I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. I appreciate how Nadia Bolz-Weber pulls apart the holes in much of the messaging that was previously handed to young people around sexuality, humanity, etc. but I'm not sure there's more of an alternative framework provided that's terribly helpful in this moment in the world.

As a PK (preacher's kid) the subject of this book was enough to reel me in, but Bolz-Weber broke things down in a way I haven't seen before. Other authors, notably Brene Brown, have spoken so much about shame and the hold it has on us, but the niche area of sexuality was really interesting. It's thorough, insightful, and a book that's good for anyone with a body to read.

I have already loved everything Nadia Bolz-Weber has written (Pastrix, Accidental Saints), and continue to appreciate her fresh perspective on Christianity and how we are called to faithfully engage with ancient truths in a modern context. As a Lutheran pastor it is a gift to be able to engage with theology in a non-stuffy format that is life-giving and affirming. While Nadia and I don't agree on every point, I majorly respect her as a theologian, and will continue to turn to her as a source of inspiration and camaraderie (and will read whatever she writes).

I normally geek out over anything that Nadia B-W produces; however, I found this one to be lacking. It's not lacking in great one-liners, thoughtful quotes, or even deconstructing "purity culture." It felt rushed and lacking in a healthy Christian sexuality or even some better advice for reconstruction than teens need to have more sex or the person should have been allowed to explore it earlier, which comes across as flippant at best. For the record, my own view of Christian sexuality tends toward the left of the average liberal Christian, so I understood and even championed much of what Nadia was reflecting and writing. Honestly, I could have been tired of people deconstructing without putting in the work of some decent reconstruction.
I felt a bit prudish with my thoughts about the book after reading; however, even the height of my criticism, warrants a read by Christian of all stripes when looking at sexuality. Peruse the many quotes around this book and you'll see why.

Recommended for Christians deconstructing or purity culture or wandering why it was so harmful.

While I appreciate how she lets us into her thinking, emotions, and motivations in such a raw, unvarnished, and transparent manner, I was left with the feeling and distinct impression that she was either holding back or attempting to justify some of her life choices and broken relationships. Perhaps my expectations were too high after having read and been so incredibly inspired by Pastrix.

I grew up in broadly evangelical churches and it was ingrained in me that as a female, my body was a temptation to men, that I had to be careful how I used it and dressed it so as not to lead others astray. It made me more self conscious of my body and in my body, at times ashamed at how I was made. Only as an adult did I recognize that such expectations puts all the blame and responsibility on women - what about expecting men to develop self-control and holding them accountable for their actions? This thinking is backwards, and I can't help but think of common follow-ups after a rape account: "But what was she wearing?? Was she drunk??"

A powerful sermon I heard on sexuality exposed how the church has made sexuality too much of an idol - we fixate on it, to the point where we can corrupt ourselves. Casting sexuality as bad and terrible outside of marriage, for instance, can cause difficulty transitioning to being prepared to explore once married.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, the outspoken, tattooed Lutheran pastor has made a name for herself and her church of misfits. In previous books, she has spoken at length of her congregation and the life that brought her there. When I read of how people who had been marginalized and ostracized finding God again, I celebrated how Bolz-Weber was instrumental in that. In Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, she turns to the purity culture and other issues she sees as a problem, again using interviews with those in her congregation to frame her narrative.

I struggled with this book. It absolutely includes some messages I resonate with, but I am hesitant to recommend it, since delves into issues that I can't agree with. Bolz-Weber reveals that her marriage of nearly 20 years dissolved amiably and now she is back with a boyfriend from her past, and I can't help but wonder how much of this book is a way to justify walking away from a marriage with no substantive issues in order to pursue passion.

Much as society trends can feel like pendulum swings across generations, this is a not-unexpected response to purity culture; but while this book can lead to important conversations, in some ways it feels a swing too far.

(I received a digital ARC from Crown Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

Consign it to the dustbin. There is very little reason why we need another one of these books every few months, and Bolz-Weber is one in a long line of authors whose entire project will crumble in time.

