by David Furritus

Created on: October 07, 2009

"I'm sorry, but I can't come into work today - it's Sunday and my religion tells me that I can stay home on it. I hope that you're not too short-handed today..."

Exodus 23:12 says about the Fourth Commandment: "Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh themselves.

After reading that, one might think that it should be fine for folks to get their "seventh day" off of work every week as if it were guaranteed by your Creator and His church. But in today's society that's just not possible and has caused many a Christian employee to try and take their Sundays off citing religious reasons. Quite often they fail to realize the ramifications their religious sabbaticals are taking (pun intended).

Manpower

Many places hire people and make schedules in order to deal with a certain number of individuals being on the clock to handle the workload. In the service industry (especially restaurants) having necessary staffing on the weekends is critical as this is the one time that most people that work Monday through Friday jobs have to get anything done.

Other religions

If Christians are allowed to have Sundays off, does this mean that those of the Jewish faith get Saturdays? How about Muslim employees? Will they be allowed to have Fridays off? What about faiths that have not actual "Sabbath"? Aren't they being ostracized now?

Money

While money might be considered the root of all evil and pursuing such evil on a holy day might be considered wrong, I'm pretty sure that sacrificing 20% of your income each week for your sense of moral superiority isn't going to help pay your mortgage or put food on your table.

Religion is probably one of the most important parts of people's lives around the world - and it should be - but, if you're working at a job that requires that you to work on your faith's holy days, you have a simple choice to make: suck it up and work those days and use your actual days off to celebrate your faith (I'm sure that God won't mind), or seek work at a place that will allow you to take those days off.

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