New memo lets government workers push Christianity on colleagues—even if they're the boss

The memo raises major concerns about religious favoritism, power dynamics, and workplace pressure

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In a completely unnecessary (but not-at-all surprising) move, the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management issued a memo today announcing that it’s now perfectly fine to proselytize at work.

While it doesn’t apply only to Christians, it’s a rule undoubtedly designed for Christians.

Scott Kupor (screenshot via YouTube)

The five-page memo, issued by OPM Director Scott Kupor (a former venture capitalist who just got confirmed to the job this month), says it’s about “Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace.” But since that was already legal, you have to read a lot further to discover what this is really about. Specifically, the memo outlines certain actions that “should not result” in any kind of punishment.

One of them involves displaying religious icons in your personal space.

If you want to display a giant cross in your cubicle, or put up a sign saying non-believers will burn in hell (or implying as much in a “bless your heart” sort of way), it’s now perfectly fine. The same applies, I guess, if you put up a sign saying “Satan loves you,” but you get the feeling that’s not going to be accepted the same way…

This rule creates obvious conflicts. There’s a very fine line between wearing a personal religious symbol (a yarmulke or cross necklace, for example) and telling everyone in the office that your religious beliefs are front and center even at work.

Colleagues may battle it out to see who can out-Jesufy each other. Non-Christians will be made to feel like outcasts. If atheists or Satanists put up symbols of their own beliefs, they could be considered hostile to everyone else in a way that a more traditional symbol will not be. What happens when someone posts one of the Bible’s anti-gay “clobber verses” in an office that has LGBTQ employees?

And what happens when it’s not a colleague but a supervisor who’s promoting faith? Are employees going to be expected to agree in order to get a promotion? Would criticizing that faith or expressing a different one hinder advancement in the workplace? Even if that’s explicitly forbidden, how would you know if it was your religious differences, not the merit of your work, that led to you being held back?

It’s the same reason public school teachers shouldn’t have giant Bibles on their desks: Because of the power dynamic, it puts pressure on students to go along with it, or at the very least, stay quiet if there’s any disagreement.

But that’s not even the most concerning rule. That honor goes to the one that opens the door to religious “Conversations Between Federal Employees” because it gives a green light to workplace proselytizing:

Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature. Employees may also encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities. The constitutional rights of supervisors to engage in such conversations should not be distinguished from non-supervisory employees by the nature of their supervisory roles. However, unwillingness to engage in such conversations may not be the basis of workplace discipline.

In the appendix, the memo offers a specific example:

During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should re-think his religious beliefs. However, if the nonadherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request.

You know the most annoying Christian in your office? Now imagine you work for the government. The Trump administration is giving that person full license to use you for theological target practice.

The rule says harassment isn’t permitted, sure, but what’s the difference between that and “mild” proselytizing?! What’s the acceptable way for Christians to tell colleagues they deserve to be tortured for all of eternity but there’s a way to escape that fate if they join your book club?

At what point does it cross the line?

I imagine many federal workers don’t want anyone wasting their time talking about their religious beliefs along with other controversial topics—but it’s possible that saying, “Karen, please shut up about Jesus” would be considered harassment in a way that pushing the Bible on them wouldn’t be.

The memo doesn’t specify who gets to make the final call on any conflicts.

You better hope it’s not your supervisor, though, since the document explicitly gives that person permission to promote faith. As an example of what’s permitted, it even says “a supervisor may post a handwritten note inviting each of his employees to attend an Easter service at his church.” How could anyone know if that’s a mere invite or a direct order with subtle consequences for not going along with it?

There’s a reason conversations about faith, just like politics or anything else potentially divisive, is supposed to be kept to a minimum at work, especially if you work in a secular space like the federal government. You work alongside people from varying backgrounds, some of whom may hold very different views from you, yet you all have a shared mission. It’s better to focus on the task at hand rather than allowing distractions to interfere with the culture of the workspace.

This memo, however, says certain kinds of distractions are permitted because they’re religious—hell, it endorses those distractions—when a better memo would try to tamp down conversations that aren’t centered around work or that include people who want nothing to do with them. Instead of putting a stop to workplace harassment, this memo puts a jolt in it while pretending to solve that very problem.

The new rules don’t make life better for Christians since they already had the right to be annoying. But it does make life tangibly worse for people who are not Christian by forcing them to deal with religious colleagues who see them as nothing more than people in need of “saving.”

The rules create friction when the government should be trying to avoid it entirely. It’s not that the memo changes any laws, but it gives cover to Christian Nationalists who believe they can treat everyone in their lives as potential converts, and who think their church extends everywhere they go.

The Washington Post points out that religious speech in the government was never prohibited in the first place, which makes you wonder why this memo is even needed:

For example, 1997 guidance from the Clinton administration called for agencies not to “suppress employees’ private religious speech in the workplace while leaving unregulated other private employee speech that has a comparable effect on the efficiency of the workplace.”

Republicans will likely say this isn’t about elevating Christianity since it applies equally to all beliefs. But when this administration openly promotes Christianity above all other religions and pretends like “anti-Christian bias” is a real problem, there’s no reason this memo should be seen as anything but a cover for white evangelicals who don’t understand boundaries.

It’s fun to think of situations where critics engage in malicious compliance by promoting Satanism, but it’s unfair to put those employees in a situation where their careers may be at risk by doing that. And make no mistake, Muslims and Satanists and other non-traditional believers have the most to lose by doing what Christians are now permitted to do.

What about promoting atheism? It’s possible that’s not allowed at all. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of religion. However, the document says…

… Title VII does not cover all beliefs. For example, social, political, or economic philosophies, and mere personal preferences, are not “religious” beliefs within the meaning of the statute.

Since atheism is not a religion, it likely falls under “personal preferences,” which means promoting a slogan like “There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” would be illegal while a similar statement linked to a Bible verse would be okay.

In a statement, the Freedom From Religion Foundation called the memo “shockingly unconstitutional”:

“These shocking changes essentially permit workplace evangelizing, but worse still, allow supervisors to evangelize underlings and federal workers to proselytize the public they serve,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. “This is the implementation of Christian nationalism in our federal government.”

It’s not clear if there’s any recourse to fight this, including any lawsuits. But you can be damn sure this memo will lead to far more confusion than it resolves.

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