Nadia Bolz-Weber to Join Elizabeth Gilbert at the Paramount Theatre
A best-selling author, ordained Lutheran pastor, and founder of Denver’s House for All Sinners and Saints, Nadia Bolz-Weber will join international sensation Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love, on May 4 at the Paramount Theatre for an evening of wisdom, laughs, and audience interaction.
Staying true to her voice, Bolz-Weber writes and speaks about personal failings, recovery, grace, faith, and whatever else she wants to. Prior to her ordination, she was a stand-up comedian and worked in the restaurant industry but struggled with alcoholism. She is now going on 30 years of being sober.
Bolz-Weber says she always sits in the corner with the other weirdos, which prompted the inception of her Substack publication, The Corners.
OFM caught up with Bolz-Weber to talk more about joining Gilbert on stage, her spiritual journey, and upcoming projects to look out for.
How excited are you to moderate the conversation at An Evening with Elizabeth Gilbert and be her special guest?
I’m really excited because I know what it’s like to sort of have unmoderated conversations from the stage, and sometimes, the anxiety level in the audience and on stage is too much for that. It’s almost like being a non-anxious presence about public conversation, and right now, people are not talking to each other well in our society. So, having somebody who’s willing to be a calm grownup, not be reactive one way or the other, and have an open heart but still hold the space energetically in a way that people don’t have to be anxious about, I think that’s sort of mainly what that is.
Have you known Elizabeth long?
Just a couple years. We really connected for the first time at the beginning of the pandemic, and we both have the same speaking agent, our friend, Miriam, and it’s a very small boutique agency. So, people end up knowing each other because Miriam represents us, and she’s such a lovely human being who we all love.
Personally, what are you looking forward to the most about this event?
I just think that Liz is this rare combination of huge heart and huge intellect at the same time. She has this lovely way of articulating what it means to be human without compromising integrity while talking about that. She doesn’t blow sunshine up people’s asses about what it means to be human. She can be very honest but full of heart at the same time. Oftentimes, heart feels like it can compromise honesty, and honesty feels like it can compromise heart. I don’t think she does either.
Like Elizabeth, you are also a best-selling author. Have you always had a passion for writing?
Oh, gosh, no. I didn’t really mean to be a writer at all (laughs). I didn’t aspire to it, but it strangely kept being asked of me. I started a blog when I was in seminary because, for myself, I needed to translate the heady stuff, the heady theology, into my own vernacular. I started doing that, and then I started to write super honest, not pious, but honest prayers on this blog. That was around 2006.
People started reading it, and then I kept being asked, “Would you come and speak at this thing?” “Would you write a book?” “Do you need literary representation?” “I really want to be a speaker and a writer and have your career; do you have any advice?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I have no idea.” You just kind of say yes when people ask you things, and it just snowballed from there.
What do you hope readers take away from your books?
I want people to feel seen. I’m the weirdo who sits in the corner, that’s why my Substack publication is called The Corners, and that whole thing came from flying out of Denver, seeing farms, and going, “Why are farmers planting crops in circles when the lots are square?” Then realizing it had to do with the way they’re irrigated.
The crops are planted in circles, and they’re watered that way. So, my whole thing is, I feel like God planted a lot of us in the corners, and that most of the teachings of the church are center-pivot irrigation. It’s only for people in the middle, so I always want my writing to feel like water to those of us who are planted in the corners.
Are you currently working on anything right now?
Yes, I’m writing my fifth book right now about forgiveness, and I keep saying it’s from the standpoint of an asshole, not an expert (laughs). I have improved myself to such a height and sanctified myself so much, I’m so full of virtue that it’s overflowing and I’m going to give you what’s extra. Now I’m desperate. I’m so desperate to be less of an asshole, and if you have anything you could teach me, that’d be really helpful. I’ve been doing interviews with people all over the place, and I even interviewed somebody who spent 30 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s been out for seven, and I’m like, “God, if that guy can forgive, what’s my problem?”
When do you expect the book to be released?
I don’t know. It’s the first book that I’ve written where I’ve decided not to sell it until it’s done because I’m in a position financially where I can do that. I need it to be mine for as long as possible, and then I’ll sell it to a publishing house.
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Many people know you as the founding pastor of Denver’s House for All Sinners and Saints. How did your religious/spiritual journey begin?
I was raised Church of Christ, which is like Baptist plus, so I was raised super fundamentalist. That’s all I knew. We went to church three times a week, and then I was so angry about my religious upbringing because it doesn’t really have a place for women who are smart, snarky, and strong leaders. That is definitely not welcomed, and what honestly made me leave the church was the fact that they told me that being gay is a sin, people who are gay are going to Hell, and you shouldn’t associate with sinners.
All these messages about gay folks, and I was such a little weirdo growing up. When I got to high school, literally, the first people in my life to ever think I was fabulous, funny, and wanted me around were gay theater boys. Their love for me and my love for them completely complicated what I’ve been told. I was like, “What am I going to do? Believe that the church told me or believe what I’ve experienced?” That sort of led me out to go, “I’m out. I can’t have anything to do with this.”
I didn’t have anything to do with Christianity for 10 years, and then I sort of discovered Lutheran theology, which is just based in paradox. It’s completely centered in grace, compassion, and mercy, and they do social justice work. I was like, “What? I can have Jesus and that?” I didn’t have to choose, so I went to seminary to start a church that I would feel comfortable showing up to. I started House for All Sinners and Saints with eight people in my living room in 2007, and four of them were queer.
It’s always been like the DNA of the congregation. We recently installed its third pastor, I haven’t been the pastor there for three-and-a-half years, although I still go, but we have a gay Episcopal priest who has been the pastor there for six or seven years, and then we just installed our first associate pastor, who is gender nonbinary.
Can you talk more about your unusual approach to reaching others through the church?
I don’t try to be unusual. I just try to be me. I try to be true to my voice, and when I do that, it seems to be effective in ways that I couldn’t ever calculate. If I tried to start vision boarding my life on the first day of the year with my girlfriends and then figure out how I’m going to manifest it, I would fuck it up completely! But when I try to be still and write from the most honest place I can about myself, my failings, my hopes, my concerns, and my joys, it seems to be effective in a way that I couldn’t manufacture if I was trying to be effective.
Last year, you began a pop-up social network for prayer and connection called “The Chapel.” Is that still happening?
No, that was a one-year thing and we recently wrapped it up.
Do you have any plans to do something else that’s similar?
My first memoir has been optioned to possibly be made into a TV show that I’d be co-creating, executive producing, and writing, so that’s in the works right now.
Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you would like to mention or plug?
Nothing that I’m free to discuss yet!
Stay up-to-date and connect with Bolz-Weber following her on Instagram @sarcasticlutheran, or visit her official website, nadiabolzweber.com. For more information and to purchase tickets for her upcoming engagement with Gilbert, visit paramountdenver.com.
Photos courtesy of Nadia Bolz-Weber
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