Time to work your religious beliefs

Labor Day gives people of faith an opportunity that, in my experience, we don't often use. It's a time to compare our religious beliefs with our work.
I'm not talking about the hot topic of whether and how we should be allowed to display and practice our faith in the workplace. Courts, scholars, religious leaders and corporate executives all have been trying to find appropriate boundaries for that issue.
Rather, I think we should spend some Labor Day time thinking through not only our own experience of trying to be faithful to our beliefs and, at the same time, loyal employees, but also the religious and spiritual implications of the economic system in which we find ourselves employed.
If, for instance, our religion promotes honesty, integrity and other high moral standards -- as all major religions do -- does our behavior at work match those principles? What about the behavior of our employer? Does the company (school, institution, church, government agency, whatever) cut moral corners? Does it treat people as human beings or as cogs in an economic wheel designed to make as much money as possible no matter who gets hurt?
Am I part of the problem? Am I willing to be a whistleblower if I see dishonesty around me? Can I work in an immoral atmosphere helping to produce products that may be environmentally damaging or socially destructive?
Fragile relationship
But even those questions don't go as far enough if we are to examine the sometimes fragile relationship between faith and work.
We also need to ask: Do we understand what our faith traditions tell us about economic systems and the principles that should underpin them? That is, are we willing to acknowledge that capitalism, socialism and any other economic -ism you can mention are not divine creations reflecting heaven's perfection? They are, rather, flawed human institutions.
And if we acknowledge that, are we then obligated to try to identify and then fix those areas that fail the test of the principles for which our faith stands -- such standards as justice, dignity for all, honesty, concern for the oppressed and on and on?
This may seem like a heavy Labor Day assignment compared with grilling some hot dogs and cooling off a few brews. And it is.
But it's a task people of faith must engage in to make sure they are living in harmony with their religious values and to be in a position to advocate the kinds of changes that will result in an economic system that doesn't afflict the vulnerable for the benefit of those with economic, social and political power.
I once heard Tony Campolo, a respected evangelical Christian teacher, say that the Hebrew scriptures contain more rules for conducting business fairly than they do any other subject. For instance, Amos, that angry old prophet of justice, fumes against people who sell wheat but are "skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales."
No doubt such basic thievery still goes on, but nowadays a person doing Amos's job would have to fire arrows of indignation at corporate welfare hogs, insider traders, stock manipulators, thieves of company property, executives who raid and ruin pension plans and on and on.
I would, in fact, go on and on here, except that any comprehensive list of immoral behavior in the world of work today (both by employees and employers) would fill not only this column but the whole newspaper, assuming we used agate type and printed nothing else.
Moral principles
But questions that tie together labor and faith eventually must get to the big one: What is it about the economic system of which we're a part that conflicts with the moral principles to which we have committed ourselves as religious adherents?
I know a man who spends time talking to farmers in small rural towns. He'll engage them in critical discussions about politics, farm policy and the war on terrorism. And, he says, they're ready to hear criticisms and contribute some of their own. But if he says anything critical about capitalism, it's as if he'd attacked the virtue of their dear, departed mothers. The subject, he says, is taboo.
If we're to be faithful religious people, we can't afford such blind spots.
And Labor Day is a good time to recognize that.
X Bill Tammeus is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.