The Rich Roll Podcast - Nadia Bolz-Weber Is Shameless — Reconciling Sex & God With Grace

Episode Date: March 12, 2019

Today we continue my exploration of faith with one of the most fascinating spiritual leaders in America today — a Lutheran pastor and public theologian dedicated to redefining how we think about church, practice religion, ritualize divinity, and cultivate community. But her latest concentration, and the focus of today's conversation, is reforming religion's antiquated, sexist ideas about sex, gender and our bodies – and all the pain, guilt and shame they provoke — to reclaim our sexuality and boldly begin anew. You see, Nadia Bolz-Weber is no ordinary pastor. Standing six-foot-one, this heavily tattooed former drug addict rocks the collar with bright red lipstick, fancies serious custom-made jewelry (her rings and belt buckles are off the hook) and swears like a sailor. Confusing matters more, she's also very much a traditionalist – a fearless and deeply reverent pastor for America's outsiders with intrepid beliefs about what “church” can and should be for the seekers among us. For eleven years, Nadia served as the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, a colorful and eclectic, all-comers welcome congregation she started in 2007 with just eight members in her living room in Denver. She is also a three-time New York Times bestselling author. Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint*, is her prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith. Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People* recounts her religious but not-so-spiritual path and perspective. Her newest book, Shameless A Sexual Reformation*, unleashes her critical eye, her sharp pen, and her vulnerable but hopeful soul on the caustic, fear-riddled, and religiously inspired messages about sex that have fed our shame. I first laid eyes on Nadia when she took the stage at The Nantucket Project to interview Lance Armstrong. Her opening line? “So, I see from my notes that you took some drugs you weren't supposed to and then you lied about it? OMG. I did that shit SO MANY TIMES!” The crowd erupted. Instantly, I was hooked. Later that same weekend I witnessed Nadia deliver a sermon unlike anything I had ever experienced in church or otherwise. Wrapt by her charisma and compelled by her unapologetically honest message, I knew immediately I had to get her on the podcast. Growing up fundamentalist, at 12 she was diagnosed with Graves' disease, a thyroid-related autoimmune disorder that caused her eyes to literally bug out of their sockets. Socially ostracized, rage and cynicism led a descent into drugs and alcohol. In 1991, a 12-step program ultimately lit her path back to faith — and the church she ultimately founded to create a home for those who have never felt home. Today we explore Nadia's amazing story. Enjoy! Rich

I felt called to be a pastor to my people, not to fit in some box that the institutional church has for if that's a job you want. But I think that there is a path to integrating our religious upbringings rather than rejecting. What I realized is the anger I had about that religious upbringing dissipated and I felt like I was free and something was sort of almost healed inside of me. When I was able to look back at that religious upbringing and not view the upbringing dualistically, when I was able to look back at it and admit there were things that were beautiful, and saying that didn't feel like a betrayal of that little girl who was hurt, that's when I was free. That's Nadia Bowles-Weber, this week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening?

My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. Good to be here with you today. So, faith and religion are subjects that have come up on this show with some regularity. We've explored Eastern mysticism in many episodes with my friend Guru Singh. We explored Presbyterianism with Pastor Drew Sams. And former megachurch pastor Rob Bell has been on the show a couple times to share his compelling and to some heretical perspective on Christianity and the Bible and what he calls the quote-unquote Jesus story. And today, we're going to continue this tradition. We're going to do it with

one of the most fascinating spiritual leaders in America today, a Lutheran pastor and public theologian who is working to change, to redefine, to actually reclaim how we think about church and faith, religion, ritual, community, and more recently, sex and sexuality. But this, my friends, is no ordinary pastor. Nadia Bowles-Weber is a six foot one former drug addict, rocking bright red lipstick. She's covered in tattoos, many of them religious in nature, like Mary Magdalene, Lazarus. She has an image of the women who stayed with Jesus during the crucifixion on her body. She likes to wear the

collar, but she cuts off the sleeves on the shirt. She swears like a sailor. And at the same time, she is very interestingly, maybe confusingly for some, also very much a traditionalist, somebody with deep, deep reverence for what faith and in particular, quote unquote, church can and should be for the seekers among us. quote-unquote church can and should be for the seekers among us. Until July of 2018, Nadia served as the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, which is this incredibly colorful, eclectic, all-comers-welcome congregation that she started in her living room in Denver in 2007 with just eight members. She is also a three-time New York Times bestselling author. Her first book is called Pastrix,

The Cranky Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint. Then her second book is called Accidental Saints, Finding God in All the Wrong People. And her newest book, which is the focus of today's conversation and which also just hit the New York Times bestseller list is called Shameless, A Sexual Reformation. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life.

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So my introduction to Nadia was seeing her interview Lance Armstrong at the Nantucket Project. And she was just so charismatic and funny and unapologetically honest. And I was just delighted by her. I could not take my eyes off of her. And I was like, who is this person? And then I saw her deliver a sermon later that weekend, and I was just wrapped. I was compelled by her unique presence

and her refreshing message. And I knew I had to get her on the show. And the more that I've learned about her, her backstory, growing up fundamentalist, the autoimmune disease that made her a social pariah as a young girl, the rage and cynicism that that provoked that then led her into this descent into drugs and alcohol, and the 12 step program that led her back to faith, her stint as a standup comic, the church she founded to create a home for those who have never felt home, and her work as a public theologian and a writer that just basically the more interesting her story becomes. And today we as a public theologian and a writer, that's just basically the more interesting her story becomes. And today we're going to explore that story and we're going to do it

set against the backdrop of her current focus and the subject of her new book, Shameless, which is how Christianity's historically toxic, fear-riddled obsession with sex has fed our collective shame. Essentially, Nadia is calling for a new reformation. She wants to take these antiquated sexist ideas about sex, gender, our bodies, and all the pain and the guilt and the shame that they provoke and basically burn them the fuck down. Those are her words, not mine. And reclaim our sexuality and just start over. And her antidote in this holy resistance is grace, which we talk a lot about. It's freedom and it's courage and love and hope.

The idea being to heal, not only the ones who have been hurt, but also those who have done the hurting. I adore this woman. She is truly infectious. And I think there's deep wisdom and beauty in who she is and what she does for everybody listening. But in particular, if you are someone who has suffered the misfortune of being mistreated or wounded by the shaming sexual messages so prevalent in religion, which obviously spills over into culture at large,

I really think this podcast is appointment listening. So let's do it. Delighted to talk to you today. Thank you for coming all the way out here i've been looking forward to this for a very long time before we get into anything i gotta know you gotta explain to me what's going on with this purity ring thing melting down these purity rings and making a golden vagina sculpture it's not golden just to say it's not golden. People started freaking out about that. Why that part of it? Oh, because of the story where people melted their jewelry into a golden calf and worshipped it. And so people are like, it's idolatry.

So I was thinking more swords into plowshares, you know, which is another Bible verse where you take something that was meant for harm and you repurpose it into something healing for the community. So, I mean, purity rings were this thing that was really big in what's called the purity culture where girls were asked to sort of sign a card pledging that they would not have sex before marriage. And then they'd put a ring on their finger, which was called a purity ring, which was this indication that she was not available to have sex with until her wedding night. And this would happen to girls when they were quite young, you know, before they knew really what sex was or who they were or what they wanted. really what sex was or who they were or what they wanted. And quite often, they'd be asked to get dressed up and their dad would bring them flowers and their dad would put the ring on their finger. I mean, it's creepy as fuck. They're like 11 years old. Do you know what I mean? It's not okay. And so, the message basically is that your body isn't really your own. It's like sort of the property of your father and your father's religion. It's the property of the church.

And then it's the property of your husband. Correct. And we must maintain the purity of this. That's right. And so I was raised to believe that, was told very directly, that you have to dress modestly because you don't want to tempt the boys because, and this was a direct message, boys can't help their sexual impulses. And so once boys, you have to make sure you don't ever arouse them sexually because once they're aroused a certain

point, then they can't help themselves. So purity culture equals rape culture. These two things are deeply related. And so I just know so many women wore these purity rings and were basically told to disconnect from their own sexuality, from their own sensuality, from any sort of erotic impulse they might have. And their sexual development was sort of absconded with by religion. And then later in life, even if they reject those teachings, they have a hard time connecting to their bodies and to their own desires. And so I just thought, so many women have these purity rings sitting around. And I was like, how do we repurpose them? women have these purity rings sitting around? And I was like, how do we repurpose them? What do we do with them? And so, I was on stage at the Makers event last year and was talking to the group about

how I had this dream. I had just finished writing Shameless, and I have this dream to get women to mail me their purity rings so we can melt them down into a sculpture of a vagina. And I saw Gloria Steinem was sitting in the front row, and I just said, Gloria, I'd like to give you the metal vagina that's made out of melted down purity rings as like a thank you gift from us all. And she was like, I would like to have that. Yeah, that's like music to her ears, right? So, now I'm on the hook, right? So, literally day after tomorrow, the sculpture has been made. This woman who makes my jewelry, this artist, Nancy Anderson. Right.

For those that are listening, that's the most badass bell buckle I've ever seen. Sweetbird Studio. And she made a sculpture out of it. And she took some of the rings that couldn't be melted down because they were of a different metal. And she pounded them into the word freedom. It's beautiful. Wow. of a different metal and she pounded them into the word freedom it's beautiful and um we are giving it uh at this year's makers conference uh on stage we will be unveiling it and presenting it to

gloria steinem i mean that's you can't script that that's unbelievable a dream come true this needs to become an annual award though right you need to institutionalize this, like the Golden Vagina Award every year at the Makers Conference. Right? Oh, my God. I'm totally going to pitch that idea. Yeah. All right. Good.

You should. How many rings did you get sent? We got like 170 rings. And the notes were devastating. I mean, the notes were like, melt it down. It only brought me misery. it only brought me misery. And one woman sent in her wedding band that had a diamond and said, I traded in my purity ring for this ring because the church told me it was God's will, and yet it just caused me suffering until I got divorced 18 years later. Please destroy it. I mean,

it was just powerful. It's diabolical. Well, and I got a lot of blowback, actually. A lot of people, maybe I'm naive. I just had no idea people would be so upset about the vagina thing. But they're upset on different levels. So a bunch of conservatives were just horrified because they thought it was idolatry. And then other people were horrified because even women who follow me were like, I'm sorry, but that's vile. I'm like, oh, man, how deeply have you absorbed the messages

of the patriarchy that you think that female anatomy is vile? It was hard to even read that. And then there were the really helpful women who corrected me and said, actually, I think you mean vulva. Vagina is the canal inside. I'm like, bitch, I know my anatomy, but I'm just saying that's considered a vaginal image, you know? Is that practice still going on? Oh, yes. It's not as big as it used to be. There was a book written by this man named Joshua Harris called True Love Waits, which actually encouraged people to not even date, to not even do more than just hold hands, to be that pure. And he is on a bit of an apology tour right now, to be honest. This man, this book that he wrote

infected an entire generation of people. And he was, when he penned this book, And he was, when he penned this book, 21 wisdom-packed years old, when his thoughts were what influenced all of these evangelicals for an entire generation. And now he's seeing the harm that it did, and he feels badly, actually. towards purity is one that we see in so many different settings because on some level, we love nothing more than to know who we're better than. And so purity and the desire for purity shows up in political ideology. It shows up in how paleo are you really eating? Yeah, I was going to say it definitely manifests itself in the health and wellness space. This idea that you're going to eat yourself to enlightenment or not eat yourself to enlightenment. That purification of the physical corpus is a route to a greater spiritual awareness. Yeah, yeah.

