But those wary of bringing faith to the workplace worry more about the potential for subtle abuses, such as the unspoken pressure to join a prayer group that a supervisor leads, or the awkwardness of knowing the colleague at the next desk is waiting for you to see the light and ask to be saved.

"There's a fine line to walk between sharing your values at work in a positive way and feeling the workplace would be better if everybody shared your values," said the Rev. Thomas Sullivan, director of spiritual life at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., outside Boston. "As soon as you get into the second realm, you start having uncomfortable people."

At Ford, workers say the interfaith religious group has helped them forge a new unity.

Dan Dunnigan, 46, the network's chairman, said that after a rough start, employees of different faiths had come to understand one another — so much so that when the group received a piece of hate mail about Islam, he took care of it himself, writing back a thoughtful defense without ever showing it to his Muslim colleague.

"I thought it would have hurt him deeply, and I didn't want that," Dunnigan said.

"Before this, I didn't know about Islam, and now I know a little bit. You find out that people value family, integrity, high morals, and you say, 'Wow, I believe that, too.' "