My favorite quotes from Shameless:

"This is the use of Christian community, as I see it. We help each other silence the Accuser. We tend each other's wounds show each other our scars, see and forgive each other's shortcomings, let each other cry, make each other laugh, and are absolutely adamant about grace for everyone. We insist on freeing each other from the grip of the accusing voice, and we amplify the voice of God" (pg. 181-182).

"Whatever sexual flourishing looks like for you, that's what I would love to see happen in your life. Let us seek to be stewards of our bodies, to live in the joy of our createdness, honest about our shortcomings, soaking up the grace of God's rain. Let us find beauty and pleasure in our individual human bodies, trusting each other to use our gifts of sexuality according to our dynamis, our strength and capacity. Let us treat ourselves and others, no matter what our talents as if we are all holy. Because we are." (pg. 60)

"If the Gospel is where we find healing from the harm done to us by the messages of the church, then it must also be where we find freedom. Meaning that even if it is the last thing I want to do, I absolutely have to believe the Gospel is powerful enough, transgressive enough, beautiful enough to heal not only the ones who have been hurt but also those who have done the hurting." (pg. 188)

Questions from Nadia Bolz-Weber are sprinkled throughout the book:

"What messages did you receive about sex and the body—from the church, your family, and the culture around you? How did these messages affect you? And how have you navigated your life as an adult?"

Our own answers may determine how we view her answers. While I don't agree with everything she says in this book (or necessarily how she says it), she makes several valid points that make the book worth reading. Things like,

"Shame has an origin, and it is not God."

"Everything that happens to us happens to our bodies. Every act of love, every insult, every moment of pleasure, every interaction with other humans."

"Dignity, the quality or state of being worthy, comes from our origin, not from our efforts."

Overall, Bolz-Weber is continuing to push the conversation forward, keeping communication open. Maybe we will or won't arrive at the same conclusions, but either way, we can talk it out for the good of us all.

"It is time for us to grab some matches and haul our antiquated and harmful ideas about sex and bodies and gender into the yard. It’s time to pay attention to what is happening to the people around us."

My thanks to Net Galley for the review copy of this book.

Shameless was a challenging read. I had not read anything by Nadia Bolz-Weber before, and wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was not disappointed. This book thoughtfully examines human sexuality, in terms of a loving Creator and his creation, all worthy of love and acceptance too. While I no longer adhere to the worldview of the evangelicals I grew up around, I found that many of those views on sexuality I was taught had never really been uprooted from my subconscious. So I would read a chapter of this book, and hesitate, because it sounded wrong. Then I would examine why that was, and realize that it was challenging a teaching I no longer consciously agree with, from a group I no longer trust, but that I had somehow never shaken. So I appreciated the deep reflection this relatively small and easy to read book prompted in me.

Shameless made me test a lot of my views on Christians and sex and sexuality, and, I think, come out smarter and more compassionate because of it. My favorite of Nadia’s arguments is where she recounts the parable of the talents, and posits that our sexuality, like everything else God has given us, is a talent. a gift from God, and that burying it, denying it, repressing it–those actions not only don’t use that gift, they reject it. They don’t celebrate or honor it as the gift from God it is. and how that could be an affront to a loving Creator who equipped us with special ways to express love and share pleasure with others. I had never thought about it in those terms, but especially in conjunction with congregational stories she shares, of former evangelicals who spent years of their lives trying to control and repress their natural drives and their bodies themselves, only to reach a joyless and un-functioning adulthood–well, it was just paradigm-shifting for me.

I’m not saying this is a perfect book, and I’m still wrestling with some of Nadia’s conclusions. but this is definitely worth reading and evaluating one’s views in light of her interpretation of Scripture and a faithful, loving life. I recommend it for anyone who doesn’t mind Christian content, and is willing to read with an open mind.

Thanks, #Netgalley, for sharing this advance copy of #Shameless with me in exchange for an honest review.