And this distinction between purity and holiness, which is something that you talk a lot about. Yeah, because the difference is that holiness is about connection too. Like moments of holiness are about being deeply connected to yourself or to the moment or to the divine or to another person. To me, holiness is always about connection, too, and purity is always about separation from. It's like separating ourselves from our desires, but more than that, separating ourselves from the people who are impure. And so holiness is about connection too.

And purity is about separation from. But we pretend they're interchangeable because purity is just easier to regulate than holiness. Well, purity speaks to your inherent ability to control yourself, right? Like holiness has to do with things that are out of your control. That's a good way to put it too. You know what I mean? Totally. yourself, right? Like holiness has to do with things that are out of your control. That's a good way to put it. You know what I mean? And I think for people, you know, speaking as, you know, somebody who's also in recovery like yourself, you know, control issues are a big part of my, you know, map of

character defects. So I have a sense of, you know, what the emotional landscape of relief that you get when you are controlling something that is within your domain and it gives you a sense of safety. And so you have, I think, damaged or people who have survived some level of trauma and that kind of ascent to purity or that mountain that you're climbing towards that gives people a true north. Right. That they're not even aware is leading them in a direction away from that which they're truly seeking. But it's also just a way to feel like we have the ball in our own court. Exactly, right. So this is why, I mean, the thing I've written about more than anything and spoken about

more than anything in my career is the idea of grace. I've written about more than anything and spoken about more than anything in my career is the idea of grace. And grace is a really difficult thing for us because it means, it inherently means the ball's not in our court. You can't earn it. It's not something that you climb toward. It's something that you get. And on some level, we think if it's free, it must be worthless. And so I think that people, instead of focusing on grace, like to focus on being good. But being good has never set me free in the way that truth has and things that have interrupted me from outside of me. Well, I think good or the pursuit of being good is the thing that provokes the feelings of less than and shame and guilt and insecurity, whereas grace is permissive, right? But grace is also

something that you describe as being a pain in the ass from time to time. Totally. Like it's inconvenient. For sure. Especially. So explain. When it's, when the reason grace is tricky is because I want to feel like I've made myself worthy of something. And if it's truly grace, it means it has nothing to do with worthiness.

It just is. And if it's truly grace, it means it has nothing to do with worthiness. It just is. And that's hard. And then also grace sucks because if it's true for me, it means it also is true for the people who've hurt me. And I don't like that. That's definitely inconvenient. I don't like that. And I'm all for it until we get to that. That's why I always say that like, with my luck, I'll be seated at the heavenly banquet between like Ann Coulter and some racist cop. Yeah, right, exactly. Like, if you believe in grace, it's like super uncomfortable in that way because self-righteousness is just never an option.

And I love self-righteousness like I love chocolate. And so- It's intoxicating. It is. But self-righteousness like I love chocolate. And so- It's intoxicating. It is. But self-righteousness- And purity plays right into that. A hundred percent. Because if you really feel like you're more pure than your fellow person, that just, you're right on your bully pulpit to be self-righteous.

Yeah, totally. Well, that's why it was that moment was so interesting. When I was interviewing Lance Armstrong, I had that conversation with Lance Armstrong on stage at Nantucket because that day it was so interesting when people knew I was the one. So I'm obsessed with the idea of compassion right now, but not like as a virtue to adopt to be good. Fuck that. Nothing's ever worked like that for me. If someone's like, oh, did you read that really great book about compassion? I'd be like, yeah, not interested. But because I'm such a pragmatist, I'm super interested in the effect of compassion. That I'm interested in. Because when somebody's been in a true space of compassion right across from me, it's moved the needle for me in terms of considering

something I hadn't considered on my own, seeing a way I might have been wrong. Like it's a safe and it's a loose place to consider those things. Whereas when someone's been accusatory or challenging or calling me out, I immediately get defensive. I can't hear it, right? So I'm just obsessed with this idea of what's the effect of compassion on me or even on my body in conversations. And so this person I know who does trauma work, they work with people in trauma. I was asking them, like, how do you, how in the world do you manage to not be completely depleted all the time taking in these stories? And she had this image I just can't get over, which is, she said, I imagine the heart of God, like, right behind my heart. So that

whatever that person is saying, I feel it genuinely, because it comes through my heart, but it doesn't land there. It lands in the heart of God. So, and then anything that comes out of me towards them doesn't originate from my own resources and deplete me. It originates from the heart of God and just comes through me, right? Obsessed with this. Well, that's a very unique and specific way of imagining healthy boundaries for yourself, right? Right. Okay. So, that day when people knew I was the one having a conversation with Lance, they, um, they said, Hey, uh, don't let them off easy. Like people

would come up to me all day and be like, well, when it comes to Lance, everyone's going to have an opinion or some advice. Right. Okay. But like, why? Right. So I was the end game because we love to know who we're better than right we're obsessed with it so if somebody so obviously had a fall from grace there's the scapegoating um instinct in the human being is almost inescapable this is why like when brian williams uh you know when his career had that huge bump because he didn't actually falsify a news account. He exaggerated a personal story, which, by the way, we all have done. And every single time we do it, it creates an icky feeling in us. And those icky feelings build up, and we have to do something with them.

So what do we do? We wait until someone like Brian Williams comes along, and we just throw all of our icky shit that we don't want to tell anyone onto them, and then we have to kill them, right? It's this collective way of relieving the anxiety of the group. And we think that's going to make us feel better. That's right. But actually, it's like empty calories. It completely is. I mean, self-righteousness, I always say, feels good for a minute, but only in a way that peeing your pants feels warm for a minute. You know, then you smell bad, it's cold. Okay. So I'm having this conversation with Lance and I, and I just, hold on, let me just say one thing. I don't want to interrupt you, but like,

this was my first exposure to you and everybody needs to know like you're all right. So Nadia is going to interview Lance and it's in the round at this very cool event called the Nantucket Project. And you're opening line to him. This is what I'm telling. Okay, you are. Okay, so I won't steal it. No, no, no. Okay, this is where I'm going.

All right. So just so you know, they had asked me, Nadia, would you? So I'm really interested in compassion right now. I'm only really experimenting with it. I don't want anybody to be impressed. I'm just dabb with it. I don't want anybody to be impressed. I'm just, I'm dabbling in compassion. Okay. So, but I'm thinking about it a lot. And they said, would you have a conversation on stage with Lance Armstrong? And I said, yeah, I totally would.

Right. Then they said, would you have a conversation on stage with Sean Spicer? And I said, no, fuck that guy. Like, just to say, my ability to be open and compassionate, fucking limited. Okay, so I get to that day, everyone's like, give him a hard time. And I sit there and I have that image of compassion, of having God's heart behind mine, and sort of being open to this human being across from me as a person with a unique story, and that most of which none of us know, right? Most of us don't really know this human being's full story. And I said to him, opening thing I said was, Lance, I see from my notes that you took drugs you weren't supposed to. And then you lied about it.

And then I said, oh, my God, I did that shit so many times. It was so great. How long did it take you to figure that line out? It was just that day. I was like, how is this going to happen? It just broke the ice. Totally. And day. I was like, how is this going to happen? And so- It just broke the ice. Totally.

And everybody, there was like this catharsis. There was a catharsis, not just with him, but the whole audience who's like holding this tension. I don't know if you remember, I said, you raise your hand, audience. If you at any point in your life took drugs, you weren't supposed to in light about it. And people are like, yeah, I did that shit.

You know, they raise their hand. Yeah, but there's also a lot of yeah, but. Correct. I get that. I get that shit. You know, they raise their hand. Yeah, but there's also a lot of yeah, but. Correct. I get that. I get that. And it's tricky with Lance. You know, I see the gray and I've interviewed him for this podcast and I got the same thing. Like, you know, you weren't hard enough.

You were too hard. I mean, everybody's got the receiving end of a lot of criticism and a lot of celebratory pats on the back. How confusing for a human being. And how many people on planet Earth have been as high as he has gone and as low? And that's inherently fascinating. Completely. And it's incredibly human to explore that. Yeah. I just, I really liked him. And we had this rapport that we developed the day before.

And just kind of, I really, like, I'm like, look, dude, I know you're an atheist, but you need a pastor. You know, so it's just like, I'm this person's pastor on stage. And he had a friend there, known him for 18 years and seen him interviewed a million times. She's like, yeah, he was different, you know, because I truly was, I felt compassion for him. Truly, it wasn't, I didn't put it on. And so now I'm just interested in that, the effect that that has. But I'm also interested in like what is it that people wanted and why why do they want you to be tough on him what is the need within us to do you know what i mean for because like lance armstrong's never done shit to me as an individual right

nothing he's never done anything to me so why would, you know, some catharsis by hearing him say something? I feel like he should say. So what is the seat of that in your mind? It's that thing of, we love to know who we're better than. And then some way, it keeps us from having to do our own work and look at our own stuff when we can point to somebody who's worse. Yeah. We love that. Well, you have an interesting perspective. To bring it back to the purity rings, with the community of women who propagated this, you know, philosophy for generations,

when you went back and looked at your own journals when you were a young person in a very conservative church, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting because so people who are raised in really conservative religious settings, ultimately, the thing it has in common is that it just gives you extremely dualistic thinking. So you're raised in this sort of construct of there's good or bad, you're right or wrong, you're in, you're out, you're us or them, saved or lost. We're seeing that more than ever right now. For sure. But that, man, when that's where you stay in spirituality and religion, that's the beginner course, man.

That's like just developmentally that's the beginner course, but so many people are stuck there. And so I was given that construct of like good or bad, right or wrong, and dualism. So you can take the girl out of fundamentalism, but it's much harder to take the fundamentalism out of the girl. Because when I left, I just replaced it with really radical leftist politics. And ideologically, it was just very similar in terms of so dualistic. There's no gray, you know. And so what I realized is the anger I had about that religious upbringing dissipated and I felt like I was free and something was at it and admit there were things that were beautiful and saying that didn't feel like a betrayal of that little girl who was hurt, that's when I was free. In other words, transcending this either-or mentality, black or white, binaryinary perspective and moving towards both and.

Totally. So when I could... These two things can be simultaneously happening. Yep. So when I could go, oh, there's subtlety here. There's good and bad in the religious upbringing that gave me dualistic thinking. That was the magic. That was the point.

