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This chapter reflects on issues arising from the practice of religion in the workplace and how to resolve them. Employers and employees will confront complex issues that typically occur in the struggle to protect the rights of those who wish to exercise their religious beliefs while also securing the rights of those who elect not to participate in workplace religious activities. Title VII and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have been the primary avenues for resolving religious disputes in the workplace. This chapter considers whether Title VII and the EEOC offer the best ways of resolving religious disputes by focusing on the case of Home Depot, which failed to accommodate the Sabbath observance of one of its workers, Bradley Baker. It argues that dealing with religious matters in the workplace requires common sense, good business practices, and a continuing attitude of respect for all parties involved. It also contends that litigation is not the ideal way for an employer or an employee to cope with offensive or hostile work environment problems.

This book examines a host of issues associated with the growing presence of religion in the workplace. More specifically, it considers the difficulties that arise for both employers and employees when they become involved in workplace religious disputes. The book analyzes court cases arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits religious discrimination in both the private and public sector, and the First Amendment, which does the same in the public sector. It also explores the circumstances under which a worker is limited in practicing his or her religious beliefs in the workplace. The case summaries are intended to help readers understand the basic legal concepts applicable to the resolution of religious disputes in the workplace and to undertake measures appropriate to the circumstances they themselves encounter in the workplace.

This chapter considers the implications of the findings of this study for five important avenues for reform of the personal law system in India: modification of the system, a change to a millet system, ‘internal’ reform of each personal law, the enactment of a Uniform Civil Code and the use of religious alternative dispute resolution.

This chapter examines how the courts have applied the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment in resolving conflicts arising in public sector workplaces. Federal, state, and municipal employees are afforded constitutional protections not generally available to employees working in the private sector. The purpose of the establishment and free exercise clauses is to prevent the intrusion of the church or the state into the jurisdiction or domain of the other. This chapter discusses a number of court cases that address religious disputes in public-sector workplaces, including those involving Patricia Dugan, Isaiah Brown, Daniel Berry, Dan Marchi, Paula Hobbie, and David Kelly. It also considers the 1997 document entitled “White House Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace,” which address the rights of religious exercise and religious expression of employees who work in parts of the federal workplace where the public is generally not present.

This chapter examines how the disputes which dominated the theological arena in Germany were mirrored in the philosophical debates with which many theologians were occupied in the first decades of the 20th century. These disputes include questions about the extent to which religion was sui generis and the extent to which it shared its epistemology with other forms of knowledge. This chapter discusses the theological appropriation of Kantian philosophy by post-Ritschlian theologians, the materialistic or naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel, and Ernst Troeltsch's criticism on Haeckel's gospel of monism.

This chapter chronicles Moses Mendelssohn's conflicts with Johann Caspar Lavater. Lavater was a contemporary and acquaintance of Mendelssohn's who issued a public challenge to him in 1769. The chapter details Lavater's invitation for a theological debate, which Mendelssohn resented. Indeed, he repeatedly stated his distaste for engaging in religious disputes. He was also indignant of the fact that Lavater attempted to convert him to Christianity. The chapter goes on to detail the background discussions which went on during the Lavater affair, and the influence this public debate had on other writers of their time. It concludes with an epilogue to the Lavater affair.

This chapter turns to the critical watershed in Leontiev's life: his existential crisis on his sickbed in Salonika. Following his physical recovery and what he styled his “inner rebirth” and “violent conversion to personal Orthodoxy,” Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev spent a year in the Orthodox monastic community on Mount Athos seeking ordination as a monk. As he was aware, this was a particularly bad moment for a serving Russian diplomat to be there. This was because it was at the height of a passionate religious dispute between the Greeks and Bulgars, which meant that his presence on the Holy Mountain was bound to be interpreted by the former as Pan-Slavist intrigue. Indeed, it caused a furore in the Greek Press in Constantinople.