As an Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor (Leaving Church) spent years delving into the nuances of Western Protestantism. But after parting from parish ministry, she found herself ever more curious about--even jealous of--certain elements of other faiths. She began teaching Religion 101 to undergraduates at Piedmont College in rural Georgia, which gave her and her students the chance to explore. It was permission to learn the basic tenets of five major world religions, as well as to walk forward into the wonder and joy that might await them in a temple, a synagogue or a mosque. In Holy Envy, her 14th nonfiction book, Taylor chronicles two decades of exploration and struggle, as she took her students along on field trips to new places and unfamiliar spiritual terrain.
To her credit, Taylor began with humility, knowing her own ignorance of other faiths matched that of her students. "I was on the first leg of a whole new journey," she writes, and the map changed so many times that she lost track. "I got exactly what I wanted," she adds: "new views of the divine mystery, new wells of meaning, new buckets for lowering into new wells." The problem wasn't the fascinating conversations she had or the joy she found in exploring new traditions; it was "the high cost of seeing the divine mystery through other people's eyes." Inevitably, for Taylor and her students, visiting an Atlanta masjid for Friday prayers or sitting on the floor of a Buddhist meditation center raised questions--not only about the Jewish Sabbath or the multiplicity of Hindu deities, but about the ways American Christians often view those who practice other faiths. As Taylor peeked over the fence to other religious pastures, she had to reckon with the briar patches of her own.
In a time when religious differences are often the subject of polarizing arguments, Taylor offers another way: a gentle, holy curiosity laced with compassion and wonder. She urges her readers to ask questions, to stay open to encountering the divine in whatever form it may appear. Most of all, she encourages keeping a loose grip on certainty: "Once you have given up knowing who is right, it is easy to see neighbors everywhere you look." If this is heresy, it is the most joyful and thoughtful kind: a call to see all people, of all faiths or none, as fully human, and to accept that the divine may show up in the ways we least expect. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Barbara Brown Taylor shares thoughtful, joyful reflections on teaching world religions to undergraduates and learning from religious differences.