And we're so reticent to do that that i think to to see to admit there was something good in something that hurt us because it feels like it's a betrayal of the part of us that was hurt yeah and to bring it to the to the purity rings and like this journal that you had it was this idea that uh the purity movement is so inherently regressive and awful and we can wince at it now. And yet at the same time to recognize that these women were trying to help younger women find their place within a community that wasn't really recognizing them. Totally. So it was this Christian charm class that me and the other 11, 12-year-old girls, 13-year-old girls went to every week. I assume just by spending time with me that the fact that I was in a girls' Christian charm class,

it fucking shows, doesn't it? It does, yeah. It's still. You're still reacting against that. No, man, I'm charming as fuck. It worked. as fuck. So, um, it worked, but, but so I found the old workbook, including this, like, how feminine are you quiz, which I included in my book. And, um, I scored very low and, uh, and I was looking at this ridiculous workbook and across from the, how feminine are you quiz was a Bible reading verse chart and a calorie counting chart.

I mean, this is like, man, if this is the only currency, if your femininity is the only currency that you have to broker anything with in this subculture, there was something very sweet about the fact that these women were trying to help us make the best of it. Yeah. And that's the end. That's the end. Yeah. It's beautiful to be able to inhabit both of those ideas, recognize them, and allow them to live, you know, in their own space amongst each other. And I think that's relevant to, you know, how you approach someone like Lance. You know,

how can you have compassion for him? I have compassion for him. I'm not him. I don't presuppose to understand what it's like to be that person and be faced with those choices. And I think people that judge that without walking a mile in his shoes, so to speak, it's not fair. This is why I'm so committed to an idea within Christianity that most people really recoil from, and I understand why they do. But it actually is the idea of human sin, because I think that that word has been conflated with like immorality in a way that I find unhelpful. But when I use it, there's a guy named Francis Spufford who wrote a book called Unapologetic, and I read it once a year. And he wanted to use that concept of human sin, but he knew that word was problematic. And so, every time in his book that that's what he meant, he substituted this, the human propensity

to fuck things up. I'm like, okay, who's going to be like, I don't got that, you know what I mean? So, the fact that there is some inherent flaw in the human, which is the reason that Simeon Zoll, a theologian, says the system keeps throwing up errors. You know, like we all have this more and more speaking in like the wellness community, and for some reason I'm in that scene now, that I feel like the transformation that's offered in these subcultures is real, but I think will always be limited if it bypasses the darker aspects of being human. Because the way in in which like one of the places we do see the true transformation of the human heart is in like the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and you know what the 12 steps takes very seriously is the human propensity to fuck things up it does not bypass that no it not only does it recognize it, it embraces it completely and without judgment.

I mean, that's fundamental to the whole program. It's the basis of belonging to that community. Yeah, and so your particular breed of Lutheranism is to accept sin as part and parcel of the human condition, sin as part and parcel of the human condition, but you're really kind of reclaiming what that means and translating it in a way that's different from perhaps our conventional notions of what it is to be a sinner or to sin. Yeah, totally. I mean, in Latin, I have tattooed on my wrist, simul justus et peccator, which means simultaneously sinner and saint. We're all 100% of both all the time. Nobody's like 80-20. So it sort of deflates these really lofty notions of purity, in a sense, to go, we're always going to be a

mix of these two things. And so what that helps do is that you're actually never surprised. Do you know what I mean? You're not going to be surprised if a human being does something awful, and you're not going to be surprised if a human being does something awful, and you're not going to be surprised if a human being does something beautiful. Right. Right? I will never be an idealist. I couldn't possibly be an idealist about any human project, but I'm really idealistic about God's ability to redeem the human propensity to fuck things up. Like, we can be the people who fuck things up, and something beautiful can still happen out of it. I'm like, whoa, like, that's the, these are the moments of

faith that I have. But you could be idealistic about holding space for somebody to step into, you know, a better, more fully expressed version of themselves, right? I mean, that's kind of what you're doing with the church. Like, there's some Christian traditions that believe in, like, Christian perfection and, like, progressive sanctification. I could never buy into it, ever, ever, ever. But I think we do get the opportunity to grow in wisdom. I think we can increase the wisdom we have in the world. And it does not decrease the fact that we have the propensity to fuck things up. That doesn't go away. We certainly have that.

And it's exactly like AA. You learn in the rooms to not judge somebody who comes back from a relapse. It's like, well, of course she drank. We're alcoholics. That's what we do. The miracle is that we didn't do it today. Exactly. And it's cool. Come on back. And you learn empathy. And you learn to reserve judgment. And it's given me just this expansive capacity to love humanity in all its forms.

And without judgment. And I see that reflected in your congregation. I know you've recently moved away from that, but over the last however many years that you were there, that's the closest thing I've ever seen to AA. Oh, 100%. That was on purpose. Because, look, people are so much more frequently speaking honestly, like honestly about their lives and connecting to God and to one another in church basements than in church sanctuaries. Yeah, yeah. I saw you read that.

I never really thought about that. I was like, wow, the honesty that's going on in the basement is incredible. It's such a beautiful thing that this movement has created to help people heal. And then upstairs on Sunday, there's so much bullshit. Yeah, it's the human competition extravaganza once again, you know? So, yeah, I think that people have asked, how has being part of a 12-step community influenced you as a pastor and as a theologian? And I'm like, it's impossible to answer that because I was 22 when I started showing up to church basements. And I'll be 50 in April.

So literally, my brain hadn't even finished developing yet. And so I learned what it meant to be a human being and a fucking grown-up in those rooms and what spirituality looked like and what honesty looked like. So there's no way for me to tease it apart. What was that and what was something else? And what about organizationally? I mean, when you look at the movement, the 12-step movement and how it's continued to grow and expand and maintain a level of integrity with its roots in a world in which institutions, particularly the church, is falling on the

sword of its own inherent flawed humanity that runs it, there's something to be gleaned from that. Oh, totally. Totally. I mean, I know what we tried with House for All Sinners and Saints is that, for instance, we said, look, we're anti-excellence, pro-participation. That is such a counterintuitive thought when it comes to organizations. I got to the point where I wouldn't accept speaking invitations from any organization that had the word excellence in its title.

So, what if they said they were against excellence? Yeah, if they were anti-excellence, okay. Yeah, then you would go. So, like, we never had a five-year plan. We never had a vision statement. We never had a mission statement. We were anti-excellence. Like, all of the things that these institutions of churches think will save them, we said, no thanks. All the things that the church consultants are telling churches they should do and focus on, we said, that's not true.

And subsequently, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Lutheran congregation in the United States of America that has more young adults in it. Yeah, what's interesting is that you did it within the construct of the organization. You didn't just rent a space and say, okay, I'm my own church. You're doing it within the construct of the Lutheran church. Yeah, totally subversive. At some point, you convince them to be permissive enough to let you do it in this non-traditional way. Yeah, but you know why? Because being a Lutheran is foundationally just a theological identity.

What is Lutheranism? Well, it's like, you know, in 1517, this Augustinian monk, you know, nailed 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church and was like, here are 95 things that I think we're fucking up in with the church and we need to stop as a way of trying an invitation to a conversation. And that sparked the Protestant Reformation. And ultimately, he was a pastor and he saw how the teachings of the church were harming the people in his care. And he was more loyal to the people than he was to the teachings of the church, which is what I'm trying to do in that book.

the teachings of the church, which is what I'm trying to do in that book. But Lutheranism is very different than other Christian systematic theologies in the fact that the focus is grace. It's not on being good. It's not on these lofty ideals of progressive sanctification. It's closer, honestly, to the 12-step stuff where it's like, oh, yeah, you can't do this, but God can do for you what you can't do for yourself. And it is the closest Christian theology to that notion, which is why I was drawn to it because I'd been sober for some time by the time I was introduced to Lutheran theology. And it gave me language for what I'd already experienced to be true. And so, since being Lutheran is a theological identity, I'm a very orthodox Lutheran theologian, technically. And so, because the denomination trusted me as a theologian, they have never

questioned me as a practitioner. There's something super punk rock about that. It's almost more punk rock to say, I'm going to do this within the organization than it is to trash the organization and do your own thing because that would be a lot easier. It's much more subversive. So it's very convenient for somebody to look at you and go, oh, all the tattoos and the potty mouth. You strike a very unique pose, and it allows people to project a whole sensibility onto you, right? And it's more complicated than that because you're this social progressive, but you're also very much a theological traditionalist in many ways. Totally. Yeah, I know.

Yeah. So, it's like a conundrum. It's confusing. But you know what I've been saying recently in interviews is like, in so many ways, I'm not the story because the tattooed foul-mouthed lady pastor story is interesting for five minutes, and that five minutes ended years ago. Yeah, it does. But the real story is what shifted culturally in America that's created a situation under which I'm who people want to listen to when it comes to religion? That's the question. That's the story. So in your opinion, how do you answer that question? What did shift? Authority. I think what authority looks like has completely changed. And in a way that a lot of institutions... Just make sure you're talking about a little bit.

That a lot of institutions haven't paid attention to that shift. And I think for a long time, we wanted leaders to be on a pedestal and to be the sort of example of holy living or whatever. And yet, there's a way that all of the institutions that we have experienced have sort of disappointed us because every time we've looked behind the curtain, we've not actually found the Wizard of Oz. We found scared little men and women pulling levers, pretending to be big, right? Yeah. Well, it's an abuse of trust and a level of duplicity that just leads people further and further away. Yeah. But the reason we had institutions to begin with has to

do with the Enlightenment, really. I mean, because in the past, whatever had authority was whatever our grandparents and great-grandparents had experienced and trusted to be true, that's where authority was for us. You didn't question it. And the reason is because things weren't shifting very quickly culturally, right? You could trust it. Well, things shifted very quickly like during the Enlightenment. And suddenly we have this like elevation of human reason and everything sort of shifted. And so what happened, and we got things like penicillin, stuff like that. But now we have institutions that were developed in order to hand over the goods that the Enlightenment promised us, right? And so now you don't trust anything in the past. You can only trust things that are sort of new and inventive. So this is where we have banking.

We have universities. We have hospitals. We have banking, we have universities, we have hospitals, we have denominations. So all of these institutions were established after the Enlightenment to deliver on the goods, the promises of the Enlightenment. But then what happened is we end up with like the Vietnam War and Watergate and clergy sex scandals. And that's where we pull the curtain back and we go, oh, these institutions became more concerned with perpetuating themselves and protecting themselves than they were with delivering the thing they said they were about. Right. Because they're run by humans.

