The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber was installed this weekend as the first pastor of public witness for the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.
The controversial Bolz-Weber, who’s LGBTQ-affirming, is perhaps best known for her New York Times bestselling books, including “Shameless: A Sexual Reformation” and “Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint,” the prayer- and profanity-filled memoir of her journey from alcoholic stand-up comic to Lutheran pastor.
She was called to the role of pastor of public witness by the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose bishop, Jim Gonia, she said has supported her ministry since she first applied to seminary.
Pastor of public witness may be a new position for the ELCA, but other denominations have called clergy to similar public-facing roles. For instance, the predecessor to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ordained Fred Rogers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” as an evangelist for television, noted Gonia during Bolz-Weber’s installation service Friday.
Bolz-Weber laughed at the comparison to the beloved children’s TV host, calling it “counterintuitive.” But, she said, it works.
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She’d seen “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the popular 2018 documentary about Rogers and his show, the day after she left the church she founded, House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver, to pursue her current work as a public theologian.
That work, which is self-funded, won’t look any different from what she has been doing since leaving House for All Sinners and Saints.
“I still pay my health insurance,” she said. “It’s not like I got a new job. I get to still do my job, and have my denomination say, ‘This work is pastoral in nature.’”
In addition to her books, Bolz-Weber’s public ministry includes hosting a podcast from PRX and The Moth called “The Confessional.” She will also continue speaking, writing an email newsletter called “The Corners” and leading an “experimental gathering of spiritual misfits” online called “The Chapel.”
Her work often centers on a message of grace and compassion — a message, she said, she herself needs to hear. She’s referred to her style of leadership as “screw it, I’ll go first,” sharing her struggles so others feel comfortable admitting their own.
Bolz-Weber also offers quarterly messages at several ecumenical ministries in Denver, which issued her call alongside the Rocky Mountain Synod. They are St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Denver; New Beginnings, an ELCA worshipping community inside the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility; and Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church, a congregation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Denver that hosted Friday’s installation service.
“We give thanks for our friend Nadia, who is bringing us together. She has a way of doing that in the world,” the Rev. Clover Reuter Beal of Montview said during the service, which was livestreamed by the church.
But Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a U.S.-based ecumenical group that seeks to uphold historic Christian creeds, lamented Bolz-Weber’s appointment, saying it signaled the fall of a once-great denomination.
“It’s sad that someone who’s made a career of mocking traditional Christianity and traditional Christians should represent a major denomination in any public witness,” Tooley told The Roys Report in an email. He added the ELCA “now is following the United Church of Christ into a caricature of play dough progressive religion in which everyone is encouraged to craft their own spirituality with the implication there is no objectively true faith.”
In his message, Gonia noted this was Bolz-Weber’s second call to ministry in the ELCA and “a long time in coming to fruition.” The entire conference of bishops of the ELCA had to sign off on the newly created position, which he said he has discussed with the pastor since she left House for All Sinners and Saints.
“Certainly for our Rocky Mountain Synod — one of 65 synods in the ELCA — we’ve never had a calling like this one before, where we are acknowledging that Nadia has a ministry that goes far beyond the walls of any one church,” the bishop said afterward.
Emily McFarlan Miller is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
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38 Responses
I Tim 3:1-8!!!!! Either God’s word is true and authoritative or it’s not.
I wish cults would stop using the name of Jesus and calling themselves Christian. If one does not believe the scriptures and does not follow Jesus then why pretend???
They think they do believe the scriptures and that they are following Jesus.
They just aren’t worried about your opinion on their practice, just as I’m sure you aren’t worried about their opinion of your religious practice.
Preach! She knows her audience: the marginalized alcoholics, ppl rejected by the church. And she isn’t too worried about her opposers because she is committed to her people, the the God of compassion who called her to the marginalized.
The New Yorker has an article on Bolz-Weber in which she publicly states that she divorced her husband and is having amazing sex with an old boyfriend which brought her closer to God. Apparently this is not problematic for the ELCA. I’d say they have left the farm.
To clarify, she’s saying the sex brought her closer to God, not the boyfriend.
Do you mean the white supremacists who stormed the capital using the symbol of the cross, claiming to “take back bethlehem” and “save the white race”? The groups that promote anti LGBT, black, and woman ideology in the name of god? Domestic terrorists? It’s heartbreaking that THEY use the name of Jesus to justify hate.
God is very clearly and unequivocally anti-LBGT. That behavior is ugly, disgusting sin. He loves His creation, but He hates lies and perversions. He loves you, but you’re rejecting Him because, at the end of the day, Lindsey, you hate Him. You better fall on your face before Him, because one day it will be too late.
