Who Are You? - Thoughts on Our "Spiritual Resume"

Through the power of God, you have been given a new identity in Christ Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit through you is producing fruit for His glory, testifying to the presence of the Lord in your life.   Some encouraging words in Ephesians 2 underscore this spiritual fact:
8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,9not of works, lest anyone should boast.10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I think it's helpful from time to time to reflect on who we are in Jesus - we are new creations in Him, He is working in our hearts, and how we comprehend and act on that new nature determines the type of behavior in which we engage.   We are building a spiritual resume based on the works that He is performing through us - not that we are working in order to earn favor with God, but He is working through us to produce what He desires, as we allow the Spirit to flow through us.

Throughout the pages of the Scriptures, we gain some insight into who we truly are in Christ Jesus - what He has done in our our lives and how He has transformed our hearts.   We have been born again and re-created in His image, and to each of us, Peter writes in 1st Peter 2:
9But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;10who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Two relatively new studies, one from the South and the other from New England, indicate that religious affiliation may actually be a negative factor in whether or not a person gets a callback from a job application.

A Washington Times piece recently highlighted the “Religious Affiliation and Hiring Discrimination” field experiments, in which scholars found that “applicants who expressed a religious identity were 26 percent less likely to receive a response from employers.”

David Lewin of the Berkeley Research Group and UCLA professor is quoted as saying that, “These studies do tend to show there will be factors in resumes that will lead to bias...,Religion could well be one of them.”

Both studies submitted resumes to jobs where a resume could be emailed, and for each posting, several resumes were submitted with similar templates but a variety of faith-based information.

The scholars used a template of a candidate who had graduated in 2008 or 2009 with a 3.7 or higher grade point average and participation in extracurricular activities. The religious identification was made through a membership in a university-related religious organization.

The study stated that, “Including such religious information on resumes is realistic for college graduates because they generally lack extensive work histories and tend to compensate by listing involvement in extracurricular activities and volunteer experiences...These activities include participation in political, community, or identity-based organizations.”

On the job hunting website Monster.com, experts advise applicants to consider only including information that will “get your foot in the door.”

The site says, “Every bit of information on it should be selling your value to potential employers...You may leave out organization names that disclose your cultural background, religious affiliation, sexual orientation and other possible targets of discrimination."

So, what to do with this information?   Well, I think that it certainly indicates what is becoming apparent in our society:  attitudes toward people of faith have changed.  In a report on the survey at ReligionNews.com, University of Connecticut sociology professor Michael Wallace, who led the studies, is quoted as saying that, “We have kind of a schizophrenic attitude toward religion in the U.S....We are a fairly religious country. We acknowledge religious freedom and religious diversity but at the same time, we don’t like it when religion is brought into public places such as the workplace or schools.”

Jeff Allen is quite direct on Matt Barber's BarbWire.com website.  He writes, "...these two studies are providing a quantitative value to what many of us have known for quite some time – a growing number of employers have a palpable animus towards the faith of prospective candidates. This also exposes the sad fact that there is currently a new unwritten anti-religious employment qualification: People of faith need not apply."

You may remember that in one of my conversations at ICRS, a guest highlighted how at one time in our culture, there was a religious predisposition, resulting in a greater openness to matters of faith.  Now, it is possible that Christians who wish to share their faith have to demonstrate the authenticity and attractiveness of that faith before they even begin the conversation.

I tend to be a "full disclosure" kind of guy, so I would have difficulty not including this faith participation on my resume if I were applying for a job.   But, I want to share a thought I had about each of our spiritual resumes.   The employment resume is building a case for a person to be hired by a business or company - it's telling a story.   Well, each of us has the components for a spiritual resume.  We are not presenting that information and telling that story in order to be accepted by or "hired" by the Lord - and I am very thankful for that.

But, as Christians, our faith in Christ and our true identity cannot be separated.   And, our spiritual resume becomes a documentation of God's faithfulness to us.  So, we are building a history that essentially validates who we are in Christ and what He has done in us.