Yeah, totally. That's the biggest problem, right? Right, right, right. So I think we're in this weird time right now where human, where, you know, Esther Perel will say, like, so many big decisions were always decided for us before now, you know, that we weren't, there weren't all of these options on the table. is ways on the individual to make big, big decisions that it used to be that either institutions or your culture or your religion was deciding for you. And that's a first in human history. Yeah, I think it's a very recent development too, extremely recent. I've heard you talk about kids growing up with choose-your-own-adventure stories. They have to imagine the endings of their own stories now, and everything is super personalized to meet your own adventure stories. Like they have to imagine the endings of their own stories now, and everything is super personalized to meet your own unique agenda. And I think there's a

downside to that. And I think it plays out in ideas around faith, which I know you talk about, but also in kind of snowflake culture too, you know, like everybody's super precious. And I think that tends to alienate us as much as it does unify us. Like affirming my specialness in every variety is the only way that you're allowed to relate to me and for me to approve of, you know? Right. It's so intense. Right. And you see it with, you know, you've had tattoos for a long time, but like tattooing is a way of distinguishing yourself. And if you kind of, you know, explore that with somebody like,

hey, tell me about this, then it's almost like offensive. So it's like you can't really win in that conversation. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I think the weight of all of these choices of self-expression can actually kind of create a lot of anxiety. How do I know I'm choosing right? Or have I weighed all the options? Or, you know, I mean, things we never even had to decide before. Are you saying that we inherently want to be ruled by a benevolent

dictator? I think that we need load-bearing structures, you know? And that's what religion... This is the first time we've had cultures that weren't religious, like in human history. So, there was a way in which religion was a load-bearing structure in terms of understanding who we were, understanding morality, having a symbol system for imaging the divine, for marking the year together. There's a function that religion has played throughout human history that I feel like even though the institutions of religion have hurt a lot of people, I just think it's just not time to dispense with that idea entirely. And it's a really recent idea in human history that you can just choose your own

symbol system. That's new. Well, the foundations of religion are crumbled, and there's a crisis of trust in those structures and those institutions. Which I think is why people are like, well, I feel like I can – I like to listen to Nadia. Well, I think it's just because I really do try to be very forthcoming with my shortcomings and with things I've gotten wrong or shit I don't know. You know, there's not the curtain so much. Yeah. There's nothing you're going to, like, find out that's going to, like. Right. Like, at one point I was like.

But that's also, like, something that you learn in AA, right? Totally. To, like, own those flaws. And, you know, find the empowerment and the vulnerability. And to not actually have shame about it. I mean, that's the thing is like, I believe in the power of grace so strongly that I have no shame in admitting why I need it. So then people feel like they can trust what I'm saying. Also like self-incrimination is like my go-to rhetorical move. And that allows me to be more hearable to people because I'm not standing above them. You can connect with you. Listen, I've heard you speak. It's very, you know,

it's not just, it's an incredible experience to hear you speak. And I can feel myself connected to the message that you're putting out there. And it makes me reflect back on my experience as a young person going to church and just sitting in these pews thinking, what am I doing here? I can't relate to any of this. I don't understand what they're talking about. I'm falling asleep. Why is that guy swinging that rope with the terrible smelling stuff?

And he's dressed up. No, I went to an Episcopalian elementary school. I just found the whole thing totally bizarre. And I was confused about what I was supposed to get out of it. It wasn't that I was traumatized by it. I just didn't understand it, and I didn't understand why everyone felt compelled to go. I was getting nothing out of this. Have you reverted to any of it in times of crisis at all?

Not in an organizational, structured kind of way. No, but I mean personally. Yeah, in a non-denominational kind of spiritual way. Yeah, I found God in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and my spiritual growth has taken me through an exploration of many different types of faith and experiences and practices and teachers and the like. And I haven't settled into one particular perspective on that, but I've learned from all of them. Yeah, yeah.

Well, one thing that Esther said, and I'm just quoting like smarter women than myself, but she said that it's easy, that one of the things that religion offers is that in times of crisis and of pain, when we're collapsing, there's something to hold us. Like, it's easy to come up with rituals and practices and stuff in times of birth or weddings. But when shit hits the fan, there's something there to hold you, that there are these sort of rituals or prayers that have been worn smooth by generations of the faithful in a way that can kind of bring us comfort. You can't just create your own thing on the spot when you're in a position of crisis and pain. I thought that was beautiful. But can you have that connection without the baggage that comes with the institution? That's the question. No, that's literally the question right now. I mean, when I left Christianity for a decade, I couldn't have

anything to do with it after I left the church I was raised in. So when people say like, look, a lot of us have to leave for reasons of self-preservation. Like I get that. I never judge it. But I think that there is a path to integrating our religious upbringings rather than rejecting that eventually there's that kind of work that can be done too. Even if it's just, you know, there's this prayer my grandmother said when I was going to sleep every night that's still really meaningful. And I'm going to integrate that into my life, you know. That's a part of wellness to me to be able to do that. So I've been just sort of inviting people into considering what that might look like. And it doesn't have to be a betrayal of the part of you that needed to reject it for good reason to say, yeah, but it's still formed who I am on some level. And I want to make friends with that part of me.

Yeah. Well, there is something timeless about these stories in the Bible and the truths that are, you know, laid within them. And that's something that Rob Bell has helped me a lot with, you know, in his effort to kind of reclaim this art form that is the sermon and to really get into, you know, the history behind, the history and the nuance behind these stories and trying to divine, you know, the truths that are buried within them. And there's something incredibly beautiful about that. Totally.

But I found that I can enjoy that and explore that without having to go to a certain location on a certain day of the week. Sure, sure. You know? Yeah, yeah. I love the Bible. I mean, I love the text so much. And it's like this endless reservoir of meaning.

And every time I just dove in and done the work and tried to find what it's saying right now today to me or to this community, it's always handed over the goods, you know? And so this idea that it has this one meaning for all time that some old white man decided generations ago is insane. Like if you think it's a, I think it's like a living tradition. And so you're going to see something in the text today that you hopefully didn't see yesterday because you've lived one more day. So I feel like it always has something to offer about human folly, about the nature of the divine, whatever it is. Like, I love the biblical text. I'm interested in how you found your way back. But I think in order to really understand that, we need to like understand, we need to understand,

we need to go to the beginning a little bit here. So you grew up in the Church of Christ, that's what it was called. So that's, from what I understand, a very intense church. Yeah, it's like Baptist plus. Right. And your parents were pretty hardcore in this tradition as well. Yeah, I mean, it was just our whole lives. I went to church three times a week for 16 years. And people came over to our house. What was your experience as a young person going to church three times a week? Well, you know, the thing about anybody's childhood is you don't know it's weird until you meet other people and hear their stories. And you're like, oh, mine's weird then, you know.

So I didn't know it was weird. I mean, and there was beautiful things about it. There's something to be said about being raised in a community. And we did sort of carry each other through difficult times and celebrate in joyful times together. And I was just, I was so used to, like you said, showing up in a location every week with the same people doing the same thing. I was so marked by that, that on some level, I've tried to recreate a healthy version of it my whole life. Right. So then what leads you, I was going to use the word astray. I don't know if that's the right word, but like you start exploring drugs and alcohol at some point, like what happened?

Okay. So what happened was that I was really sick as a kid. So I had an autoimmune disorder and one of the things that happened is it caused fatty tissue to build up behind the bones in my face. So my eyeballs themselves were pushed forward out of my head. So they bulged really far out of my face to where my eyelids couldn't close. And you could see a lot of white around the entire iris. So they looked like they were falling out of my, it was very weird looking. And so I had that eye disease from ages 12 to 16

because they couldn't do all the surgeries to correct it until the bones in my face stopped growing. It's like the worst years for a young girl. Yeah, because a lot of people when they're in middle school, they think they look like an insect. I literally did. And so I think I just always thought like one of two things can happen. If you have that experience, you can either maybe become like a diminished person who tries to disappear. Or alternately, you can go, Oh, yeah, Or alternately, you can go, oh, yeah, fuck you.

Right? And that's what I did. So I had this anger about how I was treated that I'm really grateful for because that anger preserved something. It did protect something in me that remained unharmed. But it ends up if you mix a lot of drugs and alcohol with that anger, it's not the best combination. So, you know, I started using, I think when I was 15 and then left the church when I was 16. And yeah, it ends up like I had that thing where you just don't have the off switch. Was it drugs, alcohol, everything?

Like what was the drug of choice? I did a lot of drugs. I did a lot of Coke and a bunch of other stuff. But it never kicked my ass the way alcohol did. So for whatever reason, alcohol was the thing that if I had one, the switch went off and I couldn't stop. So that's ultimately the thing that was the hardest for me. Yeah. But you got sober so young. I did get sober young, yeah.

Was there an intense bottom there? Like what brought you into the rooms at such a young age? Well, I mean, there were some physical things just like I had sores on my hands that wouldn't heal. And, you know, there were like, there were, I wasn't well. And I didn't have money to go to treatment. And I'd been, I was estranged from my parents because I was such a fuck-up. And so I had to kind of white-knuckle it. And the first time I sat in a meeting, I heard—there was a blustery quality to my alcoholism. Like, to me, I was like, look at how good I am at being a sloppy drunk.

Like, there was a bravado to it. Right. I mean, that's part of the disease, like romanticizing, fetishizing. Totally. And then just surrounding yourself by other people who are just as bad so you don't have to notice that you're not doing so well. Right. But when I sat in a meeting and I heard the honesty spoken

about what that really feels like, what it's actually like to live that life, I just start crying. Like they were speaking the truth about it. And I didn't, it took a while, like I didn't, I didn't, I just thought I could kind of get my shit together and go back out there. And I thought, you know, AA would help me maybe figure out how to not be out of control as much. Right. And, but I wasn't sure I belonged there, you know, it was help me maybe figure out how to not be out of control as much. Right. But I wasn't sure I belonged there. You know, it was one of those things. And so there was just this one day, and I was at a women's meeting, and I was maybe five days sober and really shaky.

I mean, like I couldn't stop bouncing my foot. You know, I was shaking, and my nerves were jangled and everything, my skin felt like the rough side of Velcro. And there was this noise from the floor below like someone had dropped a pan. And I jumped out of my seat like no one else moved. And this woman was sharing. And this is when you could smoke in AA meetings. And she's in the middle of sharing. And I jump out of my seat.

No one else moves. And, like, immediately she turned to me and she went, that'll pass. So, anyway, about prayer, I was saying. You know, like, and there was something about how immediate she said that that I went, oh, shit, she felt like this. Right. She knows exactly what's going on. There was no judgment. There was just recognition.

And I thought that combination of no judgment, but recognition and just naming it, I just went, oh shit, I am in the right place. And those like suburban housewives saved my ass. You know, so. And those suburban housewives saved my ass, you know? And that seems like that ideology kind of informs how you deal with your congregation, right? Like recognition without judgment. Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought of it like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you've stayed sober ever since. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, 27 years. That's amazing. No, 27. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, 27 years. That's amazing. 28, no, 27. Yeah. So then you, what, you're like working in restaurants and you're doing stand-up comedy.

Yeah. And there's not a lot of church happening at that point. No, not at all. I was actually really involved in like exploring sort of more goddess stuff and like women's spirituality because there was such an intense patriarchal male-dominated thing in the Church of Christ. I honestly did not hear a woman pray out loud in a church until I was 27. Women couldn't even be ushers in the church that I was raised in. So I had to bask in the female image of God for a long time to heal something inside me before I could go back to my own symbol system. And what pulled you back in?

