Ways Christian Organizations Don’t Look Like Christ: Part 2
As I wrote in the first edition of this series, no culture or organization is perfect, and anything forged by humanity is bound to have some shortcomings.
However, when organizations who want to look like Christ learn about problems, they have the responsibility to grow in ways that better love and serve the people within them.
Below are a few more ways I’ve seen companies display a disparity between their declarations of faith and the way they treat people.
Perpetuating the idea that telling the truth is gossiping:
There’s a major difference between telling the truth and gossiping. However, while these are two very different things, I’ve seen Christian organizations treat them as synonymous as a way to avoid pushback on decisions or behaviors that need to change.
Gossip says, “The leader of our organization said something I don’t agree with. I bet she’s a terrible person who does lots of questionable things.”
Truth telling says, “The leader of our organization said we shouldn’t pray for God’s will to happen. This is theologically problematic and should be addressed for the health of the organization and the people within.”
While gossip approaches a conversation with malicious intent, truth approaches it with the intention of having the full picture of reality in order to move forward in a healthy way. Although true facts may be included as part of someone’s gossip, the goal of gossip is never to lovingly challenge people to growth or to fix a problem. These are, however, some of many reasons to tell the truth.
When Christian organizations sell telling the truth as gossip, they silence people and lead them away from Christ, who was infamous for telling the truth—even when it didn’t make people happy.
Rather than making employees feel like “bad Christians” for speaking the truth about what they see, organizations should take people’s honest feedback as an opportunity to do better.
Protecting the voices of people in power at the expense of other people’s well-being:
Another key theme I’ve witnessed in Christian organizations is the voice of one person in power being heard over the voices of the masses. When this happens, the interests of the people actually carrying out the daily work are ignored in favor of benefitting the person in power.
Here’s an example: 85% of employees opted to stay as work from home employees? It doesn’t matter—they’re going to be asked to come into the office three days per week to “make the people in charge happy.” If they don’t come in, they’ll be reprimanded and passed up for good opportunities. (Jobs should revolve around actually doing the job, rather than facing the impossible task of making other people happy.)
Jesus—the One with all authority and power—chose to live sacrificially for the sake of others, rather than exploiting His power for selfish gain. If leaders and managers at Christian organizations want to look like Christ, they too will use their influence for the sake of others.
Feeding into diet culture:
This is certainly a problem that expands far beyond Christian organizations, but it’s especially discouraging in the context of a workplace that allegedly follows Christ—the One who broke His body so that ours might live.
These are a few of many ways I’ve seen diet culture perpetuated in Christian organizations:
joking about people being “good” or “bad” based on the foods they eat
making negative comments about bodies looking differently than cultural beauty standards
treating bodies as machines to produce more work instead of good creations made to abide in God’s presence
When will we see that none of these things are okay, especially by people trying to love others like Jesus does?
As people who love God, we should be the first to proclaim that our bodies are good—that we’re made in the image of a good God. We can honor others’ bodies and our own, rather than speaking as if people are only worthy when they fit into a certain societal mold. Each person is worthy because they’re made in God’s image—end of story.
These are a few more opportunities for growth within Christian organizations. What else would you add to the list?
