Dear friends,

Please forgive me for being MIA for the past month, as I’ve been busy teaching a library science class for incoming students/becoming a proud regular at my local coffee shop/trying to spend more time reading and less time overloading my brain with news updates. And somehow, now, it’s Ash Wednesday again. I’ve always been fond of Lent, more than any other season of the liturgical calendar; it’s the time when we become more profoundly attuned to the weight of our habits, the shape of our longings, and the quiet invitation toward transformation.

Over the years, I’ve done all sorts of things for Lent, including but not limited to: fasting from social media, giving up coffee every morning, going vegetarian (this was years and years ago and I’ve been a vegetarian for a little over a decade now!), not listening to music with lyrics, not shaving for the first time since I was probably twelve or thirteen, going to daily Mass, and taking on cursing (yes, you read that right, I decided to do the exact opposite of giving up cursing for Lent) à la Kate Bowler’s Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved.1

In sitting before the Blessed Sacrament and praying about what God might be putting on my heart for Lent this year, I found myself returning to my struggle to remain hopeful in the midst of everything that’s going on in the government. On February 6th, the White House issued an executive order titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.” It claims that past administrations engaged in "anti-Christian weaponization of government" and establishes a federal task force to address perceived discrimination against Christians. I read this and sighed. Oh my glory. Here we go again with Christianity framed as a political identity under siege, rather than as an expression of faith that is fully centered around love, humility, and service.

What is at stake here? I would argue quite a bit. This is not a call to Christian witness; it is a demand for dominance. It’s the latest example of Christian nationalism codified into law, distorting Christ and His example into a tool for political power rather than a call to champion the stranger, the immigrant, the poor, and the vulnerable. (I can’t help but wonder how using the Lord’s name in vain is so often seen as dropping an “oh my God” instead of whatever this is.)

And that brings us into Lent, a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The U.S. Bishops’ website describes it like this: “We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ's will more faithfully.”2 I have grown to see Lent as a way to resist the familiar urge for comfort, and to rework our desires and impulses in accordance with God’s will. As an adult Catholic convert, this season also holds special significance to me because of the memory of taking my first communion on Divine Mercy Sunday, which is the first Sunday after Lent concludes at Easter.

“Holy envy”—Krister Stendahl’s phrase on admiring elements in other religious traditions that we wish were more profoundly reflected in our own—feels especially relevant here.3 I’ve long been vocal about Christian nationalism and the ways in which faith is weaponized for political power, but sitting in Eucharistic adoration, I kept returning to a simple but unsettling realization: I can’t meaningfully resist something externally without first confronting my own blind spots. I’m a Christian in a country where Christianity is the dominant religion; that means something, and that presents me with certain automatic hang-ups.

If I don’t even know the particulars of what my neighbors believe, if I can’t recognize what is good, true, or beautiful in the traditions that shape and inform their lives, how can I claim to love them?

Stendahl, a Lutheran bishop and theologian, posed three rules for interfaith engagement back in 1985, which is where the concept of “holy envy” was first named. He said:

(1) When trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies.

(2) Don't compare your best to their worst.

(3) Leave room for “holy envy.”

So, throughout Lent this year, I’ll be sharing a selection of long-form essays exploring my Lenten encounters with nine different faith traditions. Each installment will take the form of a long-form blog post, covering Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the Paracelsian Order, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Sikhism, Protestantism, and Judaism.

Of course, I’m writing this as someone who is essentially paid to study and write about religious belief and practice. And this is where, I think, leaving room for holy envy becomes more than an intellectual exercise, and instead morphs into an active posturing of humility that entails the body, the spirit, and the mind. Intellectual risk demands material risk. Holy envy calls me to engage with the particularities of others’ beliefs, even when they challenge or confuse me. It also reminds me that, just as “Christian” can mean many different things, so too does every faith tradition contain a range of diverse expression. Rather than threatening my faith, the diversity of others' beliefs can enrich and transform it.

That’s the real challenge of holy envy: not just to admire from a distance, but to let that admiration unsettle me, to let it call me deeper into both my own faith and into true, meaningful relationship with my neighbors. It’s a myth that all religions are the same, but it’s true that we are a people asking many of the same questions since the beginning of time- questions about life, death, meaning, grief, and joy. We make sense of them through story, and so much of religion is story, whether in the form of sacred texts, philosophy, creation narratives, or poetry.

When I engage with the stories of others, I begin to see the constraints of the box in which I often place God. In allowing myself to step into the sacred narratives of others—not as a critic or theologian, but as a humble pilgrim—I find myself deeply transformed by the gifts they extend to me. I am able to better develop my own theology of death through the Buddhist concept of impermanence, can reimagine my understanding of grace through the Latter-day Saint view of the Fall as a necessary step for humanity to move beyond Eden and return to God, and can be inspired towards my service to my neighbor through the Sikh practice of sewa (selfless service). There’s something deeply humbling about recognizing that my own tradition does not hold a monopoly on truth, and that God’s revelation extends beyond the boundaries of what is most familiar to me.

