Nadia Bolz-Weber and the Sexual Revolution We Need

​She doesn’t believe that God’s design for sex is between one man and one woman within the covenant of marriage. She believes that what the church has traditionally taught about sex is harmful, needing not just a makeover, but an entire overhaul. Or, “Let’s burn it the f*** down and start over,” to quote her precisely.

There are many stories and illustrations in Shameless that conservative readers would find shocking, and I don’t doubt many reviews will highlight them. However, I’d like to interact with the fundamental beliefs that rest beneath the arguments. That is where the most danger lies. Rather than nudging her readers toward obedience to God and the teachings of Christ, Bolz-Weber gives them permission to follow their hearts and base their opinions about sex on their own feelings and desires. She does this in three subtle ways.

1. She Promotes an Unorthodox View of the Bible

As a child, Bolz-Weber was taught that Eve’s entire purpose and identity was to be a “grateful helper” to Adam: “God gave her to Adam, like a mail-order bride. Adam was her purpose” (33). And because Eve “screwed it up for the rest of humanity” by eating the fruit (42), women should focus on looking pretty, being quiet, and forever being subservient to and dominated by men.

I don’t doubt this was what Bolz-Weber was taught in Sunday school. But her experience doesn’t faithfully represent what the Bible actually teaches about the garden of Eden. She seems more interested in dismantling the historic Christian sexual ethic than in correcting faulty interpretations of Scripture, correcting some missteps of the purity movement, or diving deep into the Bible to exegete what it teaches about sex. Although Bolz-Weber claims to love the Bible and regularly preaches from it, she doesn’t see it as a cohesive whole. In an interview with the LGBT publication Out in Jersey, she said:

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The Bible’s not clear about s***! The Bible is a library. Let’s say you have this huge library in your house and ask, “What’s the clear message my library has to say about ‘gender’?” The poetry is going to say one thing, history says another, prose says something, science fiction says something else.
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There are those who will say that it is “dangerous” to think we can decide for ourselves what is sacred in the Bible and what is not. I reject this idea, and here’s why. (72)

Her “why” is her view of biblical authority. She defines the four Gospels as the most authoritative books. The closer a text is to that story, the more authority it has. The farther away, the less. So it’s no surprise that many of the arguments in the book are anecdotal, rather than biblical.

With the Bible out of the way, readers can now look to their own autonomy to guide their views on sex.

2. She Champions a Faulty Definition of Sexual Flourishing

Bolz-Weber’s new sexual ethic isn’t based on biblical guidelines, but on “concern for each other’s flourishing” (12). For a definition of “sexual flourishing,” she turns to the World Health Organization (WHO) for guidance and sums up their definition this way:
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Consent (enthusiastic consent—not merely the absence of “no”) and mutuality (enjoyment by both parties) are what the WHO says constitute a baseline sexual ethic. (11)

​​Without any clearly defined boundaries for sex, she writes, “Whatever sexual flourishing looks like for you, that’s what I would love to see happen in your life” (60).

This definition of sexual flourishing plays out when Bolz-Weber writes that looking at pornography in moderation isn’t necessarily harmful, depending on someone’s personality, history, and relationships. She recalls giving her 18-year-old daughter permission to spend the night at her boyfriend’s house, advising her to speak up in bed so she can learn to communicate her desires to her future lovers. She writes about her own divorce and the sexual fulfillment she finally experienced when she started seeing her boyfriend: “It was like an exfoliation of my entire spirit. It softened me and opened my heart and cleared away the gunk in my head. It was good” (59).

But as the originator and architect of sex, God is the one who gets to define sexual flourishing and decide what is “good.” From Genesis to Revelation, his Word is clear and unified in its sexual ethic. In Matthew 19, Jesus himself affirms the purpose of sex and marriage: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Jesus also condemned “sexual immorality,” which would’ve been understood by his listeners to be any sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.

To define it any other way is to put one’s own opinion above God’s.

3. She Advocates an Erroneous Understanding of God’s Holiness

​After quoting the above prayer, Bolz-Weber defines holiness as “the union we experience with one another and with God. Holiness is when more than one become one, when what is fractured is made whole” (19). She then relates this with the sexual union of “two loving individuals” as holy because they are “unified in an erotic embrace” (20).

She makes a distinction between holiness and purity by surmising that “holiness is about union with, and purity is about separation from” (26). The problem with this definition of holiness is that it’s pulled out of thin air and contradicts what the Bible teaches.

Biblically, the holiness of God has everything to do with separation. It requires that God have no unity with sin. As one theologian explains, “God’s holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor.” This idea is expressed throughout the Bible, starting with the veil of separation in the tabernacle that cordoned off the “most holy place,” where God himself dwelt. It culminates in Revelation which predicts a time when all things will be made right and holy—when everything on earth will be separated from evil once and for all.

The apostle Peter wrote, “But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy'” (1 Pet. 1:15). In other words, be separated from sin, because God is separated from sin.

Abortion

Any treatise bent on destroying the Christian sexual ethic will inevitably defend abortion rights. Bolz-Weber writes that “Christians originally believed that life begins at birth” and that the evangelical support of the pro-life position is a modern political invention (117). She traces the history back to 1968 when Christianity Today featured an article in which a professor from the famously conservative Dallas Theological Seminary was quoted as saying that fetuses don’t have souls.

It’s true that evangelicals were inconsistent in their views on abortion in the early 1970s, but it’s demonstrably false to claim that this was the original position of Christians. The earliest Christians were unanimously opposed to abortion, which, along with infanticide, was a common practice in the first-century Roman Empire. As early as the Didache (AD 80–120), every Christian writer in antiquity who mentioned abortion forbade it. As Albert Mohler notes, “There can be no question that historic Christianity condemned abortion and affirmed the sanctity of human life, born and not yet born.”

