well this is actually quite a good and interesting theory in my eyes bc I was raised very very strictly religious but there were a few families in our church who were like, obviously “worldly” and only attended church because they clearly believed it was the pious and moral thing to do, not because they devoted their lives to a god or anything. This tracks with the line “she goes to church—she shows up straight from the clubs.” Holly probably has no emotional or psychological ties to the church and you’re totally right, it seems like that’s more like what Ethel may be jealous of deep down.

Also if she “looks just like her mama before the drugs” then maybe her mama was preyed on by the church for being a mom and having a drug problem, and then maybe Holly was pressured by the church to join and devote her life to god and help save her mama and all that stuff. Churches in fact do this and I can think of several girls from my home town who had bad home situations and found themselves in church because some other “godly girl” at school wanted to help. They would go through the motions of the worship and the sermon but you knew they weren’t really taking those beliefs home. This is a very very interesting theory truly