Perhaps, at its core, fostering interfaith fraternity is a spiritual process of taking down our empathy walls. In her book Strangers in Their Own Land, the sociologist Arlie Hochschild defines an empathy wall as “an obstacle to the deep understanding of another person, one that can make us feel indifferent or even hostile to those who hold different beliefs or whose childhood is rooted in different circumstances.”4 My longtime Twitter friend and McGill PhD candidate Sarah Killam Crosby speaks to this in her most recent Earth & Altar article:

“Some Christian nationalist-aligned theologians argue that such empathy is in fact sinful. J.D. Vance’s recent interpretation of the “ordo amoris”, like the above German Christian guidelines, commends a prioritization of Americans’ inner circles over and above the needs of refugees or potentially dangerous outsiders.”5

This speaks directly to the three main questions at the heart of my practice:

1. How can holy envy improve our religious literacy as Christians?

2. In what ways can holy envy help us combat Christian nationalism?

3. Can holy envy be helpful in de-centering the self and the “fat, relentless ego?”6

So, with that being said, I’ve extended my Lenten practice beyond the usual forty days, making it a longer effort to step outside my own Christian framework. Since January, I’ve been visiting sacred spaces across San Diego—a Buddhist meditation class, Friday Jummah prayer at a local mosque, an Orthodox service and meal, a day trip to a Paracelsian monastery, and more—and attending to each meeting, service, meal, or conversation as a pilgrim, not as a tourist or visitor.

As I continue to move through this Lenten practice, I wonder: How do I fast from the false security of my own assumptions about God and neighbor? How do I give alms, not just in money, but in how I pay attention? How do I pray in a way that does not center my own ego but instead aligns me more closely with God’s expansive love?

My good friend and M.T.S. classmate Grant Rutherford has been joining me for every visit of this journey around San Diego. Grant is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it’s been really interesting to learn more about his church and develop holy envy for various aspects of the LDS church (Heaven as a communal earthly project, God that is Father and Mother, blessings, baptisms for the dead, etc.) through our friendship. He’s a wonderful person and a gifted communicator, so I’m glad he’ll be sharing some of his thoughts as well.

The Inner Complex

Welcome to a series of deep dives into my own thoughts and passions. Feel free to peruse. My personal favorite is the Echo of Humanity.

By Grant Rutherford

In asking him about his experience participating in this ongoing Lenten practice with me, Grant said (emphasis my own):

“I studied history during my bachelors, simply because they did not have a degree for religious studies available at the university where I attended. During my studies, I took several electives related to world religions. I had a special interest in East Asian philosophy and was quickly drawn to Daoism, or Taoism, which expanded on the Way and one's effort to align themselves with it. Since then, I researched several other religions and studied their scriptural texts, looking for ways to add to the Christian beliefs with which I was raised. While studying for one of our classes, Julia mentioned the series she would soon be working on, and I basically invited myself. Luckily, it did not take much effort to persuade her to let me tag along. To me, holy envy is more than an appreciation of another's beliefs and practices. It is the pursuit of mutual understanding through mutual truth. I do not need to believe in Krishna for me to believe that there is value in preserving all life, plants and animals alike. I do not need to be a Daoist sage for me to know that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. And the people I meet do not need to believe in Jesus Christ to know that I love them the way I believe he wants me to. I hope that through reading Julia's series on holy envy, we might all find new ways to build community through an exploration of the human experience.”

I am reminded of this paragraph in a wonderful little article in the BYU Religious Studies Center archive, written by David Bosen:

“In the beginning, however, my involvement in interfaith dialogue was basically just enlightened self-protection. It was my perception that if people understood me, they would be less likely to be hostile to me and, hence, that through greater acquaintance, one can combat prejudice and bigotry. So what initially led me to this kind of dialogue was a kind of self-defense. But then as I got involved in it, it became much more. It became an appreciation of shared values and a recognition that working together, we can become greater than the sum of our different parts. And as I have already said, above and beyond all this, the actual encounter with another person of faith is an experience of the divine presence in the life and community of the other.”7

I don’t know about you, but I have found the state of the world particularly weary these days. When I sit in the empty pews of my grad school campus’s church, watching the light shine through the stained-glass windows as I talk with Mama Mary, she tells me that if I am to resist the distortion of my faith into something transactional, nationalistic, and insular, I must begin with myself. I must break down my own walls of empathy, realizing that borders—both physical and theological—are places of revelation. We are all strangers in the land of Egypt.

Alright, I’m off to eat some soup and watch a couple episodes of Girls. I’ve recently been thinking a lot about this tweet (pictured below) saying that “being annoyed is the price you pay for community.” I like this a lot; it’s why I make it a priority to regularly visit religious communities like monasteries or the Bruderhof. Salvation is a collective endeavor, and this is easy to forget in a hyper-individualized culture where personal comfort is often placed on a pedestal.

If you feel so inclined, tell me what you are going to be abstaining from for Lent this year. I’m wishing you a week of hot coffee (unless you’re giving it up! In which case I’m wishing you a perfectly wonderful chai latte!) and strong spirits.

Warmly,

Julia