Shameless: A Sexual Reformation is the newest book by Pr. Nadia Bolz-Weber. In it, she dismantles the purity movement of the 90's and early 2000's, especially in regards to how it has affected young people's sexuality. Some, as evidenced anecdotally from her parishioners of House for All Sinners and Saints, repressed any sexual desires, which has led to unhealthy sex lives now as married and consenting adults. Some have fallen into a binge-and-abstain cycle, which has affected their mental well-belling (and sometimes their physical well-being). Others bury their non-hetereosexuality, which is, of course, not healthy or freeing. And the list goes on. Bolz-Weber examines all of these instances and more and explains how they are not healthy for us emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

I like this examination, and I feel like it is very necessary after the purity movement and the still on-going abstinence-only sex ed that dominates too many school districts. However, while there is a tiny mention to asexuality in a footnote, I would have liked more on that subject. Albeit, most would probably not care. Nonetheless....

In regards to the wider ELCA, I must admit I laughed aloud when Bolz-Weber mentions wanting to have frank openness with the teens at the Youth Gathering in New Orleans. But progress is being made, as she explains, with the table at the Houston Gathering in 2018. Additionally, it made me think about the Visions and Expectations statement that candidates for ordination are required to agree to and that rostered ministers are also required to adhere to-- namely in regards to abstaining from sex if unmarried. I know that many individuals in seminary sign this document, but don't follow it, as many of their non-seminary peers don't abstain from sex. If sex and sexuality are as natural and unity-inducing as Bolz-Weber describes, is it really fair to ask this of (ELCA) pastors?

As I've been working through the baggage that growing up in purity culture has left me with, many have recommended Shameless to me. I've been following Bolz-Weber's work since Pastrix and had high hopes for this. I think I was only disappointed because I had really hoped for a middle-ground sexual ethic to be presented rather than an entirely liberal one (even though I wasn't surprised at all by this being the case). It's well-written and gave me lots to think about though I have not come to the same conclusions that Bolz-Weber has. It's a great addition to the conversation, though.

ARC/Netgalley

This is a book that needs to be read completely in context. It's not for pull quotes or Twitter and it's probably not for 13 years olds and definitely won't preach. This is a mature discussion that lends gravity and awkwardness and vulnerability to the topic of sexuality and Christianity. So many of us who grew up in purity culture know that it was the wrong way to teach young people about sex but we haven't quite yet grasped the RIGHT way to talk to them. I'm not sure Nadia's book has all the answers either but at least she's asking the right questions. You don't have to agree with every statement in the book to value the importance of having the conversation.

For those who have been shamed by the church for your sexual background or identity, this book is for you. The author skillfully intertwines biblical interpretation, Christian history, and personal stories, to claim a gospel of love that is sex-positive. It is beautiful, and it can mend many broken hearts. This book can help move you toward wholeness in the same way that the gospel does.

I was SO disappointed in this book. I'm a huge fan of Bolz-Weber's previous two books, so requested this with great anticipation. In the past, I loved the way she wove personal stories in and around a clear understanding of theology. Her self-selected title of "Public Theologian" seemed earned.

SHAMELESS is a clear departure from this standard. It is downright strange how the author just chucks away entire portions of scripture that don't serve her sense of the way things should be, with a bizarre attitude of, "Let's just agree that those parts are wrong." This book is intellectually lazy, which is such a shame, because it would be great to have a deep dive into these thorny, complicated questions, and really wrestle with how personal and also communal these issues are. This is not easy stuff, and yet Bolz-Weber insists in a rather belligerent way that we all agree that whatever feels good and doesn't (seem to) hurt anyone is fine for all...and that God will also be fine with it, because God loves us too much to require more of us than we decide to require of ourselves.

That's a strange and disappointing approach to faith.

Also frustrating is her breezy dismissal of her divorce. Of course, she is under no obligation to disclose anything about such a personal matter...except that she chose to write a book about a faithful sexual ethic lived within a Christian tradition, which includes marriage and divorce (and sex outside of marriage) right at the heart of the issue. Because of this, she owed her readers some acknowledgement of how complicated it is (or should be) to break vows one has made to another person before God.

I'd hoped for more.