Well, I met my now ex-husband, and I'd never heard of Lutherans, except for, I guess, maybe Garrison Keillor. I didn't know what a Lutheran was. And he was like really involved in like Christian social justice. And I was like, what the fuck is that? Like, what? That's a thing? Like, it just seemed, I'd never heard those two things go together. And so, he sort of introduced me to more progressive form of Christianity. And I was just fascinated that that even existed.

And I was just fascinated that that even existed. And, you know, we moved out to California, and I very begrudgingly started going to this Lutheran church that had this gay pastor and going to this adult confirmation class at night. And I just soaked it up. I had no idea that you could believe those things. None. So, it was like the thing I still loved, which was Jesus, plus stuff that seemed just real and genuine and easy to believe because I already knew it was true. When they said we're simultaneously sinner and saint, I'm like, fuck, man, that explains a lot. That's super helpful. Thanks, guys.

Yeah. And then what compels you to go to divinity school and become a pastor? There were two things. The first time I had that hit of, oh, I think I have like a calling calling was when my friend PJ committed suicide, and he was a comic and also in recovery. And I had not been to divinity school or seminary at this point. But when PJ died, our friends just turned to me and were like, well, you could do the funeral, right? And just literally, because I was the only religious person in my friend group, the only thing that qualified me. And I said, okay. And it was like this, it was at the Comedy Works in downtown Denver and it was packed and I was giving a eulogy and I just looked out and there were all these like academics and comics and queers and

recovering alcoholics. And I just thought, oh, man, these people do not have a pastor. And then I went, oh, shit. It's going to have to be you. Oh, damn, you know? So that was my first hit about that. And there was a sense of being called. Yeah, I felt called to be a pastor to my people, not to fit in some box that the institutional church has for if that's a job you want.

You know what I mean? Those are two different things. Right. Like you could minister to these people in a way that no one else that you knew could. Yeah. Yeah. So that meant I had to start a church from scratch. There was not one that existed that I would want.

And the Lutherans let you. They did. Well, I looked around Lutheran churches, super nice people, but nobody looked like me. My friends aren't hanging out there. I have to culturally commute from who I am to who the church is. And I just thought, oh, it's exhausting. I can't. So, paint the picture of the church of all sinners and saints. Well, it is really, like you said, that weird combination that I'm like this, you know, kind of punk rock girl, but also theologically orthodox, but liberal, but you know, this weird, the same with that church, because it's really liturgical. So,

we use this traditional liturgy. So, it's traditional, but it's not conventional. use this traditional liturgy. So, it's traditional, but it's not conventional. And so, we're in the round and all of the jobs are shared except for the preaching, like just different people do it. When you walk in, you're asked, do you want to lead part of the liturgy, right? You could read the gospel or serve communion or do whatever. Just by walking in off the street, we're like, hey, guess what? We trust you with the holy things, just because you walked in the door. And there's so many different kinds of people. It's super queer. Probably a third of the congregation is queer. My dad describes it as like a high church at the Star Wars cantina. And it's totally acapella. So we didn't ever want anything to feel like a performance. And so we're in the round and it's acapella four-part harmony.

It's like sitting in the middle of a 200-person choir. Yeah, that's wild. So all the music comes out of the bodies of the people who came. To me, that's just so profound. Right. There's a pure, there's a, I was going to say purity, but that's probably the wrong word. There's an honesty or something elemental about that. Totally.

It's beautiful. Yeah. And you said something that I thought was really interesting. You said that you need to be deeply rooted in tradition to disrupt with integrity. To innovate, yeah. Yeah, to innovate with integrity. So it's this weird combination of respecting these traditions in the same way in AA. It's like, well, there's the 12 traditions.

There's all kinds of insanity happening at a big AA meeting, but there's this reverence and respect for the traditions. Like, there's all kinds of insanity happening, you know, at a big AA meeting, but there's this reverence and respect for the traditions, right? But every group is autonomous. And so, they're all different. Like, every AA group decides, what are the rules? You know, how's the format going to be? What's the vibe? You know, so there's all that freedom. But the reason there's so much freedom is there's that load-bearing structure that's holding it together of tradition. And the face of that load-bearing structure is you. And if you're wearing the collar, you don't always do that, though. I do. You do always. Well, not every day, but if I'm leading liturgy, like literally Sunday, I preached at the Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, and yeah, I had the collar at a stole at a alb, the whole shebang.

And there's a power and a symbolism and a tradition that's built into that. But there's also, you have to admit, like a separation that occurs. As soon as you adorn that, there is that, oh, wait, is this person more pious than I? Does this person know more than I? This person is in control. And what they say matters more than what I think. Sure, sure, sure, is this person more pious than I? Does this person know more than I? This person is in control, and what they say matters more than what I think. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, until you hear me preach, and then you're like, oh, no, she's really pretty much just like, she's just as bad. Like, I am never the best Christian in the room ever. But yeah, but at the same time, I liked it. I liked wearing the collar because the collar represents the office that I'm

holding. And so in a way, all of my foibles don't have to be the last word because I'm just holding an office on behalf of the people. And they're allowing me to hold that office and they want me to hold that office and to be set apart to do something really specific on behalf of everyone. And in that way, it really worked. Right. You tell this funny story about what happened when the church just started out. It was like your friends in your living room and then it was like 40 people or 50 people. But then you got some press in Denver and then like the bridge and tunnel crowd

started to show up, right? And you're like- It was the front page of the Denver Post. And when it came out, I was texting people like, hey, where do you buy a paper? You know, everyone's like, I think 7-Eleven. I don't know. Like nobody in my congregation took the paper,

but you know who takes the paper? 60-year-olds from the suburbs. And that's who caused my congregation to double in size overnight. Yeah. So, suddenly, soccer moms and dads and dockers show up to take a peek at what's going on. Yeah. And that's a challenge to your sense of your ability to emanate grace, right? Like, this is challenging your idea of what you thought and wanted this organization to look like. It was horrible because I just thought you could show up to any mainline Protestant

church in the city and see a room full of people who look just like you. Like, city and see a room full of people who look just like you. Like, you're messing up our cool, man. Like, you know, it was horrible. And then I called a friend and I was like, dude, have you had a similar congregation? I was like, have you ever had normal people mess up your church? And we always had this thing about like, we, of welcoming the stranger is part of our values. Right, and we always think of welcoming the stranger as thinking that stranger is the one who's ostracized. But what if that stranger is the person who's the mainstream person? Totally.

He's like, well, you guys are great at that if it's like a transgender kid. But sometimes the stranger looks like your mom and dad. I was like, fuck you you know and then so what happened was we had this meeting because we were going like I was like we gotta we gotta do something and um but I had that phone call and it felt like this divine heart transplant you know again and I told the group, hey, I called my friend and he said this, because I thought what the meeting would be would be all the people who were there originally would say who they are and why the church is important. And then the people for whom it wasn't really for them would, like, self-select out. Like, this is my evil plan. But then I told on myself at the beginning of the meeting that I had that phone call. And then Asher was like, well, as the young transgender kid who was welcomed into this community, I just need to go on record as saying I'm really glad there are people who look like my mom and dad here because they love me in a way my mom and dad can't right now.

And I was like, oh, fuck, meeting over. So the kid drops like the spiritual truth bomb. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, shit. All right, I'll see you guys Sunday. And it drops like the spiritual truth bomb. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, shit. All right, I'll see you guys Sunday. But now, the part of that story that people don't know is that the very people I had a hard time welcoming, just a year later even, so for years now, I cannot imagine it being House for All Sinners and Saints without them. It's impossible for me to imagine the church without them. We sinners and saints without them. It's impossible for me to imagine

the church without them. We're not us without them. And I think that was chapter 14 or something in the book, Pastrix. And there's this couple that fit that description who show up and they're just the best volunteers. They do so much work. They serve all the time. They're incredible. And the first time they showed up to help do all this cooking for Operation Turkey Sandwich, they had t-shirts made that just say Chapter 14 on them as a way of harassing me. It's pretty funny.

So, yeah. harassing me. It's pretty funny. So yeah. And it makes it even weirder that you have that the crowd is diverse in that way. Oh yeah. Cause you walk in and you're like, I'm unclear what all these people have in common. Right. And that brings it back to the similarities with AA, right? Cause it's like, that's the only place I've ever been where you see this intersection of the most unlikely community of people to intersect with each other. Yeah, they shouldn't mix. In a meaningful way. Totally.

Yeah. But now also it's interesting because there's such a culture of turn-taking in that community that even the people who on the surface seem like the broken ones, you know, we don't have the designated broken people in the community. I have seen the people who have maybe some more complicated lives in a heartbeat turn and be of service to the really stable people in a way that only they can. But don't we take turns at being the broken one? Hopefully. Yeah.

I mean, in a healthy way we do. If it's a healthy ecosystem of a community, that's what should be happening. So you founded this church and you grew it to prominence, and recently you decided to move on. Yeah, yeah. So why is that? Well, because I started talking about my departure the first year of the church. So it was super important to me as the founder for that church to not have founder syndrome. So it was something I had my eye on and I spoke out loud about from the beginning. And so it was just important to me to leave at the right time. And the fact that I was able to leave while they still loved me, you know, it's like better to leave a month too early than one day too late type of thing.

It's part of that because of the ego identification that takes place. Like, oh, I'm the cult leader here. Yeah, part of it. But it was because I loved it because I love church, and I wanted what was best for it. And I couldn't stay for the wrong reasons, you know? And so what happened was the person who took over for me, we worked side by side for three years. So the last three years that I was at the church, I was part-time. And Reagan Umber, a gay Episcopal priest, was full-time.

So, it was a slow transition. Right, right, right. And now you're touring around, talking at fancy conferences. It's so weird. Giving Gloria Allred golden vaginas. I know. Or like, this is the third year I spoke at the Nantucket Project, and this year they were just like, you know, would you just like, would you preach a sermon this year?

Uh-huh. I'm like, yeah, okay. It was just, it was all like limousine liberals and atheist Jews, you know? Uh-huh. And I was like, I preach the hell out of a sermon. So, it's been, it's really fun being a public theologian and just being invited into spaces. Right. You get to just travel to all these different venues and do what you do as opposed to being confined to a certain space. But I ask myself the same question

if I'm speaking at Makers or Nantucket or a wellness conference, or if like, you know, a year and a half ago, I led a day retreat for all of the bishops in the Church of England, right? So all of them. I asked myself the exact same question, no matter who I'm in front of, and it's what is the most pastoral thing I can say to this group of people? Like, I have to dig into dig into this. What is the thing that's hard in their lives? What is unspoken? What's a hurt that this community might share? What is a struggle? How can I speak honestly enough about that to bring some kind of hope from outside of them into the space? I ask myself the same question, no matter who I'm speaking to, is how can I be their pastor, even if it's for 10 minutes?

