2019 Lutheran Studies Conference
“Naked and Unashamed: Sex, Shame and Faith”
October 3, 2019
Ninth Annual Lutheran Studies Conference at PLU – Thursday, October 3, 2019
This year’s Lutheran Studies Conference will take place from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Scandinavian Center of Anderson University Center. It concludes with a keynote lecture in the evening at 7 p.m. in Lagerquist Concert Hall.
This conference focuses on faith, sexuality, gender, justice and shame in politics and faith traditions. Keynote lecturer, Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber will be speaking on her 2019 book Shameless: A Sexual Reformation. The conference itself provides tools and national experts on religion, churches and current political landscapes that influence our discussions of sexuality and identity. A session will review one church tradition, the ELCA, for its social statements on abortion, sexuality and gender justice. We will also explore ways spirituality and religion may heal or hinder a healthy sense of sexuality. The conference features an incredible line up of leading theologians and we encourage you and your congregations or colleagues to read their works prior to the conference.
Our speakers include:
- Lutheran pastor and New York Times bestselling author, Nadia Bolz-Weber
- Dr. Seth Dowland (Pacific Lutheran University), author of Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right
- Dr. Mary Lowe (Augsburg University), queer Lutheran theologian
- Dr. Mary Streufert, ELCA Director of Justice for Women, Office of the Presiding Bishop
The annual Lutheran Studies Conference provides an opportunity for the university, the larger community, and persons from diverse religious and humanistic viewpoints to explore particular and pressing issues within the thoughtful and generous milieu of Lutheran higher education. Each conference welcomes scholars, artists, and religious leaders whose expertise is offered in an engaging and thought-provoking manner. Past conferences have been devoted to the limited gift of water (2011), political commitments (2012), the figure of Jesus of Nazareth (2013), and justice in society (2014). As a university of the church, PLU promotes the 500 year Lutheran tradition of asking difficult questions, welcoming opposing viewpoints in civil conversation, nurturing a community of intellectual charity, and challenging students, alumni, and friends to promote a just, peaceful, and sustainable way of life for all, not just the privileged few.
The conference is free and open to the public and is made possible by the generosity of the anonymous donors who endowed the University Chair in Lutheran Studies.
Conference Schedule
PreConference Pastor & Congregational Continuing Education Event:
“Sexuality and the Church: 2009-2019”
Scandianvian Center of the Anderson University Center
8:30am-11:30am
Focus of this time will be to review the content of ELCA Social Statements on Abortion (1991), Human Sexuality (2009) and Gender Justice (2019) and to discuss their implementation/impact and current issues congregations are facing in terms of gender and justice in their congregations. It is meant to have both presentations of the content and then provide questions and conversations and resources that allow our ELCA constituents to ask the questions and discuss the issues that are most pressing to their churches right now. We may also have representatives from Extraordinary Ministries and Reconciling Works present as ELCA-focused ministries. We welcome members of other denominations to join for this session – to see what has been happening in the ELCA and to discuss their own churches work on these same issues.
Lutheran Studies Conference Schedule
``Naked and Unashamed (Gen 2:25): Sex, Shame and Faith``
1 p.m. - 5 p.m. with Evening Lecture at 7 p.m.
Free and Open to the Public / Locations of events noted on schedule below
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Noon – 1 p.m. | Registration in the Anderson University Center Upper Lobby
Events between 1-5pm take place in the Scandinavian Cultural Center, Anderson University Center
1 - 1:15 p.m. | Welcome & Opening remarks: Sex, Shame and Faith
- Dr. Marit Trelstad, University Chair of Lutheran Studies
1:15 - 2:15 p.m. | “Faith, Sexism, and Justice: The 2019 ELCA Social Statement”
- Dr. Mary Streufert, Justice for Women Division, Bishop’s Office of the ELCA, Chicago, IL
- Dr. Mary Lowe, Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN
“Understanding and Implementing the new ELCA Social Statement “Faith, Sexism, and Justice”
Mary Elise Lowe and Mary J. Streufert both served on the task force and the writing team for the statement. In this session, they will briefly describe how ELCA social statements are made, why they matter, and how they are authoritative. Then they will introduce three themes in the statement: sexism as sin, intersectionality as an approach to the problem of sexism, and the ELCA’s ongoing effort to view sex and gender in non-binary ways. This presentation will also highlight how the social statement takes a distinctly Lutheran approach to the problem of sexism.
