church-going readers who want to bring their faith to work in meaningful and thoughtful ways and who may not have seen many models for how to do that without offending others.”
Ecklund is widely known for her research at the intersection of science and religion and has also explored religious discrimination, immigration and race in professional settings. She has authored nine books, published more than 150 academic articles and led 20 national and international research projects. Her work consistently highlights how religious pluralism — when recognized and supported — can be a powerful asset in professional life.
“Working for Better” weaves together personal stories and rigorous research to explore how people of various religious traditions navigate faith in the workplace. Using supportive data, it identifies five key tensions workers face today and highlights the importance of creating environments that both manage and celebrate religious diversity.
One of the central ideas in the book is a data-driven call for a shift in how Christians and people of all faiths approach faith at work. Rather than an individualistic focus on defending personal beliefs, Ecklund and Daniels advocate for a community-oriented model they call “radical embrace.”
Using data to show Christians how this can be done, Ecklund and Daniels call on them to bring their faith into the workplace by shifting from an emphasis on talking about their beliefs and defending their own rights to empathizing with those who are religiously different — a feeling anchored in the theological idea that Christians have of the imago Dei, that every person is worthy of dignity and respect because they are made in the image of God.
The Boniuk Institute is a premier interdisciplinary research and scholarly institute at Rice whose mission is to study the conditions that lead to religious conflict, tolerance and pluralism then help people apply these findings.
Research that contributed to “Working for Better” was funded by two grants from the Lilly Endowment Inc., including “The Impact of COVID-19 and Racism on Faith at Work,” (No. 2020-1655) and “Faith at Work: An Empirical Study,” (No. 2017 0021). Ecklund served as the principal investigator and Daniels as the co-PI for both studies.