Sad to see that the ELCA has largely become an anti-Jesus, truth-hating cult. I used to be a member at one of the most influential and largest ELCAs in the country. Used to teach 60 students a week in Sunday School, my spouse launched metro-wide ministries from that church. Our beliefs were solid and didn’t waiver, but the ELCA drifted farther and farther from us. They changed, we didn’t. We finally broke free from the ELCA and it hurt to do it. The Bible says what it says, and much of what Ms. Bolz-Weber says is straight from hell. No nice way of stating it.
The start of all Christian spirituality: Romans 6:2. Legbiter, or not.
And the abomination of desolation has been set up in the temple of God. And with zero understanding of who the Lion of Judah is in His current position and role they are headed straight into perdition.
Amen, Mr. Jesperson
She has been instrumental in my recovery from alcoholism and trauma. Her style of preaching reminds me of my AA sponsor. There is a whole community out there that is being marginalized by the church, in the name of Jesus. And she shows this marginalized community that Jesus is about compassion. You don’t have to like her style to appreciate what she has done to shepherd the black sheep of the church, and often the families that make up these churches. It breaks my heart to see the negative comments about her.
Breaks my heart to see you lost. You need Jesus. God help you, Lindsey.
Robin I don’t think you or any of us can determine from Lindsey’s brief comments whether Lindsey is a disciple following Jesus or “lost”. What we can see is that Lindsay was compassionately loved and helped out of trauma by Nadia. Before going any further all of us need to ask the question, “When was the last time I put myself out for anybody? Either in the church, or especially those marginalized in society.” And by “put myself out” I don’t mean sending a text message. I mean sacrificing hours of time to visit someone in their home helping them do housework because they’re so far behind, or to provide home for a former felon who is trying to get back on his feet. Be honest do you do this?
Whether Nadia goes beyond that to lead people to “follow the lamb wherever he goes” is another matter worthy of discussion with Nadia herself. But I really don’t think that is on Robin.
This is a red herring. She teaches and practices false doctrine. The New Testament has a lot to say about false teachings and the people who teach and practice them, and none of it is good. She is not leading people to follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Even the passage in Revelation that phrase comes from alludes to sexual purity. Bolz-Weber is rather one who promises freedom but is herself a slave to corruption. (2 Pet 2:19)
Thank you, Saeng. I agree 100%. If the gospel we preach doesn’t cause us to look at the branch in our own eye, then what good is it? How is it making us new? If it is not inspiring us to sacrifice our own well-being for others, to truly love our neighbors, why are we doing it? To escape punishment? That isn’t loving God. And it’s not a religion I want to be a part of at all, and I don’t think it’s what Jesus called us to do when he said “love your neighbor as your self and love the Lord your God with all of your heart soul and strength”. When he told the disciples to love one another… literally his last words, “agape”. Love as yourself, put others before you. That is what I choose to do.
The problem Lindsey is that any religious group has converts who say the same things as you. There are millions of people in cults the world over who claim there lives were changed once they began following religion x or y.
I think you might want to revisit what the Bible says in regards to ministerial qualifications. Ms. Bolz-Weber might be very empathetic when it comes to the marginalized in society. That doesn’t mean she is orthodox.
Paul commended the Berean Jews in Acts 17:11:
“Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.”
They didn’t just believe what Paul said because he was Paul. They searched the scriptures to see if what he said was true. We all should be like the Bereans. Someone’s compassion, love, kindness, etc. shouldn’t take precedence over the Bible as the final authority. You have only to look at Ravi Zacharias as an example of someone many people idolized who turned out to be something different altogether. He was also someone I greatly admired. The revelations of his private character were difficult to handle.
To the author: did you request a comment from Nadia Bolz Weber before publishing the article or did you only request comment from her dissenter, Tooley? I would think the 1st is more relevant that the latter…
Yes, Nadia was consulted and is quoted in the article.
This article doesn’t begin to describe how truly perverse and wicked this woman is.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pastrix-nadia-bolz-weber-sex/
Seems like the book of Jude describes this woman perfectly, if your article is accurate.
Thanks for the link to this insightful article about this shameless advocate for, among other things, leaving your husband for better sex, and ethically sourced porn.
As a lifelong Lutheran, I fully support this action. I don’t see any place in the Bible where Jesus says “Love everyone except for this group, whom you are permitted to hate and revile.”
The self righteous who comment here certainly believe they have the right to hate on this group and their leader, as if this group’s sin is any worse than their own piety and judgmentalism.
They act without love and do not practice 1 Corinthians 13.
Even if they were a buddhist or satanic cult there is no excuse to hate them. Pray for their salvation.