2:15 - 2:30 p.m. | Short break
2:30 - 3:30 p.m. | PLU Panel: Why Sex? Engaging religion and spirituality with the Why’s and What For’s of sex
Description: Religious traditions are known for teaching (and arguing about) rules for sex – who can have it and when and how. Less attention is paid to why people have sex or what sex is for. Panelists (including faculty, students, and community members) who identify religiously and spiritually in a variety of ways will share some of their reflections on sex and faith, in particular engaging the questions, Why sex? and What is sex for?
Panelists:
- Rabbi Bruce Kadden, PLU faculty, Rabbi at Temple Beth El, Tacoma
- Dr. Joanna Gregson, Provost, PLU
- Mark Hernandez ’20, student, PLU
- Christa Slater ’20, student, PLU
- Rev. Dr. Eric D. Jackson, Sr., Senior Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Tacoma
Facilitator: Rev. Jen Rude
3:45 - 5 p.m. | “Gender, Sexuality, and the Construction of American Christianity: A Brief History``
- Dr. Seth Dowland, Religion Department, Pacific Lutheran University
American Christians today grapple with issues like gay marriage, transgender rights, and nonbinary understandings of gender. But battles over gender and sexuality are nothing new. This lecture will trace a brief history of shifting understandings of gender and sexuality, highlighting earlier battles between traditionalists and progressives over the proper Christian understanding of sex. These stories reveal the interconnections linking race, gender, and sexuality, as well as the subtle evolution of “traditional” understandings of gender and sexuality. They also show how fundamental gender and sexuality are to Christian identity in the United States, and why these battles won’t be going away anytime soon.
5 - 7 p.m. | Dinner break
7 - 8:30 p.m. | Keynote lecture: “Shameless: A Sexual Reformation”
Keynote Lecture Location: Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Building
- Lutheran pastor and New York Times bestselling author, Nadia Bolz-Weber
Nadia Bolz-Weber first hit the New York Times list with her 2013 memoir—the bitingly honest and inspiring Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint followed by the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints in 2015. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber 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.
Speakers
Opening Remarks: Welcome & Opening remarks: Sex, Shame and Faith
Who:
Dr. Marit A. Trelstad, PLU Chair of Lutheran Studies and Professor of Constructive and Lutheran Theologies at PLU
Bio:
Marit A. Trelstad (PhD, Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Claremont Graduate University; MA, Systematic Theology, Luther Seminary) is the Pacific Lutheran University Chair of Lutheran Studies and Professor of Constructive and Lutheran Theologies at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. Her scholarly work combines feminist, process and Lutheran theologies and has focused on Christology, theological anthropology, the doctrine of God, and science and religion. As a contributor and editor, she published Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today (Fortress, 2006) and contributed chapters to Luther from the SubAltern – the Alternative Luther (Lexington, 2019, American Perspectives meet Scandinavian Creation Theology (Church of Sweden Research Department & Aarhus University, 2019), Theological and Ethical Perspectives on Climate Engineering, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), Transformative Lutheran Theologies (Fortress, 2010), Lutherrenaissance: Past and Present (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2014), Theologies of Creation: Creatio Ex Nihilo and Its New Rivals (Routledge, August 2014) and Creating Women’s Theology: A Movement Engaging Process Thought, (St. Louis: Chalice, 2011).
Presentation Title: “Gender Justice and Faith: 2019 ELCA Social Statement”
Who:
Dr. Mary Streufert, Justice for Women Division, Bishop’s Office of the ELCA, Chicago, IL
Bio:
Mary J. Streufert serves as Director for Justice for Women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She works to empower a variety of leaders to think and act theologically for intersectional gender justice. In collaboration with global scholars and activists in the Lutheran tradition, she serves as the North American regional coordinator for gender justice and women’s empowerment within the Lutheran World Federation. She earned a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University, an M.A. from Oregon State University, and a B.A. from Valparaiso University. Among chapters, articles, and an edited volume, her most recent essay is “A Word of the Word for our Hearts: Embracing Multiply-Gendered God-Language with Luther,” forthcoming in The Alternative Luther—Lutheran Theology from the Subaltern (fall 2019).
