Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others

by Barbara Brown Taylor

The God of your understanding is just that: the God of your understanding. What you need is the God just beyond your understanding. RAMI SHAPIRO

Why was my crowd so defensive? Who had convinced us that faith was a competitive sport and that only one team could win for all eternity? With an attitude like that, who could blame a neighbor for sensing that Christian love was mostly charitable condescension?

religions of the world remain distinct and unmixed on earth—but “they meet once transformed into vapor, once metamorphosed into Spirit,” which then is poured out in innumerable tongues.7

Few of them know that the items on their orthodoxy checklist do not date from the first century but from the early twentieth, when the Bible Institute of Los Angeles published a series of essays to establish the fundamentals of Christian belief.2

Christians often need reminding that our beliefs are just things we say unless they lead to things we actually do.

“When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.” (Lev. 19:33–34, JPS)

the main thing Jesus has asked me to do is to love God and my neighbor as religiously as I love myself. The minute I have that handled, I will ask for my next assignment. For now, my hands are full.