— Lynn Ellingson
The 2014 Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium speaker at Augsburg College is Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colo. She is also the author of the New York Times best-selling book Pastrix and the blog Sarcastic Lutheran.
“Outrageous, rich, and remarkable, Pastrix turns spiritual memoir on its ear in this sardonically irreverent and beautifully honest page-turner…. Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic … didn’t consider herself to be religious leader material — until the day she ended up leading a friend’s funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor.
Using life stories—from living in a hopeful-but-haggard commune of slackers to surviving the wobbly chairs and war stories of a group for recovering alcoholics, from her unusual but undeniable spiritual calling to pastoring a notorious con artist—Nadia uses stunning narrative and poignant honesty to portray a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way.” (Publisher’s comments)
In her book, Nadia writes: “It happens to all of us,” I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. “God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.” (p. 174)
Convocation:
The spirituality of being a total screw-up
October 1, 2014 at 10 a.m.
Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center, Augsburg College
5:00 pm Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber meets with StepUP students in OGC