Shameless: A case for not feeling bad about feeling good (about sex) with Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber

If you’ve been mistreated, confused, angered, and/or wounded by shaming sexual messages, this event is for you.

Raw, intimate, and timely—a no-holds-barred celebration of our bodies that flies in the face of antiquated ideas about sex and gender.

Negative messages about sex come from all corners of society: from the church, from the media, from our own families. As a result, countless people have suffered pain, guilt, and judgment. In her  instant bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber unleashes her critical eye and her vulnerable yet hopeful soul on the harmful conversations about sex that have fed our shame.

Bolz-Weber offers no simple amendments or polite compromises. Instead she calls for an inclusivity that empowers us to be loyal to people and, perhaps most important, ourselves. With an alternative understanding of Scripture passages that have been weaponized against Christians for decades, Bolz-Weber reminds us that sexual flourishing can and should be for all genders, all bodies, and all humans. She shares stories, poetry, and Scripture that wage war on perpetual anxiety around sex by celebrating sexuality in all its forms and recognizing it for the gift that it is.

You are invited to a talk from Rev. Bolz-Weber, followed by a time of Questions and Opinions (Nadia thinks we're sometimes too focused on answers from "experts"), followed by a book signing.  

About Nadia

New York Times bestselling author Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber has been called “a pastor for America’s outsiders” (BBC). She will be the first to attest that she doesn’t look like most people’s idea of a pastor, but the community of faith she founded in Denver, Colorado—House for All Sinners and Saints—is a haven for a diverse community seeking affirmation and acceptance. Krista Tippett, who interviewed Bolz-Weber for her public radio show On Being, described House for All Sinners and Saints this way: “These days, convicted felons and elected officials join teenagers with pink hair at this church and others like it—redefining what church is—and with a deep reverence for tradition.”

But Bolz-Weber’s gospel is not just for spiritual seekers. In a time when institutions of every kind—governments, corporations, universities, churches—are struggling to exert influence and maintain relevance, her House for All Sinners and Saints continues to thrive, especially among Millennials. In her books and talks, she makes the deeply felt argument that honesty and human connection are key to creating and sustaining community.

In the New York Times bestselling memoir Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, Bolz-Weber “takes readers on the engaging and accessible journey” (Booklist) from her roots as a hard-drinking standup comic to an ordained Lutheran pastor. The book earned raves from everyone from the lead singer of the Violent Femmes to the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who said, “Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber speaks the truth of our humanity that we too often want to deny.”

Bolz-Weber continues to explore the sometimes hilarious and often messy intersections of faith and humanity in her most recent memoir, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People, also a New York Times bestseller. From a felonious bishop to an agnostic who can’t get enough of church, Accidental Saints introduces us to people who set our teeth on edge—but who just might bring us closer to God.

Recently, she has been offering life-changing advice in her video series Have a Little Faith, from the MAKERS: Women Who Make America documentary series. With titles like “Forgive Assholes,” “Separating Self from Selfie,” and “Welcome to the Apocalypse,” her take remains consistently frank, funny, and irreverent.

Her podcast, The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber, a partnership with PRX and The Moth. Praised by The Denver Post as “a frank, sometimes profane interrogation of faith and second chances that can be a strong complement to 12-step programs and therapy (trust me) — or just make for riveting listening”, the podcast brings together stories from diverse walks of life and celebrates human transformation by normalizing conversations about their failings. As Bolz-Weber puts it, “The Confessional is a place where other people’s stories can be a road map to freedom from our own shame.” She has also built community through the newsletter, The Corners. As she says, “I love the corners. I always have. It is where I will always choose to sit, because I love outcasts, queers and the girls who talk too loud.… I love sober drunks, single dads, sex workers and the guy who lost a leg in the war. These are my people.”

Bolz-Weber has been featured in The Washington Post, The New Yorker, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fresh Air, and on CNN and the BBC World Service. In 2017, she won the coveted Audience Award at the Nantucket Project. Her first book, Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television, is a snappy, nuanced take on 21st-century televangelism and its influence. Her first memoir, Pastrix, has been optioned by ABC Signature to be made into a TV show.

PRAISE FOR SHAMELESS

“Shameless is a triumph. Nadia Bolz-Weber returns to readers the gift toxic religion and consumer culture stole: the gift of sexuality. Her wisdom is unparalleled, her vulnerability touching, her storytelling masterful, and her perspective both ancient and fresh. Shameless will give its readers their joy, relationships, and freedom back.”
—Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller LOVE WARRIOR, founder and president of Together Rising
 
“Shameless is one of the most important, life-changing books I’ve ever read. Expertly-crafted and lovingly delivered, it serves as both a bomb and a balm—blowing up the lies religion teaches about sex and tenderly healing the wounds those messages have inflicted. Pastoral and prophetic, Shameless weaves together history, theology, biblical studies, personal narrative, and sex ed, without ever losing sight of its most important aim—honoring the dignity of actual human beings living actual, messy and beautiful lives. It’s Nadia Bolz-Weber’s best book yet. And that’s saying something.”
—Rachel Held Evans, author of Searching for Sunday and Inspired
 
“If the conversation around sex in the Church has felt like a small, cramped room to you, brace yourself: Nadia Bolz-Weber is about to kick in the door, hustle you outside, and burn down the room as you march out into the fresh air. This irreverent, bold, and authentic book is deeply centered in love and the transforming goodness of God. If ever there was a time for the Church to disrupt the world’s broken notions around sex, gender, masculinity, and power with this sort of a shameless reformation, it is now. And Nadia is the loving, hopeful, wise, take-no-prisoners disruptor we’ve been waiting for.”
—Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist and Out of Sorts
 
“Nadia has an amazingly faith-filled way to say good things in a hard way and hard things in a good way. She does it again with one of our most wounding, dangerous, and needed subjects—Christian gender and sexual teaching! This will heal many.”
—Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation, author of Falling Upward
 
“Nadia Bolz Weber returns with her page-turning, vulnerable storytelling, this time with her sights set squarely on purity culture. She unravels the problematic, toxic frameworks around sexuality – the burden of which many of us still carry today – and offers us the freedom we need to say no to shame. If you know Nadia’s work, you know that she is fearless. In Shameless, we all benefit from her bravery.”
—Austin Channing Brown, author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

This event is made possible through Partners in Ministry, a collaborative of Protestant houses of worship supporting spiritual life at Swarthmore College.