And how much planning do you go into it? And regardless of what they believe. Do you get up and channel the vibe, or do you plan this whole thing out, right? Never. Channeling the vibe is not going to be good for anyone. No, it's lazy. I'm not going to be good for anyone. Yeah, it's lazy. Well, I speak from a manuscript. I mean, now we're just chatting, but I speak from a manuscript.

And my sermons are 1,500 words. And when I was preaching every other week at house, it would take about 15 to 20 hours of work to write a 1,500-word sermon. Wow, which is like, what, 10 or 15 minutes? 10, yeah. Yeah, wow. Yeah. But when I was a comic, I learned economy of language. I mean, that's the one thing you might not know about that community of comics

is that the highest compliment within that community is to say, hey, have you seen so-and-so's act? And they go, no. He goes, are they good? Yeah, they're a really good writer. So how they use language is the mark. The specificity of it. Correct.

Right. And you don't know that a stand-up act is written in a sense, maybe not words on a paper. When it's well done, it looks like it just occurred to the person in the moment. But, oh, no. They know every pause between a word. They use a very specific word. If they used one extra word in a bit, it wouldn't be as funny. So I don't know how anyone manages to be a preacher without being a comic first. But the comics get to get up in front of crowds and work out their

material over time. You don't have that opportunity. No, they aren't writing a new 10 minutes every week. Brutal. So let's talk about the book. Why sex? I mean, there's an obvious answer to that, of course, but why invest this amount of time and intention into writing a book calling for this reformation on how we think about sex? It's like a really vulnerable answer. I've been doing it on the stage during the tour, but every time I'm like, oh. So I'm ordained in one of the most liberal denominations in the country, but I had to sign a document that said when I was ordained, I would be faithful in marriage or celibate in singleness.

Or what? Well, that was just, or you can be brought up on charges, to be honest. And so it's not even our theology. It's like we borrowed it from the Baptists. I'm like, can we give it back to the Baptists? So I didn't think about it. I was married at the time. And I was married for almost 19 years to a really good, good man who I genuinely couldn't say something bad about. But we never connected.

Like it just never happened for us. So we were roommates who co-parented. And so there was no physical or emotional intimacy in the relationship. And that was really, it was so, it was this quiet, painful secret I had. And I dealt with it by doing CrossFit five or six days a week and being like lifting 160 pounds over my head on a regular basis and having, you know, quarter inch long hair and whatever. But so when we divorced, when we divorced, there was no acrimony or lawyers, and he's found love, he's remarrying, and he's very happy. But when I got together with my boyfriend and connected so intensely to someone emotionally and sexually, it was so good for me. Like, I describe it as, like, this exfoliation of my whole spirit.

And it was good for my brain chemistry and my body and my heart. And, like like everything just kind of softened like people who know me for a long time there I'm a different person than I was three years ago and um and so then I had to go on tour though so we were together for like a week and a half and then I had to go on this three and a half week tour in Europe to support the UK and German edition of my last book. So I had all this stuff swirling in my head, like going, oh my God, this is amazing. And then I'm like, why did the church make me sign something saying I wouldn't do this? How is it better for my church if I'm not getting laid? Like, that made no sense to me. Like, I understand, like, you know, don't fuck the flock as a baseline ethic, you know.

But I just was puzzling. And my boyfriend's not Christian. He's not part of that tradition. And I texted him. I was like, I got to talk to you right now. And so with, like, really unwarranted urgency, I was like, why do you think the church has tried to control sex for so long? Like, why do you think the church has tried to control sex for so long? And without skipping a beat, he goes, I just assume the church saw sex as its competition.

And then I went, oh, shit, I'm writing a book. So flush that out. Like, explain this idea of sex competing with the church. Well, when he said it, it's one of those moments where I didn't know exactly what it meant, but I knew it was true. And so it was almost like my exploration of why that thing was clearly true. And I think it's that there can be a transcendence. You know, sex can have almost a transcendent quality to it,

but also we're seeking to connect deeply to ourselves and to another thing at the same time. And I think that we want transcendence and connection. And wholeness. And wholeness. And we can get that through religion and both things are sort of. And so I think that because there's such a mystery to it that I think that it's easier to say, no, this is a thing that's dangerous that we have to guilt and the shame and these horrible human emotions around sex and sexuality that have led to, you know, repression and all of the, you know, ill-begotten manifestations of what it's like to live in that space. And, you know, religion's not alone in that regard, but it's certainly at the top of the heap in terms of being.

Well, the difference, I mean, obviously the culture gives us really damaging messages and the commodification of sex and the desirability. Like, you have to have a particular type of body for it to be worthy of desire, all that shit. But the culture has never said that those messages are actually from God in the way that the church has. You know, to say the creator of the universe is saying this message. And one of the things I'm saying on my tour is like, look, shame, like shame has an origin. But in the Garden of Eden story, it says that Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed until they listened to a snake, right? naked and unashamed until they listen to a snake, right? And so, to me, that says shame has an origin and it's not God, that shame doesn't originate from God's voice. Shame originates from voices who say that they are speaking for God like the snake did, and that's different.

Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, obviously, there was a time when human beings walked around naked and didn't think twice about it. That's correct. But it's so strange when you think about how we're all hardwired to feel bizarre, if not, you know, self-conscious, if not ashamed to be naked? Like, what would be wrong with just, this is how we are naturally brought into this world to walk down Fifth Avenue completely naked. Like, why is that not okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but it certainly isn't. So, what happened? You know, like deconstructing that, how we got to this place and the role that religion has played in fomenting that. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that there's a lot of power to be brokered

if you can say that you are speaking for God and saying like, I'm God's mouthpiece and I'm going to tell you how you should be living and how you should be feeling and where your money should be going, you know? I mean, Martin Luther did that, right? I mean, he had some concerns with some of the fundraising tactics of the Roman Catholic Church, you know, that were hurting his people. And it's because the church was saying, hey, you can't question us because we're speaking from God. God wants you to do this, you know. And it's always this religious camouflage to say, well, it is written or like God wants you, you know, when really it has to do with brokering power and controlling people. And there's a rich history of that in religion. So, explain the kind of thesis of the book and how this plays out.

So, the thesis of the book is that if the teachings of the church are harming people, we should rethink those teachings. It's pretty basic. Like, we should never be more loyal to an idea or a doctrine or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. And so, to have the sort of- And that's the essence of Lutheranism, right? Sure. This is like Martin Luther's whole thing. Exactly what, I mean, it's not exactly what he did, but I'm stealing his move.

I always do. I mean, and I also propose an alternate sexual ethic, you know, that's not legalistic or shaming, that allows for difference. And that is that, stealing a move from Luther again, is that when he wrote the small catechism, he was talking about the Ten Commandments, he's like, fulfilling the commandments are more than just avoiding bad behavior. Like the Fifth Commandment, thou shalt not kill, that should be a freebie, right? It's like the middle square of the bingo card, right? We can all just cross it and feel good. At least we know we got one, right? And he's like, hey, hey, hey, not so fast that it means we should love and fear God so that we don't

harm our neighbor in any way, but we have a concern for their well-being and to support their flourishing. So, it's not just the absence of harm, it's the presence of good. Yeah, actually having to do something as opposed to avoid, just being super awesome at like not doing shit. Right, which is what a lot of conservative Christianity is. Like, it's basically being good at not doing certain things. Right. Some of which are, you know, human impulses, right? I mean, sexuality certainly being first and foremost among those, like just being this machine that's constantly repressing.

Right, right, right. Well, that's when religion is nothing but a reward and punishment program. Well, that's when religion is nothing but a reward and punishment program. You know, dualistic thinking within religion, it just is basically like, you know, God is this angry, capricious bastard who is with a killer surveillance system who, like, is giving you reward pellets for good behavior and little shocks for bad behavior. That is a foundational view of God that a lot of very conservative Christianity sort of holds. Well, there's few things that can provoke shame on the level of sexuality. Yeah, totally. Totally. But to sort of dig in and go, where did that even come from? I spent two years interviewing my parishioners and just saying, like, what message did you receive from the church about sex and the body? And then how did that message affect you?

And how have you navigated your adult life? And I was surprised how many people were just immediately willing to share those stories. People want to get free from this stuff. They really want to get free. And so there was a willingness there that I was shocked by, honestly. So what are some of the more notable examples of that? Of the stories? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there are young married couples who did everything the church said and waited to have sex till their wedding night. So they're told their whole lives that sex is sort of dangerous and sinful and you have to keep it at bay. But they found that they could not flip a switch in their brain and their bodies on their wedding night and suddenly go to having sex be joyful and natural and life-giving, right? And really had a lot of struggles because of that. And the church, they sell them this package deal. They're like, if you wait, the sex will be awesome. Right. But you have no language for it and no experience. Or you're left trying to connect frayed wires suddenly, you know? Or gay men who never reported the sexual assault they experienced in church because the church told them being gay was

a sin, or women who experienced marital rape when they were 20 years old, and when they told their church, the church, because there's a verse in the Bible that says women are to be subject to their husbands, there's no way it could have been rape. I mean, it's not hard to draw a direct line. Right. So how do we move past all this? Well, there's this thing about just fucking saying the things out loud in just a super basic way that is an amazing starting point because then when things are brought into the light and into oxygen, they have a chance to heal, which they never will when they're secret. And so light, even just the smallest amount of light, can scatter darkness, right? But darkness has no effect on light.

And so to be able to just say the things out loud is in itself healing. And to hear other people's stories and to go, oh my God, I'm not the only one. Just that is healing. This is back to AA too. It is. This is like- I'm telling you, Martin Luther and AA. I have nothing to offer the world except for regurgitating AA and Luther.

Somebody who wrote a book called Shameless and somebody who's worked very hard to overcome your own issues, you know, to be shameless yourself. Like you don't harbor shame about your past because you've shown a light on it. You know, and I've undergone a similar process. It's incredibly empowering. And I think when you can then communicate with that level of honesty and vulnerability, what you went through, it gives everybody else permission.

There's a sigh of relief. And that creates connection and empathy and a trajectory forward for their own healing. That's all I've ever done. I'm a one-trick pony. Because what I want, if I'm going to do that, if I'm going to say something like, geez, you know what? Talking about being in a sexless marriage, that's not easy. But the only reason I do it- Especially when you're the person that everyone's looking to to be the wiser one. Right. But there's only one reason to do it. Because when I do it,

I've found that it creates a space around me that allows other people to step into this space and feel a little safer to admit what that thing is for them. And it's a form of leadership I always call, screw it, I'll go first. That's it. Yeah. Well, it's also sharing your experience. Experience, strength, and hope. Not telling people, you should do this and be this way. No, no, I've never done that. Which kind of religion is all about, right? I know. But, you know, in like 10 years of pastoring house for all the sinners and saints, I never

once told somebody what they should or shouldn't be doing in terms of their sex life. And having a community, a spiritual community that's based on grace and on just being a beloved child of God and on the fact that, yeah, you're simultaneously sinner and saint, we all fuck up and we can move on because there's grace for all that. When that's the main message, it ends up people make pretty good decisions for themselves without the church having to tell them what those look like. Yeah. I was at the gym this morning, and I was listening to an interview with you. I had an earbud in like one ear

and there were three guys and they're working out. They're kind of like, they're very alpha, you know, like jacked up dudes. And one guy says, what did he say? I'm gonna butcher exactly what he said, but it was something like, I've got a bullet for Nancy Pelosi and like my AR-15 is

like on the way. And then some other guy like patted him on the back and said something similar, like affirming that. And this really weird conversation is going on in front of me. And like, I'm a progressive liberal, but like whether you're a conservative Republican or a progressive, like talking about killing the Speaker of the House and like being giddy about that and like your assault rifle. And I was like, I was out of my mind. Right. And I was like, you're in my ear, but, and you're talking about grace and like the inconvenience of it. And I'm thinking I wanted to like intervene in this conversation, which is very, would be as an introvert, that's not something that would be natural to me. And I was like, how do I, what is the, where's the grace here?

