From a New York Times guest essay by Carolyn Chen headlined “When Your Job Fills In for Your Faith, That’s a Problem”:

Carolyn Chen is an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion.

Plenty of writers have argued in recent years that work has become a false idol, with the office, not church, the place where many Americans now seek out meaning and purpose. As a sociologist of religion, I think these writers are right: Work is replacing — and in some cases, even taking the form of — religion among many of America’s professionals.