If she brings them to repentance and into Christ how can you not welcome them as your brothers sisters and neighbors?
Or perhaps you prefer to dismiss me as a witch, heretic, false prophet, liberal or other term that gets so easily applied to other believers.
She’s not leading them to repentance and embracing Christ. She’s leading them deeper into darkness and bondage to sin. Pointing that out is not hate or judgementalism. If it were the author’s of the New Testament would be guilty of it too. Yoy can’t quote 1 Cor 13 while ignoring all the other places in the New Testament where false teachers and sexual immorality are condemned.
I can quote love. It is the greatest commandment.
If Jesus was on earth today would he dine with the evangelical Pharisees on this forum or would he dine with the tax cheats, alcoholics, drug addicts and sinners?
Taking the entire teaching of the New Testament seriously, and not just cherry picking the parts you like does make one a Pharisee. You can keep repeating that lie but it won’t get truer just because you keep repeating it. Suggesting this woman and Jesus are in any way alike is gross.
Would He dine with someone who claims to be a minister of the gospel who also recommends the use of ethically sourced porn that will lead men and women to commit adultery in their hearts, in other words, cause people to stumble?
Roman’s 1: 18-32 comes to mind. It’s Paul spewing quite a lot of hate and judgment by today’s standards. But he was a pharisee at one time.
Playing the “hater, judgmental pharisee” card doesn’t change what God has said unless there’s a new translation that I don’t know about. We are called to be Bereans and to be able to “rightly divide the word of truth”. We aren’t called to say nothing when someone claims to be a minister while encouraging others to sin, but doing so in a compassionate way.
The ten commandments were God’s idea. The Bible is full of proscribed behaviors in both the old and new testaments. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul lists multiple behaviors that, if practiced, will result in judgment. Is Paul hating people here? Is God hating people here by default because He used Paul?
That list Paul mentions applies to me. It applies to all humanity. Paul also says in the same chapter, “…and such were some of you…” indicating that the Corinthians had engaged in those behaviors. But Paul also used “were” as in past tense. Through salvation and the process of sanctification by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Paul is saying they are no longer in bondage to their flesh. (My paraphrase.) That’s not being judgmental or hating. That’s being hopeful because there’s a way out of bondage to the flesh.
Jesus told men if they merely looked at a woman to lust after her they had committed adultery. So the ethically sourced porn is out. Jesus also said if you are angry at your brother for no reason you are guilty of murder. That’s a lot of judgment and condemnation from the Prince of Peace. Is He now a hater as well?
This is a straw man. Rejecting sexual immorality and the false teachers who promote it is not hate. Love without truth is false love.
Amen, brother.
I’m amazed at the professing Christians who think that, because Jesus is love, he approves of everything they might want to do. It seems that in their mind, the one thing Jesus doesn’t approve of is standing for his Word.
The hateful comments in this thread are reminding me why I left conservative Christianity. And why I will never return to any evangelical church. I know that you do not know the real Jesus who always sided with the downtrodden, the outcasts and despised. May he open your Pharisee hearts.
The inconvenient truth of the bible is that God is not just loving, but also holy. That’s probably a concept we all need to rediscover.
If I were to quote Romans 1, am I being hateful. The problem is everyone is called to repent of their sin. If I decide to sanctify a particular activity that is listed as a sin in the Bible, then how can I repent (agree with God) of that activity/sin? If there is no repentance, there is no salvation.
Not sure if you are familiar with Larry Flynt of Hustler magazine fame. He allegedly made a profession of faith in Jesus, and then he decided he was going to continue to publish his porn magazine but it was going to be “Christian” porn. There is no such thing. If he had truly repented of his sin he would have left the porn industry behind. He never did. How much sexual abuse could be attributed to his magazine and the porn industry at large?
Paul used to be a pharisee and was likely responsible for the deaths of multiple Christians. Then he met Jesus on the Damascus road and was a changed man for the remainder of his life. He was single-minded in his pursuit of God’s kingdom and his admonition that others do the same.
Someone aptly mentioned above “love without truth isn’t love”. There’s no hate in that statement. If you believe there is, then your argument is with God, not those commenting here.
Christ also would tell them Go and sin no more. He wouldn’t tell them Hey if it works for you I’m cool with that.
The ELCA’s decline is spectacular. This is part of the spectacle: it champions and actively recruits people who preach themselves. It has become nothing more than a social service organization. Christ is not central. Often he’s not invited. He’s like the character in a sitcom you never see or meet.
No doubt Bolz-Weber relates well to people who have the same experiences with addiction. I have no doubt about her sincerity in wanting to help the marginalized. She is an effective social worker / inspirational speaker.
Ear tickling much?