Holy Envy

During my first few years of college, I started to worry about myself. Should a person feel so inspired and uplifted by Buddhist literature? Was I wrong to be enamored with other religions? Was it bad to wish that we had Sabbath day worship rituals like the Jews do? Could I entertain this sort of admiration for other religions while sticking to my own?

Oh yes. Oh, yes.

My Modern Near Eastern Culture professor took a most profound tangential turn from his lecture on Tuesday. In tactful response to an intent but egocentric (religiocentric?) question, "What disqualifies Jesus from being a Jewish Messiah?", he gave this list from Bishop Kristal Standoff. Here is the list, as taken from my class notes:

1. Compare equals. Don't compare the finer parts of yours to the weird of theirs.

2. Make room for "holy envy." You don't have a monopoly on everything that is good and holy and true.

3. Let the other speak for himself...recognize that the conceptual map that you frame of religion (based on your religion) is not the same as someone elses. (He said this because the Jewish concept of Messianism is not nearly as central to their framework as it is to ours.)

I believe that this "holy envy" is good. For me, it is a tool of the spirit. Don't think that I am being apologetic about my own religion. I am grateful to be a member of the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. I am thankful for a living prophet and the Book of Mormon and incredible doctrines about the family. But I value truth and goodness wherever it is found. I am happy to learn from believing people of many types. I realize that we all entertain inconsistencies, even in our finest and most favored frameworks. I have questions about my own religion, but I savor the things that I don't know because I trust in an eternity of learning. As Elder Christofferson says, "[I] do not know everything, but [I] know enough."