Like, what am I supposed to do? You know, I ended up doing nothing. Yeah, yeah, of course. But I was thinking, I wonder what Nadia would have done here or what she would have advised. Well, the thing about both like the grace thing and the compassion thing, which are super related, is they are 100% never my first impulse, ever. So my first reaction to almost everything is, fuck you. So I- So the anger's still there. Oh my God, it will never go away. See, this is where the whole being like Christian perfection or progressive sanctification or enlightenment, I'm like, I don't buy it because to me, grace for myself and compassion for myself

is that I don't get a personality transplant, that my first reaction is always going to be, fuck you, and that's okay, and I can have grace for that. I almost never stay there, but I almost always start there. I just move really quickly to something else now. And so if I were to judge myself on, oh my God, I can't believe that was my first reaction again. Self-flagellation, you know, repression, double down on my efforts, wasted, right? It's okay. Like I'm always going to have a little thing about booze, you know? But you get the reprieve, you know, you get a neutrality to it, but it doesn't go away. And so, same with whatever our defects are, that I'll always have that as my defect, and it's okay, and it's helped me at certain times in my life. So my first impulse is never, how do I extend grace to this person?

But I often will eventually get there. And it feels so different in my body. My reaction to things and my response to things feel different in my body. So my reaction to that, fuck you, everything's tense. I guard myself. I feel stuff, you know, it feels different. But when I can do the work and go, okay, what would compassion for this person look like? It feels different in my body. Yeah. And the growth or the evolution is in the half-life of the reaction before the more considered response. Yeah, yeah, totally.

To know, okay, the fuck you is going to happen, but that's going to pass quickly, and I'm going to get to the more evolved way to manage this. I think it's unrealistic for me to have some expectation that my first reaction to things is ever going to change. expectation that my first reaction to things is ever going to change. So that first reaction has so much less power when I'm not fighting it and judging it. When I have made friends with it, and I know it doesn't have to be in the driver's seat. Yeah. I noticed in the book that you really kind of restrict your focus to your own experience and then the experience of your parishioners or these people that you really kind of restrict your focus to your own experience and then the experience of your parishioners or these people that you interview. And you don't get into the scandals of the clergy or anything like that.

So it's not a broad referendum on sexuality in the church in general. It's more about how we can have a healthier relationship wherever you find yourself on this sexual spectrum. Yeah. It was important to me to stay in my lane. People are like, well, did you bring up the Catholic clergy thing? Or what about Islam? I'm like, not my traditions. That's not my story to tell. It wouldn't be okay for me to stand above a culture or a tradition I'm not a part of and critique it. I can critique something from within my own life and my own experience, but I just have no interest in going outside that. But, boy, I can't wait to read more and more about people within other traditions asking these same questions and

hearing what their answers to them are. Well, there's something interesting about the timing also, because we're in a cultural moment right now where there is discussion and dialogue about the diversity of sexuality in a way that I've never experienced in my lifetime. sexuality in a way that I've never experienced, you know, in my lifetime. Seeing all these new variations on this, you know, the duality of male-female. Yeah, we had like two flavors. You know, I'm 52, like I'm catching up, you know, trying to like understand what's going on. And I find it fascinating. And then, you know, you're writing this book and we're seeing these changes in culture and in religion. Like, why now? Like, why do you think, why is this the moment?

Hmm. I don't know. But I did write a piece for the Washington Post last spring about how it feels apocalyptic. Because the word apocalypse means revealing. It just means to see what's underneath, you know. And it's a big revealing of what's been going on for a long time. You know, sexual harassment is just a ubiquitous experience in women's lives that we have been socialized to deescalate and to deal with. And so the fact that we're going, hey, guess what?

This has been happening for a long time. We all share this experience. It's just revealing what's already there. And we have to keep going. We have to, I mean, we have to dig in and do that work to say, what's just the truth about this? You know? I mean, I haven't had nearly as many horrific experiences as other women in my life. I think I do have the benefit of having like a really sort of dominant personality and also I'm a really large woman. So it's a different- Yeah, you're like 6'1".

6'1 6'1 yeah about 170 so I have not and CrossFit I don't do that anymore for years no I only do

no it's super embarrassing I only do yoga like I went from what's happening to you no I'm saying I went from being like a badass to softy

I know talking about compassion and like being in yoga positions it's super embarrassing it's not it's embarrassing anyway I interrupted you Festivals and doing yoga. I know, talking about compassion and like being in yoga positions. It's super embarrassing. It's not. It's embarrassing.

Anyway, I interrupted you. I don't know. Anyway, so the, but we all have, but I have all these stories about it too. And that women are socialized for our own safety and are to try and de-escalate situations so that they don't get worse. to try and de-escalate situations so that they don't get worse. And what that ends up looking like for those who are perpetrators is it looks like we don't mind. And it's not that we don't mind, it's that we're trying to survive. And so I'm here for this. I mean, I'm here for it.

I understand there are some negative aspects to this moment, I understand there are some negative aspects to this moment. But for the most part, I think there are a lot of people who have second thoughts before they sexually harass someone, you know, before they step over that line. And because they're actually, for the first time, are like repercussions. Right. Right? Well, certainly that's happening. Yeah.

You know, I think that it's been successful in that regard and I think it's only going to continue. And it is, it is, it's about time. It's long overdue. It is. Especially when, you know, you get to like in looking at your book and kind of diving deeper into your work to see how deeply rooted these unhealthy traditions are, like how far back they go and how entrenched they are. So much so that it can delude an otherwise intelligent person into ascribing to these traditions

just because that's the way it's always been. Well, it runs deep. traditions just because that's the way it's always been. Well, it runs deep. I mean, when you're given messages in God's name, those go down to our created place. So how is this book being received by the traditional religious community? Is it considered controversial or is it being embraced? I mean, it just came out.

I wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. You don't pay attention to that. Good for you. No, I mean, I have a thing where, I mean, I'm seeing, I know that there are people who have read this book this week and have gone to these book events who are saying, oh my gosh, thank you. It's time. I've never felt seen in a church before. You know, someone's speaking about my experience.

I'm here for the Reformation. It's healing. I cried the whole time. So the people for whom, because that question I ask before I speak, what's the most pastoral thing I can say to someone? That book is a pastoral book. And so the fact that people are feeling well pastored by that book in terms of their own stuff around sex and religion, then what I was hoping people would experience when they read it, they are experiencing. So to me, it's a success. Right. But then they don't have a church of all sinners and saints that they can go to on Sunday. They have their organization. Neither do I. Yeah, because you don't either.

I'm not allowed to go. It's a thing in my denomination. You don't get a go back until at least a year. And so I started the church I felt the most comfortable being in. And, like, I am also in a place where I'm like, where's my Nadia Bolz-Weber? Where's somebody starting a church, you know, doing all that work so I can show up, you know? So I'm with everyone in the like, I don't have a place to go. So I don't know what to do about that because I can't start another one. That one almost killed me. But in terms of reaction, I do know that both, I try and have clarity about the fact that both my, for lack of a better word, like my fans and my critics, these are both like passionate groups of people

who are equally distant from the truth. So the people who are my fans are just as far from the actual truth of who I am as my critics are. And neither groups are very reliable sources of information about myself to myself. Yeah, if you read everything that your fans say and you choose to believe that, then you have to choose to also believe all the bad things that other people are saying about you. all the bad things that people are saying about you. And you know what? Most of the time, both the praise and the criticism of other people is more about them than me. Of course, it always is. Even the praise is, you know? So now that you've stepped out and you don't have this affiliation with the organization anymore,

anymore? How do you navigate like the ego pitfalls of like being this, you know, sort of, you know, public intellectual at large, who's speaking about these issues that are, that are very heightened and emotional for a lot of people, like, you become this brand almost, right? And there's a lot of trepidation that comes with that. Well, the antidote for me personally is my private life is very small and super boring. It's just I spend my time alone or with my boyfriend and sometimes with one of my kids if they're around. And I've been doing this volunteer work in the women's prison when I can. And I go to my AA group and I have a sponsee and I just, you know, spend time cooking. And like, there's nothing, there's nothing super cool or interesting about my private life. It's small and simple. Yeah.

And then the public stuff, I do the public stuff. And I'm glad I get to do this. Like, I'm glad that I'm like a person for a living. Like, you're a person for a living. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, it's awesome if you can get it, you know. But then I just have this clarity about most of my life is my private life. And that's like not even interesting at all.

I do go to my yoga class. I just started a book club in my yoga studio because I just didn't know who these people were, and I don't have a church. So I'm like, I'm actually really lonely right now. I have a beautiful—I'm still with Eric, and I have this gorgeous relationship, but I don't have— Your daughter's in college, right? I don't have a community. Yeah, she's in college. So I was like, anybody want to just do a book club?

So you can't even go to your own church and sit? No, I'd do anything to go. I'm desperate to go. It's so unfair. That's weird. That needs a reformation. Why can't you just show up? No, no, I think it's right.

They need to be them without me for a while. They have to wean themselves off the naughty energy. It's just they're doing it on their own and it's beautiful and they're making different kinds of choices maybe and feeling free. And they're doing great. And I don't want to mess that up. And I wouldn't anyway. I wouldn't get involved. Literally, I just want to be able to show up to worship everyone.

Well, what's Jason Flom doing with the Church of Rock and Roll? Like, I'm confused. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure what it is yet, but he just posted on Instagram the other day, like, things are happening, something's going on. Like, I wasn't sure what that meant. I think it's going to be like in a couple physical locations. It's going to be a vegan restaurant and a venue. I'm like projecting that you're involved in that. Are you or are you not? No, okay. So, I met him at the Nantucket Project, and I preached that sermon to the limousine liberals and the atheist Jews.

And then he came up. He goes, I'm opening a church this weekend in Vegas. Yeah. And it's a pop-up thing. And I'm like, who is this guy? What is he talking about? Right. And then he goes, can I fly you out?