God’s Plan

Bolz-Weber writes that sex is a gift from God. I agree. God invented sex, gifted it to creation, and blessed it as a good, holy, beautiful, pleasurable, and fruitful endeavor. But God didn’t give us sex in isolation. It’s not like he handed Adam and Eve a candy bar and said, “Eat for pleasure—just don’t eat so much you get sick.” He told them, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Although sex was pleasurable, pleasure wasn’t its only or ultimate purpose. Its ultimate purpose was multifaceted—intimacy in marriage, binding two people together for life, companionship, pleasure, and procreation.

So, in seeking reform, do we throw out what Scripture testifies to from cover to cover and go our own way? As followers of Jesus, we must consider what he taught about sex and embrace that teaching as life-giving and right. After all, Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commands” (John 14:15). We simply don’t have the option to pick and choose which of his teachings to follow.

In a public discussion with Matthew Vines, Sean McDowell invited the audience to imagine a world in which everyone lived according to what Jesus taught about sex and marriage. He said:
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There would be no sexually transmitted diseases. No abortions. No brokenness from divorce. Every child would have a mother and a father and experience the love and acceptance each parent uniquely offers. There would be no rape, no sex abuse, no sex trafficking, pornography, and no need for a #MeToo campaign. Think of the healing and wholeness if people simply lived Jesus’s life-giving words regarding human sexuality.

In that type of world, there would be no church sex-abuse scandals. Parents wouldn’t have to fear leaving their children in the care of others. The list could go on and on.

Scripture doesn’t promise everyone sexual fulfillment in this life. It doesn’t even promise a mind-blowing sex life to every couple who has “followed God’s plan.” But it does offer guidelines that are for our good, flourishing, and protection.

Shameless?Although she takes every opportunity to mock and deride “God’s plan” for sex and marriage as a harmful, impractical, and antiquated idea, the alternative that Bolz-Weber offers isn’t the answer. Simply ignoring or refusing to feel shame won’t fix the problem. That shame will return. Our biggest problem isn’t shame—it’s sin. Feeling a sense of conviction over our sin is a good thing, because it leads to the good news that Christ has taken our sin and shame upon himself. The only way to be truly shameless is to repent of our sin and put our faith in Christ. As Romans 10:11 says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

We all have, in one way or another, messed up “God’s plan,” and I’m thankful to God for his grace and mercy to me. This is the beauty of conviction, repentance, and the forgiveness and restoration God offers his children. Yes, we need reform. But what Bolz-Weber offers is not reformation. She has recycled a sexual ethic as old as paganism itself and rebranded it as Christian. True reform wouldn’t be to abandon the Bible’s teaching, but to actually start living it.

Great work Alisa and very much needed. I'm about halfway through and this book brings back a lot of memories of having to read through so many Progressive Christian books in my research for my book on the subject, something that was often very, very difficult for me to do. As with most of those books, she makes a lot of good points, but overall this book is very tough for me to make my way through, it is so overtly blasphemous and potentially hurtful to so many. Once done, I will be writing a very long and detailed review on my blog. Thanks for continuing to fight the good fight. I've already had parishioners at my church ask me about this book and about her in general.

I appreciate your review on Shameless. I'm sure you could have said much more but it was good to read the highlights. It amazes me and scares me at the same time how liberal Christianity looks so much like the world and therefore is so appealing to those who want to be "spiritual" without being "religious". Recently Hailey Baldwin did an interview for Hillsong and she summed up her identity in Christ as saying "I am enough". I think Shameless fits perfectly into that mantra and this generation. This is no shock to you, I'm sure, but it's heartbreaking to me and makes me sick to my stomach. There are many godly women out there who are sharing the truth of God's word to other women but it feels like for every one there are 10 progressive voices sharing down right evil ideas. Does it ever overwhelm you? Thanks for your hard work on fighting against progressive Christianity. I look forward to reading your book!

Hi Elisa,
As a girl about your age that was raised in the evangelical purity culture in an ultra charasmatic and legalistic church, I've been interested to read the backlash from gals that have been through that experience and been drawn to progressive Christianity like a magnet. The book Pure, and Girl at the End of the World were particulary thought provoking. I am wondering if you can refer me to a post or write a post yourself about the mistakes made by the purity movement advocates, long term negative effects of this type of thinking, and how we can move on and adhere to a Biblical view of sexuality. I have mixed feelings about the purity message, because there is some truth to it, but somehow it became damaging and left a lot of open wounds that I think might be festering still today, so many years later. Thanks!

Hi CJ, they've started to address it over at the Mama Bear Apologetics blog. I hope this is helpful to you! https://mamabearapologetics.com/what-went-wrong-90s-pc/

Girl, you knocked this out of the park! Cheering you on and praying for you that God protects you, gives you courage, blesses your ministry, and flourishes the fruit of the Spirit in your life! 👏👏👏 KEEP GOING

But there were also false Prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.
2 Peter 2:1-2
Sad😥

I am devouring every bit of apologetics I can find. I am truly inspired by you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and holding steadfast to a biblical view. I am a 52 year old woman who has been an outright sinner for most of my life. I am trying to walk with Jesus now. I am so forever grateful for the part you're playing in my education and in my heart.

Jesus view of sexuality is “the Christian view”. Any other view of the topic is not Christian. The same goes with how Jesus viewed old testament scripture…The way Jesus viewed Scripture is the way Christians should view Scripture.