Presentation Title: “Gender Justice and Faith: 2019 ELCA Social Statement”
Who:
Dr. Mary Lowe, Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN
Bio:
Mary Elise Lowe is Associate Professor of Religion at Augsburg University. Her teaching and research focus on LGBTQI theologies and the theology of Martin Luther. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, she holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union, a M.Div. from Luther Seminary, and a B.A. from Pacific Lutheran University. Her most recent essay is “The Queer Body-Mind in Martin Luther’s Theology: From Subaltern Sodomite to Embodied Imago Dei”, forthcoming in The Alternative Luther – Lutheran Theology from the Subaltern (fall 2019).
Presentation Title: PLU Student and Staff Panel on Bolz-Weber’s book Shameless with responses by Pastor Jen Rude, PLU Campus Ministry
Who:
Rev. Jen Rude, University Pastor at Pacific Lutheran University
Bio:
Jen Rude serves as University Pastor at PLU. Before coming to PLU,
Jen served as pastor in a Lutheran congregation, with an interfaith
nonprofit working with young people experiencing homelessness and
LGBTQ youth, and with a national organization providing support and
advocacy for LGBTQ Lutheran pastors and seminarians, all while living
in Chicago. Outside of work, Jen enjoys hiking, cooking, brewing
homemade kombucha, the Enneagram, reading about minimalism/simple
living, tending to her composting worms and exploring Tacoma and the
Pacific Northwest with her spouse Deb.
Panel Title: “Why Sex? Engaging religion and spirituality with the Why’s and What For’s of sex”
Who:
Rabbi Bruce Kadden, Temple Beth El, Tacoma, Reli Dept lecturer at PLU
Bio:
Bruce Kadden is rabbi of Temple Beth El in Tacoma and Adjunct Professor in the Religion Department, part of the faculty of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Affiliate Chaplain at PLU. He and his wife, Barbara of blessed memory, are authors of three books in Jewish education. He earned a B.A. in Religious Studies at Stanford University and was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Panel Title: “Why Sex? Engaging religion and spirituality with the Why’s and What For’s of sex”
Who:
Joanna Gregson, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, PLU
Bio:
Dr. Gregson joined the Department of Sociology at PLU in 1998. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Western Washington University, and her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She was appointed Provost in 2017.
Dr. Gregson teaches and conducts research in the areas of deviance, gender, and qualitative research methods. Over the span of her career, she has published on such topics as teenage mothers, incarcerated mothers, and divorced women. Since 2010 she has been conducting participant observation research with the authors of romance novels, examining the gendered aspects of the career and how women experience writing what has been described as the most popular, least respected literary genre.
As a secular humanist, the core elements of the Lutheran tradition resonate with Dr. Gregson. In particular, the ELCA commitments to protecting the dignity and human rights of all people, encouraging critical questioning, and embracing change align with her convictions.
Panel Title: “Why Sex? Engaging religion and spirituality with the Why’s and What For’s of sex”
Who:
Mark Hernandez ’20, student, PLU
Bio:
Mark Hernandez is a senior from Las Vegas, Nevada and uses he/him or they/them pronouns. They are currently finishing up their degrees in Communication and Sociology with a concentration on Film and Media Studies. With a passion for equity and visual culture, they are well acquainted in issues of representation, visual rhetoric, and intersectionality in media. In their free time, they enjoy visiting local markets, eating different plant-based foods, and discussing issues of social and environmental justice. They are spiritual in various ways, and come from a Christian-based background prior to PLU.
Panel Title: “Why Sex? Engaging religion and spirituality with the Why’s and What For’s of sex”
Who:
Christa Slater ’20, student, PLU
Bio:
Christiana (Christa) Slater is a senior PLU student from Fresno, California. She is majoring in Religion and minoring in Hispanic Studies and Nonprofit Leadership. In her four years at PLU, Christa has been involved in Residential Life, the Community Garden, Associated Students of PLU, The University Congregation, and was inducted into the Pinnacle Society in Spring 2019. Christa is concerned with how Christian theology has and continues to inform politics and social justice in North and South America. Christa grew up in the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod and later the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. After her time at PLU, she hopes to go on to receive her master’s degree in divinity from a Lutheran seminary.
Panel Title: “Why Sex? Engaging religion and spirituality with the Why’s and What For’s of sex”
Who:
Rev. Dr. Eric D. Jackson, Sr., Senior Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Tacoma
Bio:
In 2003, Pastor Jackson earned a Master of Divinity degree (cum laude), with a concentration in Psychology of Religion and Pastoral Care and completed additional course work in Homiletics, at Morehouse School of Religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta.
