Holy Envy

Or what I've gained from conversations about science and faith that are not from an interfaith perspective

I’ve spent a huge part of my adult live reconciling my life as a practicing Christian with my life as a scientist. It was hard in the beginning because I didn’t know many other people, and especially other women, who were also on this path. I shared some of my journey over at the Emerging Scholars Network Science Corner in a post called Bug-eat-bug world. More recently I wrote about Loving the Lord with all my mind as a Sinai and Synapses Fellow. Here I want to share a bit more about how interfaith conversations about science and religion ignited my holy envy and strengthened my Christian faith.

Holy envy is a term coined by biblical scholar Krister Stendahl who described holy envy as the willingness to recognize elements of other religious traditions that you admire and wish could be reflected in your own religious tradition. Now, Judaism and Christianity developed from the same root, so what I “envy” is really more of a reminder of that root. As a Christ follower, I think we sometimes forget about the God part of the trinity. Reading books like God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel reminded me that God pursues us. And then there’s this beautifully written piece by Rabbi Geoff Mitelman, Genesis 1 Through the Eyes of a Rabbi that was shared by Science for the Church. Like Heschel’s writing, this essay reorients my perspective back to a God who creates order from chaos rather than focusing on the mess that seems to define our current world. And isn’t God’s order we could all use a little more of?