New York Professionals Say “In God We Trust”
Anita Jain, Technology and Telecom Reporter (Crain’s New York Business, 7 June 2004) link

While posted in China as a manager at a global investment bank a few years ago, Jose Zeilstra vetoed a decision to sweeten a bid for a contract with a large shipment of tea to the client. When making the decision, she didn’t consult her colleagues or friends. Instead, Ms. Zeilstra asked herself, “What would Jesus do?”

Her bank lost the consulting deal, but Ms. Zeilstra is certain that she did the right thing. “The whole underlying premise of the Bible is, ‘Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you,’ ” she says.

Now working at a top investment bank downtown, Ms. Zeilstra helps lead a Bible study group every Wednesday for the Wall Street community, where the holy book is used to solve workplace issues. “We talk about gossip, about backbiting,” she says. “The Bible says, ‘Turn the other cheek,’ but it also says, ‘An eye for an eye.’ “

Once tucked away behind closed doors, religion is increasingly finding its way into the New York City workplace. For years, employees in the South and the Midwest have been holding bible study groups on-site and corporations have been putting chaplains on their payrolls, but the trend has finally hit this purported godless city.

New Yorkers are waking up to their spirituality after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, a difficult economic downturn and an onslaught of corporate scandals, and they want their faith increasingly to be part of their daily lives. Members of the finance and business community — long known for devotion to mammon rather than to a higher power — are turning out for daily prayers in conference rooms and weekly discussions on religion.

Seeking the like-minded

Even the city’s avowedly secular artists are seeking out like-minded creative professionals for discussions on reconciling one’s art with one’s faith.

“These days, especially in Manhattan, people spend so much time at work that they want to know how they can apply their faith to the workplace,” says Mark Campisano, a partner at top-tier consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

More than 10 years ago, Mr. Campisano helped start a twice-monthly breakfast, now held at The Harvard Club, for the finance community on religion. Attendance has nearly doubled in the last couple of years to around 50.

New Yorkers use the discussions to better apply their religion to workplace decisions, much the way Ms. Zeilstra did. “There’s so much pressure to get a deal done that people might cut some corners,” says David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. “But one’s faith identity might play out as a higher commitment to truth or excellence.”

Corporate workers are also becoming more comfortable praying on the premises. Jonathan Laoui, a private banker for Safra Bank, joins colleagues for a 15-minute Jewish prayer group in a conference room every day. Owing to its brevity, the prayer doesn’t affect productivity, which pleases managers. “It’s better that we don’t have to go somewhere else,” Mr. Laoui says.

The native Argentine says non-Jewish co-workers at his midtown office are comfortable with prayer at work. “I think it is more generally accepted to wear yarmulkes or pray in the workplace here than in other countries,” Mr. Laoui says.

Dozens of such minyanim have sprung up around the city over the last few years, as employees look inward in a world infected with acts of terrorism and international hostilities.

“It’s a reflection of the global crisis and the search for meaning,” Rabbi Joshua Metzger says. He notes that the number of office workers who stop into his midtown synagogue for a 15-minute prayer at lunchtime has soared in the last three years. Before, 50% of the 150 people attending the lunchtime prayer were office workers; now the proportion is 90%.

Artists, too, are trying to bring their religious values to their work. For Ryann Cooley, a freelance advertising photographer, that means producing photographs that don’t promote a culture at odds with his own morals.

He says the task can sometimes be difficult because he’s hired by advertising agencies to conduct a shoot according to their specifications. But attending a weekly breakfast for Christian artists helps give him courage to try to have an impact, even if it’s small. “I would have no influence if I turned my back on advertising,” Mr. Cooley says.

Reducing alienation

He’s been going to the Wednesday morning breakfast in TriBeCa, which has also seen a recent spike in attendance, for the last two years. Feeling ostracized by both the church and the art world, he says, many Christian artists seek out each other’s company.

“There’s a chasm between the two worlds,” Mr. Cooley says, adding that the meetings reduce the feeling of alienation. “You’re not in this alone.”

As well as integrating religion into more aspects of their lives, New Yorkers are also looking to be more open to colleagues about their identities, which include faith as well as sexual orientation. They are coming out on both fronts.

“There’s a growing openness in the workplace about one’s personal identity,” says Mr. Miller of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. “If faith is a big part of one’s personal identity, there’s nothing embarrassing about that.”