Previously, in 1992, he received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Computer Information Systems from the University of Louisiana and graduated from Peabody Magnet High School. Understanding the necessity of education and preparation, Pastor Jackson returned to the academy, and in May 2012, he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree (summa cum laude) at the ITC, where he specialized in Pastoral Counseling. (Dissertation: “Bridging the Gap between Sunday in the Combat Zone and Sunday at Home: Case Study: The Intersection of War, PTSD, and Pastoral Care & Counseling for Soldiers and their Families”).
Additionally, he has spent over 30 years in the military – over 25 years as an Army Officer. From 2007 to 2008, Pastor Jackson completed a tour of duty in Iraq, where he ministered to hundreds of Soldiers on a weekly basis and trained over 50 ministers – two of which were licensed into the Gospel ministry. Upon completion of his tour, he became an Army Chaplain and continues to minister today. He has also served in this capacity in the local chapter of his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, where he’s a Life Member. Likewise, he was certified by the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police as a Police Chaplain.
Presentation title: “Gender, Sexuality, and the Construction of American Christianity: A Brief History”
Who:
Dr. Seth Dowland, Religion Department, Pacific Lutheran University
Bio:
Seth Dowland is associate professor of American religious history and chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Pacific Lutheran University, where he teaches courses on the history of Christianity and Islam in the United States, as well as seminars on the intersection of politics, gender, race, and American Christianity. His first book, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), examines the rise of family values politics among conservative evangelicals in the U.S. from the 1970s to the 1990s. He is currently working on a book (under contract with Oxford University Press) that examines the history of white Christian masculinity in America. He has published many articles and book chapters on the history of evangelicalism, focused in particular on the intersection of religion, politics, gender, and sexuality.
Presentation Title: “Shameless: A Sexual Reformation”
Who:
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Lutheran pastor and New York Times bestselling author
Bio:
Nadia Bolz-Weber first hit the New York Times list with her 2013 memoir—the bitingly honest and inspiring Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint followed by the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints in 2015. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber 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.
Suggested Readings
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation (Convergent Books, 2019)
Raw, intimate, and timely, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s latest book 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 generations countless people have suffered pain, guilt, and judgment as a result of this toxic fixation on sex, the body, and physical pleasure. In the follow-up to her celebrated New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints, Bolz-Weber
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.
In turn, Bolz-Weber offers no simple amendments or polite compromises, because the stakes are too high—and our souls and our bodies are worth too much. Instead, this tattooed, swearing, modern-day pastor calls for a new reformation. She urges us to take antiquated, sexist ideas about sex,
gender, and our bodies and “burn them the f*ck down and start all over.”
This is a journey of holy resistance. Along the way, as antidotes to shame, heresy, and all-too-familiar injustice, Bolz-Weber dispenses grace, freedom, and courage. She shares stories, poetry, and scripture, cultivating resilient hope and audacious love rooted in good news that 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.”
In Bolz-Weber’s most personal, bracingly honest book yet, she shares intimately about her life, with her trademark blend of vulnerability, humor, and candor. If you’ve been mistreated, confused, angered, and/or wounded by the shaming sexual messages so prevalent in religion, this one is for you.
Seth Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right (University of Pennsylvania, 2015)
During the last three decades of the twentieth century, evangelical leaders and conservative politicians developed a political agenda that thrust “family values” onto the nation’s consciousness. Ministers, legislators, and laypeople came together to fight abortion, gay rights, and major feminist objectives. They supported private Christian schools, home schooling, and a strong military. Family values leaders like Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Bryant, and James Dobson became increasingly supportive of the Republican Party, which accommodated the language of family values in its platforms and campaigns. The family values agenda created a bond between evangelicalism and political conservatism.
Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right chronicles how the family values agenda became so powerful in American political life and why it appealed to conservative evangelical Christians. Conservative evangelicals saw traditional gender norms as crucial in cultivating morality. They thought these gender norms would reaffirm the importance of clear lines of authority that the social revolutions of the 1960s had undermined. In the 1970s and 1980s, then, evangelicals founded Christian academies and developed homeschooling curricula that put conservative ideas about gender and authority front and center. Campaigns against abortion and feminism coalesced around a belief that God created women as wives and mothers—a belief that conservative evangelicals thought feminists and pro-choice advocates threatened. Likewise, Christian right leaders championed a particular vision of masculinity in their campaigns against gay rights and nuclear disarmament. Movements like the Promise Keepers called men to take responsibility for leading their families. Christian right political campaigns and pro-family organizations drew on conservative evangelical beliefs about men, women, children, and authority. These beliefs—known collectively as family values—became the most important religious agenda in late twentieth-century American politics.
