Nadia Bolz-Weber on NPR

nprfreshair:

Lutheran Minister Preaches A Gospel Of Love To Junkies, Drag Queens And Outsider 

Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber admits that she does not look — or act — like a typical church leader. Heavily tattooed and with a tendency to swear like a truck driver, Bolz-Weber was once a stand-up comic with a big drinking problem.

But she was drawn to Lutheran theology, and when a group of friends asked her to give a eulogy for another friend who had committed suicide, Bolz-Weber discovered her calling.

Bolz-Weber tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that while addressing the crowd of “academics and queers and comics and recovering alcoholics” at the funeral, she realized: “These people don’t have a pastor, and maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do.”