ELCA Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber to lecture in November

Ordained Lutheran (ELCA) pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber will give a Mackin-Mailander lecture on Thursday, November 9, on the campus of Clarke University. Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. Her lecture, entitled “The Risks and Rewards of Being Honest About Ourselves,” will address the Mackin-Mailander lecture theme of “Discovering Yourself.”

Bolz-Weber will speak at 7 p.m. in the Robert and Ruth Kehl Center at Clarke. General admission tickets are $10 and are available online at www.clarke.edu/nadia or by phone at (563) 588-6377. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for the event.

Bolz-Weber is the author of two New York Times bestselling memoirs, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint and Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People. Nadia travels domestically and internationally as a speaker and has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, On Being with Krista Tippett, Fresh Air, CNN, as well as in the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, More magazine and The Atlantic.

On starting her own church in Colorado, Bolz-Weber said: “I had to start a church I’d want to show up to, basically. I really love Lutheran theology and I love the ancient liturgy, but I’d look around Lutheran churches, and no one looked like me. I would have to culturally commute to show up to those churches, and I wasn’t really eager to do that, so I basically became a pastor to my people. My job is to point to Christ and to preach the Gospel and to remind people that they’re absolutely loved … and all of their mess-ups are not more powerful than God’s mercy and God’s ability to sort of redeem us and to bring good out of bad.”

The Mackin-Mailander Lecture Series was established through the generosity of two Clarke alumnae, Mary C. Mackin ’34 and Verna Slattery Mailander ’20.

For more information, contact the Clarke University President’s Office at (563) 588-6377.

Clarke University is a Catholic, liberal arts and sciences university dedicated to preparing students who positively impact their workplace, family and community. Academic offerings include more than 40 undergraduate liberal arts and pre-professional programs, and six graduate degree programs.  Founded in 1843 by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Clarke is located near the Mississippi River in the thriving city of Dubuque, Iowa. It is the only BVM university in the country.