In the invocation (introduction) to her book, Bolz-Weber writes: “[M]y argument in this book is this: we should not be more loyal to an idea, a doctrine, or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people.”

This is disappointing (perhaps my conservative background is showing) because I believe there are some ideas that -should- be more loyal to. Namely "ideas" about what constitutes abuse, and the power and techniques of collusion with that abuse.

Abuse is the natural fruit of a system that is about control and appearances, and it is painfully common in the rule-driven, power-abusing ethic that she is writing against. In spite of this, Bolz-Weber (one could say) practices what she preaches, and prioritizes loyalty over confronting abuse. Some years ago she threw her credibility on the bandwagon of Tony Jones, and (in that act) challenged and undermined the credibility of his former wife Julie McMahon, ignoring receipts.

I can be (and am, I believe) both thankful for the many people who are hearing of freedom and hope for the first time through the words she offers, and numbly disappointed that she’s chosen the side of the aggressor over the intimidated. It is an unfortunate alliance, and I feel potential readers should know Bolz-Weber’s complicity and ensuing silence when she was called out on this contradiction of values.

The book itself does a thorough job of displaying a church community post-purity-culture. More than anything it felt to me like a(n Anne Lamott style) memoir, showing possible stepping stones for readers who are trying to find “the other side.” The -after- to rebuild lives that didn’t fit in the baseline definitions from -before-.

By example it suggests some sort of new sexual ethic that is focused on the individual in the moment, rather than structured prohibition, or defining the self within a binary-gendered, heteronormative box.

I just wish the consistency, boldness and vulnerability Bolz-Weber displays in this book translated into the humility to acknowledge she chose a (financially useful) friendship over honor, and now can do better.

My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the digital copy for review.

It is tempting to quote large swaths of Shameless as the quotes are so perfect. However, just take my word for it that reading this book is transformative.

Is the Christian Church interpreting the Bible correctly to determine God’s thinking on sex and gender? This book sees parallels to when Martin Luther broke from the Catholic Church due to its interpretation of the requirements made to “true Christians” to pay for indulgences. If church teaching are hurting people, would that be how God would truly treat his children?

The book also takes society to task. Instead of fixating on consent, shouldn’t people be using concern as the benchmark for whether sex is a good or bad thing. If you are having an extramarital affair, you and your mistress may be consenting adults but is your wife also accepting of your affair? Shouldn’t you have concern for your wife’s feelings?

Shameless includes many issues that will make the reader think long and hard about how the church and, perhaps even he or she themselves, may not be thinking as God would want. If you have ever wondered about the reasonableness of some church doctrines, this book is highly recommended reading. 4 stars!

Thanks to Convergent Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

There are some things I like about this book. Nadia Bolz-Weber is a fantastic story teller. The book and it's contents are written in such a way that I couldn't put it down. It wasn't a matter of whether or not I agreed with it, it wast just very compelling story telling.

I also agree with NBW whole heartedly that the church has some very messed up ways of approaching sex that create a lot of problems. I would consider myself from a more conservative church tradition and have already had numerous encounters and conversations with people who did "all the right things" in waiting until marriage and had no idea about anything and have had a hard time enjoying it at all. NBW is absolutely right that the conservative evangelical church needs a sexual reformation (though I do believe that that is happening in many good ways) but I do not believe NBW's approach is helpful at all for numerous reasons.

In the book NBW takes a moment to applaud a woman who burns her bible, save for the Gospels, because of the verses about homosexuality and she just wants Jesus. The argument is that the closer something is to the story of Jesus the more authority it holds in our lives as Christ followers and because of that it's perfectly fine to just burn whatever is outside of these four gospels if it conflicts with what you believe God wants you to do with your life.