Would you give us a blessing for the opening? And I looked into what it was. And we talked for actually seven hours that day. And I said, yeah, because I liked what it was about. And if somebody wants me to show up as a clergy person and give them a blessing, that's my work to do. And so in the morning, I had to do a keynote address at the National Verger Convention at the cathedral in Denver. So, vergers are the lay people who look maybe a little bit like they're on the faculty of Hogwarts, and they have a stick, and they lead the... They're the ushers for the

clergy and stuff, right? So, they lead the procession with the stick, a verge, into the cathedral, and they boss all the clergy around, tell them where to sit, which they need that because we're an undisciplined bunch, right? Okay, so, it was the National Verger Convention. So, the bishop, the Episcopal Bishop of Colorado is introducing me, and I'm in the cathedral, and I'm addressing the vergers, and I go from there to DIA and fly into Las Vegas and meet Jason Flom, and at the Life is Beautiful Festival, they did a pop-up of the Church of Rock and Roll. And Greta Van Fleet played in this tiny venue, maybe 120 people,

half of whom were deaf or hard of hearing. All of us were equipped with these vests that- Like haptic. Yeah. And so on our ankles and our wrists, and we had these vests and it was hooked into the sound system, and it vibrated with the music. And so the hard of hearing, the deaf, the hearing people were sharing an experience at a concert, whether you could hear or not.

That's pretty cool. Like that's inclusion, you know? And Greta Van Fleet is playing for like 120 people and I give this blessing. And yeah, it was great. So I think he's trying to, he's getting funders and gonna have like actual locations that are venues and vegan restaurants. And it sounds fun.

Yeah, but it's not like a church. Well, to Jason, it's a church. Right, okay. Well, it's a church of rock and roll, I guess, right? And they have these things that they're about, like, you know, all of this stuff that they believe. It's like, you know, be optimistic and be welcoming and be brave and, you know, all of this stuff. And I was like, hey, I believe in those things, and so I'll bless this thing. Right.

It was fun. Yeah, it'll be cool to see what he does with that. Yeah, I agree. He's a good guy. I mean, he's been on the board of directors of the Innocence Project for 25 years. I know. That guy is... Yeah, he's done a lot.

He's done a lot. It's crazy. I mean, he's uber successful in the music business. Oh, yeah, he's a legend. But his work with the wrongly accused is kind of amazing. It's inspiring. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good guy.

So what is it that you want people to take from Shameless? Like who's it for? It's for anyone who's felt ashamed of their sexual nature because of something someone told them in God's name. You know, it's for anyone who's had to keep their love life secret. It's for anyone who hasn't fully connected to their own erotic response systems because of religion, you know, who have not experienced flourishing or who have a gay son and they're like outsiders in their church now because they support their kid who's awesome. You know, I mean, there's so many people out there have been damaged by the church's teachings around that stuff. I actually say in the book, like, look, man, if you look around your life and your church and you only see like cisgender heterosexual straight couples who married their

one true love and never masturbate or look at porn and have only had sex with their partner and it's still really good and they've had nice Christian children. And so the church's teachings have only caused flourishing and people are actually glowing with the satisfaction of living in, quote, God's special plan for humanity. If that's all you see in your life and no one's been hurt by any of this shit, this book is not for you. I'm sure those people exist. This book's for everyone else. Right.

Yeah, you use that example of the crop circles, right? The circular fields when you're flying in an airplane and you're like, why are these round and not square? And it's not that they're round. It's just that the irrigation goes in a circle. And what's outside of that circle doesn't get fed and dies. And those are the people that don't fall into that. They're planted in circles, it's watered in circles. And so the water doesn't get, the center pivot irrigation system doesn't allow water to get to the edges. And I'm like, pivot irrigation system doesn't allow water to get to the edges. And I'm like,

God planted a lot of us in the corners and the center pivot irrigation of the church's teachings around sex and bodies and gender doesn't include us. But there's the church and then there's the teachings and the text. And what's counterintuitive about what you're saying in the book is that the answers that you seek or the reformation that you're advocating can be found in returning to the text, right? Which is not what you expect. You expect like a big fuck you and we're going to do our own thing. Yeah. But a lot of times the source of the harm can be the most potent place for its healing. You know? So I think going back to the text is the most powerful move you can make. Yeah. It's got to be really painful for a

lot of people though, just to even gather the courage or the gumption to even face this. Yeah. These events the past, you know, I've done five this week and there've been, you know, 500 to 800 people in each one. And are they in churches? Yeah, it's in churches. And I talk about why I wrote it. And I always have another voice, somebody who is mostly people, women of color, who have a different social location to talk about their experience as well. And, but we have these cards that say cards that say, I'm ready to be shameless about dot, dot, dot. And people have been filling them in and they're so powerful. I mean, everything from I'm ready to be shameless about my aging body, or I'm ready to be shameless about how much

weight I gained after I was raped. I mean, they're intense. Do you read them out loud? Like that thing at Nantucket Project where they were reading the- That's exactly where I got that. That's where I got the idea. And I read them out. And then somebody was like, I'm ready to be shameless about having really great sex after my 79th birthday.

I was like, hashtag life goals. So then people feel less alone. I want them to feel less alone. And then I wrote this benediction that I give at the end. And then we just blast Prince's kiss and I invite everyone to dance. And they do. You can tell that they want to move. They want to express the freedom that they're starting to feel.

And it's been powerful. That's cool. How many more cities do you have to go? All of them. All of them? No. Are you just fully on the road? Yeah.

No, I go home for a couple of days. And then I think I have like seven or eight more cities. Yeah. Well, let's close it down with one last question. With a word of prayer. Actually, no, that'd be good. I am going to make you do that. What am I doing? You're here to take advantage of that. No, I wanted to say, I wanted to like address or have you say something to the person who's listening who doesn't have a connection with faith or perhaps like lost their connection with faith

in whatever tradition they find themselves in. Like, what is it about faith and connection that you find to be so important as part of the human condition? And how can that person find their way back to a place of incorporating that into their life? Well, in a way, it's not like a super popular sentiment, but I just, I don't feel like I'm enough in a sense that I do think having a power that's more than just me and accessing that has transformed my life.

And that that's possible and available for anyone regardless of what they believe or what sort of faith they have. That there are things that accessing, like having a connection to our source and to the divine allows us to undergo a certain type of healing and transformation that would be very difficult for us to do just on our own as individuals. So that's the power of it to me. And there are things like people who are raised religious and had to leave, sometimes there are still like hymns that are dear to them or prayers their grandmother said or whatever. And I think just finding those things and integrating them back into our lives on our own terms can be really healing. And it's like this spiritual reclamation project. And it's okay to do that. It's who you are. And it's fine because your symbol system forms you in a way that's hard to escape. So making friends with it on your own terms as an adult can be, yeah, it can be healing. When you said the word hymns, I had almost like a like a visceral physical negative reaction to that like every yeah

like everything all the trappings around everything churchy yeah just repels me interesting i love hymns and only if they're i don't it's not like anything happened to me either right it's not like you have some trauma no no it's's just like, I'm like, ugh. And I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that way. Was it a huge part of your upbringing? No, not huge. It's just all I knew. Yeah. It wasn't like front and center like you. I went to Sunday school and we would go to church on Sunday.

And then it was just on kind of occasionally and then it was holidays. But what's interesting is my parents have found their way back to the church. There's a church across the street from them where they live in Washington, D.C. And that's become really a super important part of their life. And that was not the case when we were growing up. Well, that's all I knew. And I just never even, even when I wasn't part of it, I could never pull off being an atheist, you know.

Did you try? You were trying that? Well, no, I just admired it, I think, and others. And there's this guy, Frank Schaefer, who said this thing. Francis Schaefer, a famous evangelical, is his father. But Frank said in an interview, I think with Terry Gross, she was asking, you know, like, well, after all that, like, you still are part of a church, aren't you? And he goes, yeah, I am. And she goes, why? And he goes, look, all I know is that, like,

if what I wanted more than anything in the world was to be an atheist, all I'd know to do was to just pray to God to make me one. And that's me. Like, I just, I can't not be this thing on some level. If I wasn't an alcoholic, I'd drink every day. Every day, exactly. It's like the same, like, circular reasoning. That's exactly right. Very good. Cool.

Well, delightful to talk to you. Yeah, good to talk to you. I really enjoyed it. Best of luck with the book. Thanks. I'm about, like, 85 pages into it, so I still have a ways to talk to you. I really enjoyed it. Best of luck with the book. I'm about like 85 pages into it, so I still have a ways to go, but I'm really enjoying it. And it's important work that you're doing. You're really exposing people and opening them up to ideas around faith and religion that I think most people haven't been exposed to, myself included.

Well, also, I want people to have better sex. I do. Well, it's as simple as that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's a pastoral concern of mine that I want you to have good sex, man. And not feel bad about yourself. Oh, my God, absolutely. No, not feel bad about yourself. Yeah.

Shame and sex, man. That's a tough one. My publisher, when I said I'm going to write this, he goes, did you literally scan the horizon for the biggest giant? And you're like, well, I'll take that one down. Right. There's definitely a gorilla in the room to tackle with this one. It's cool.

It's awesome. I love everything you're doing. Super glad to have had this time with you. So thank you. If people want to come and hear you speak, these are open to the public, right? Yeah, there's only a couple cities that have tickets left. It's mostly sold out. But I think maybe, oh, New York City, for sure. There's still tickets for New York. But if you go to NadiaBullsWeber.com. Dot com. You have a schedule up there, right?

I would imagine. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure. And at SarcasticLutheran on Twitter and Instagram. At Luther. Luther. Yeah, at SarcasticLuther. Luther, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, you're pretty easy to find. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks. Peace. Yep. Oh, wait.

You're going to do a prayer. No, no. I'm good. You are? Yeah, I just super have to go to the bathroom. Yeah. Okay. All right, later.

God, I love that woman. What an incredible human being. That was great, right? Do me a favor, let Nadia know what you thought of today's conversation. You can find her on Twitter, at Sarcastic Luther, and on Instagram, at at sarcastic Lutheran. Check out all her books,

especially her latest, Shameless, A Sexual Reformation. And you can check out all kinds of other cool information, background and links that we have put up on the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com to take your experience of today's conversation and make it just a little bit more immersive. If you are struggling with your diet, if you're really desiring of mastering your plate, but without the skill in the kitchen or the time or the acumen you believe you require, I cannot stress enough how much I know our Plant Power Meal Planner can help you. It truly is

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Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing and editing today's show,

which you can find on YouTube. Jessica Miranda for her beautiful graphics. David Kahn for advertiser relationships and theme music as always by Anna Lemma. Thank you for the love you guys. See you back here next week with the return of Steve Magnus and Brad Stolberg. They got a brand new book out.

It's called The Passion Paradox and we talk all about it. You're not gonna wanna miss it. Until then, may you find grace in your life and whatever you do or believe in, may you have grace in your life. And whatever you do or believe in, may you have faith in it. And make sure one thing that you invest that faith in is yourself. Peace. That's not a step. Thank you.