Bitingly honest, powerful, and timely, bestselling author and pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber offers a full-blown overhaul of our harmful and antiquated ideas about sex, gender, and our bodies.

Christians are obsessed with sex. But not in a good way. For nearly two thousand years, this obsession has often turned destructive; inflicting pain, suffering, and guilt on countless people of all persuasions and backgrounds. In Shameless, Bolz-Weber looks at the religious messages about sex that have created shame, explores the harm these messages have done, then offers, not a list of simple amendments, but a call to burn it all down and start over.

In the spirit of Martin Luther, Nadia calls for a reformation. To make her case, she offers experiences from her own life and stories from her parishioners alongside biblical theology to explore what the church has taught and the harm those teachings have caused. Along the way, Nadia reexamines patriarchy, sex, and power with candor but also with hope because in her heart she believes the “Gospel is powerful enough, transgressive enough, and beautiful enough to heal not only the ones who have been hurt but also those who have done the hurting.”

This is by far Nadia’s most personal book yet, revealing intimate and emotional details about her life while offering a reading experience that is as entertaining and affirming as it is intellectually robust and liberating. This book will speak to skeptics and believers alike.

 

Nadia Bolz-Weber first hit the New York Times list with her 2013 memoir—the bitingly honest and inspiring Pastrix, followed by the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Accidental Saints (2015). A former stand-up comic and recovering alcoholic, Nadia is the founder and former pastor of a Lutheran congregation in Denver, House for All Sinners and Saints. She speaks at colleges and conferences around the globe.