She misrepresents Augustine in some areas and other early Christian beliefs, and never gives a source from where these beliefs are supposedly found, just states them as facts. For instance, she comments on Augustine's writings about erections and and what erections might have been like in the Garden of Eden. She portrays Augustine as some sort of pervert, sex obsessed creep because of this, but she never tells you where he actually rights about this stuff or gives you any context. The lack of footnotes is frustrating for a lot of the claims she makes, but thankfully it doesn't take long to Google why Augustine wrote about erections, and it isn't anything like why NBW claims it is. It isn't a topic I would expect to hear written about, but his thought process is quite logical and makes a bit of sense even if we think it is a bit weird. But she doesn't seem concerned about that as much as she seems to care about trying to portray the past approach to sex as "taking a dump on the church and encasing it in amber" to explain why we need something completely new. She does this as well with talking about early views from Jews and early Christians about when life begins claiming that they all taught life didn't begin until the child was born and breathed, but she never gives any source for this, and again it doesn't take long to find out that it isn't really all that true, but again it's the practice of taking a nice minority view and treating it as if it was what everyone believed as it fits the narrative she spins. This goes along with a nice redefining of things such as holiness as well to fit with what she's writing.

Another concern I had was that she never really engages in scripture that might challenge her ideas, but rather just uses some stories from the Bible and wraps her position around them. This isn't really surprising given that if you can just burn scripture you don't like why waste time engaging with them? She rather tends to focus on more emotional appeals than anything, and that's the basic foundation of her belief that we need something new. Her idea is that if a belief or teaching causes harm to those wanting to pursue Jesus then we need to look at the view again and find something different. As I mentioned above, there are indeed situations where we have gotten some really twisted approaches to various topics, but at the same time this is akin to the modern discussions about homosexuality wherein one argues that a belief "harms" them because it doens't allow them to express their sexuality or gender in the way that they want to. It's more of a product of emotion and our current state of individualism in our culture and church than anything else.

Overall I'd say it's a very big echo chamber book. It is not written for those who disagree with NBW but rather to those who already want what she's offering. It seems to me to be more interested in "how do we tie the Bible to how our current culture is" but not in a redemptive way. I do believe it is a good book for those working more with the current generations so as to understand this line of thinking. That being said, she quotes Friedrich Schleiermacher's definition of heresy as being "that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence." I would argue that that applies to this book as well. It strives to give off the appearance of Christianity, but ultimately is more of a book that centers around the worship of self and one's own desires while trying to paperclip Jesus to it.

This book was provided to me free by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The first words that come to my mind to describe “Shameless” by Nadia Bolz-Weber are pastoral, healing, water for a dry and weary soul.

The money quote for me came in the introduction:

"We should not be more loyal to an idea, a doctrine, or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming the bodies and spirits of people, we should rethink those teachings." (5)

Right after that, Nadia reminds us that 500 years ago Martin Luther took a close look at the harm in his parishioners’ spiritual lives. In his case he focused on the damage that came from them trying to fulfill sacramental obligations that the church said would appease an angry God. Luther was bold and daring enough to believe that Christians could find freedom from the harm their church and done to them: “Luther was less loyal to the teachings of the church than he was to people, and this helped spark what is now known as the Protestant Reformation." (5)

I also loved the illustration of the irrigation system that only waters in a circular pattern, leaving the corners and edges of the farmland without water. Nadia says this book is for those un-watered places, for the ones who do not fit inside the small circle of the church’s behavior codes. "This book […] is water, I hope, for those planted in the corners. [...] This book is for the young Evangelical who silently disagrees with the church’s stance on sex and sexual orientation, yet feels alone in that silence. This book is for anyone who wonders, even subconsciously: Has the church obsessed over this too much? Do we really think we’ve gotten it right?"

Nadia writes, “our sexual and gender expressions are as integral to who we are as our religious upbringings are. To separate these aspects of ourselves—to separate life as a sexual being from a life with God—is to bifurcate our psyche, like a musical progression that never comes to resolution."

Nadia makes me laugh several times throughout the book also: “So if the traditional teachings of the church around sex and the body have caused no harm in the lives of the people around you, and have even provided them a plan for true human flourishing, then this book probably is not for you. (Good news, though: the Christian publishing world is your oyster. There you’ll find no lack of books to uphold and even help you double down on your beliefs.)"

