Why Faith Belongs in the Workplace: A Conversation with Julie Wenah on Authenticity and Professionalism

In the United States, the separation of church and state is a foundational principle. But does this separation extend to the workplace? That’s the question I’ve faced throughout my career—asked repeatedly to leave my religious identity out of my professional life. Do I need to remove the Jesus reference from this presentation? Should I avoid using Bible scripture in that essay? Is the religious example in my lecture necessary?

The requests were always polite but clear: tone down the religious references because they don’t belong in a neutral workplace. But is workplace neutrality truly neutral? The global workweek itself is rooted in Judeo-Christian traditions. Saturdays and Sundays are set aside as days of rest to observe the Sabbath. Businesses close for Christmas. We distribute candy in October because of All Hallows’ Eve—a pagan tradition with Christian ties. Even in offices, we use words like evangelist, convert, mission, believers, and devotion. Religious vocabulary is so deeply embedded in marketing and management that we no longer recognize it as religious at all.

In reality, much of our social and professional discourse is built on secularized religious ideas. We’ve agreed to pretend otherwise. That’s why I invited Julie Wenah onto the FROM THE CULTURE podcast to explore this contradiction. Wenah is the chairwoman of the Digital Civil Rights Coalition and a global product leader with experience in AI equity at Meta and Airbnb. She has shaped policy in the Obama White House, trained as a civil rights attorney at Georgetown Law, and is also a filmmaker and an Alvin Ailey-trained dancer. Most notably, she openly shares what she describes as God’s messages to her.

Wenah defies the expectation that faith must be left at the office door. She is a senior leader at the forefront of technology and policy whose faith isn’t an afterthought—it’s central to her identity. While organizations champion the idea of bringing your whole self to work, faith is often excluded from that vision. The prevailing assumption is that bringing religion into the workplace risks professionalism. But this contradicts the benefits of authenticity that companies claim to value.

During our conversation, Wenah offered a powerful reframing of this issue using the metaphor of the album and the mixtape:

• The album represents the contractual work—the deliverables outlined in your job description, the tasks that fulfill your role and pay your salary.
• The mixtape is everything else that makes you, you: side projects, creative pursuits, hobbies, and yes—your faith.

Wenah argues that the album is what the company hired you to do. The mixtape is what makes you human. And artists don’t perform without their mixtapes. Why should professionals?