ELCA (2009), Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust
ELCA (1999), A Social Statement on Abortion
ELCA (2019), Faith, Sexism and Justice: A Call to Action
Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Orbis, 1999)
This book tackles the “taboo” subject of sexuality that has long been avoided by the Black church and community. Douglas argues that this view of Black sexuality has interfered with constructive responses to the AIDS crisis and teenage pregnancies, fostered intolerance of sexual diversity, frustrated healthy male/female relationships, and rendered Black and womanist theologians silent on sexual issues.
“If a diagnosis is indispensable for a cure, then the Black church and the Black community, as well as the church in general and White society, should take seriously this searingly honest yet sympathetic exposé and then perhaps they may be set on the road to healing their ills” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Marcella Althaus-Reid & Lisa Sherwood, Trans/formations: Controversies in Contextual Theology
Trans/formations is a new addition to “SCM’s Controversies in Contextual Theology” series. Like anything coming from Marcella Althaus-Reid and Lisa Isherwood, it is controversial and challenging as well as highly original. The book will: make visible a range of trans lived experience [transgendered and transsexual], offer theological reflection on these experiences, create challenging theology from this experiential base, and provide a resource for churches and theology students not to date available. It includes an excellent range of contributors, including Elizabeth Stuart and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. This is a valuable addition to reading lists of courses on religion, gender and the body.
Mary Streufert, ed. Transformative Lutheran Theologies (Fortress, 2010) with chapters by Streufert, Lowe and Trelstad
The first of its kind, this book is a systematic representation of Lutheran feminist, womanist, and mujerista theologies: systematic, in that it addresses classical loci of systematic theology; contemporary, in that it is resoundingly constructive and relevant for the contemporary church; and feminist, in that the contributors write from a feminist perspective although they reflect a variety of positions within feminist discourse.
The contributors to this multi-authored work share a common commitment to Lutheran theology as a continual process of reform. Luther is a partner in the conversation because of his “theological insights and commitment to faithful criticism,” which the writers seek to continue – not because his voice “settles a debate.” The book focuses on central themes which Luther addressed and which are representative of Lutheranism today, including justification by grace through faith and Luther’s theology of the cross. From diverse contexts, these Lutheran theologians, like Luther, seek reformation by “giving voice to new perspectives in theology that continue to transform the church and the world.”
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People (Convergent Books, 2016)
In Accidental Saints, New York Times best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber invites readers into a surprising encounter with what she calls “a religious but not-so-spiritual life.” Tattooed, angry and profane, this former standup comic turned pastor stubbornly, sometimes hilariously, resists the God she feels called to serve. But God keeps showing up in the least likely of people—a church-loving agnostic, a drag queen, a felonious Bishop and a gun-toting member of the NRA.
As she lives and worships alongside these “accidental saints,” Nadia is swept into first-hand encounters with grace—a gift that feels to her less like being wrapped in a warm blanket and more like being hit with a blunt instrument. But by this grace, people are transformed in ways they couldn’t have been on their own.
In a time when many have rightly become disillusioned with Christianity, Accidental Saints demonstrates what happens when ordinary people share bread and wine, struggle with scripture together, and tell each other the truth about their real lives. This unforgettable account of their faltering steps toward wholeness will ring true for believer and skeptic alike.
Told in Nadia’s trademark confessional style, Accidental Saints is the stunning next work from one of today’s most important religious voices.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint (Jericho Books, 2014)
Now a New York Times bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term “pastrix”(pronounced “pas-triks,” a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.
Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell 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.
Wildly entertaining and deeply resonant, this is the book for people who hunger for a bit of hope that doesn’t come from vapid consumerism or navel-gazing; for women who talk too loud, and guys who love chick flicks; for the gay man who loves Jesus, and won’t allow himself to be shunned by the church. In short, this book is for every thinking misfit suspicious of institutionalized religion, but who is still seeking transcendence and mystery