She made me laugh again at the end of chapter 5. In this chapter Nadia talks about the day that she and several of her parishioners worked together to write their "Denver Statement" in response to "The Nashville Statement". She then showed us snippets from both. The very end of The Nashville Statement says, “WE DENY that the Lord’s arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach." The counter line from The Denver Statement says, “WE DENY that God is a boy and has actual arms." 😂


Other quotes and passages that really struck me:

From the introduction:
- "I will not indulge in the sin of false equivalency. To admit that both the church and our culture can cause harm is not the same as saying the harm from both is equivalent. It is not. Because as harmful as the messages from society are, what society does not do is say that these messages are from God. Our culture does not say to me that the creator of the universe is disgusted by my cellulite."

- "Let us consider the harm that has been caused in God’s name, but let’s not be satisfied with stopping there. We must reach for a new Christian sexual ethic."

- "Where sex is concerned, for sexual flourishing to occur we must be guided by more than just the absence of “no” and the absence of harm. That’s why I believe we must also bring concern to our consent and mutuality. Concern moves us closer to the heart of Jesus’s own ethic: love God and our neighbor as ourselves. It requires us to act on another’s behalf. It reframes the choice entirely outside of our own self-interest in a way that consent and mutuality alone do not.”

- “Concern means taking notice of how our sexual behavior affects ourselves and each other. I may be having a mutually pleasurable, consensual relationship with someone, but if I am cheating on my spouse at the time, I have failed to show concern for the person I am married to. If I am in a crisis and totally distraught, I may be more likely to consent to sex when in fact it is the last thing I need. If someone intuits this and sleeps with me anyway, they have consent, but they are not showing care and concern. A sexual ethic that includes concern means seeing someone as a whole person and not just a willing body. The only way to show true concern for ourselves and others is to see, to pay attention."

From Chapter 1:

- “The Greek word for salvation is sozo, which means “to heal, bring wholeness, preserve.” This is what God does. God heals fractured parts of ourselves back together into wholeness."

- "Holiness is the union we experience with one another and with God. Holiness is when more than one become one, when what is fractured is made whole. Singing in harmony. Breastfeeding a baby. Collective bargaining. Dancing. Admitting our pain to someone, and hearing them say, “Me too.” Holiness happens when we are integrated as physical, spiritual, sexual, emotional, and political beings. Holiness is the song that has always been sung, perhaps even the sound that was first spoken when God said, “Let there be light".

- "Whether we realize it or not, we often find ways to alleviate feelings of existential aloneness through the seeking of unity. We fill our lives with things that distract us from the sound of our deepest isolation tapping at the window. Food, entertainment, success, sex, relationships, busyness, gossip—there are plenty of ways to divert our attention from the unavoidable, terrifying aloneness of human existence. But there is a difference between distraction from and alleviation of. Moments of unity—holiness—actually alleviate isolation, which is not the same as simply distracting us from our isolation. In the same way, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee distract from the feelings of hunger, but eating food alleviates them. Temporarily, of course. But that is what it means to be human."

- "To connect to the holy is to access the deepest, juiciest part of our spirits. Perhaps this is why we set up so many boundaries, protections, and rules around both sex and religion. Both pursuits expose such a large surface area of the self, which can then be either hurt or healed. But when the boundaries, protections, and rules become more important than the sacred thing they are intended to protect, casualties ensue."

- "Holiness is about union with, and purity is about separation from."


From Chapter 2:

- "The nineteenth-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defines heresy as “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence.”

- “The heresy is this: with all the trappings of Christianity behind us, we who seek to justify or maintain our dominance over another group of people have historically used the Bible, Genesis in particular, to prove that domination is not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but is indeed part of “God’s plan.”

Footnote 52:
"The best definition of sin I have ever heard is found in Francis Spufford’s book Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense (New York: HarperOne, 2013), where he defines it as HPFTU: “the Human Propensity to F*** Things Up.”



Thanks to Crown Publishing, Convergent Books, and NetGalley for the ARC. I also ended up purchasing the audiobook through Audible as well. I really enjoy hearing books read by their author.

I just love her inclusiveness and examples of how we can really love and support one another. We need more pastors like her!