The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber
by The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber
Forget the selfies and social media updates of everyone at their best, three-time New York Times best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new podcast, The Confessional, invites guests to share stories about times they were at their worst. Guests talk honestly about what led to that moment, what they learned from it, and how they changed as a result. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran Pastor and the founder of House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado.Everyone needs grace and healing, no matter your beliefs. Step into The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber - a carwash for people’s shame and secrets.
Episodes
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Meg Lavery, Storyteller and Teacher
“I knew that I had to do something, I was going to have to let him know, but I didn't let him know. I became paralyzed with fear of telling him.” Meg lives in a conservation community in the Chicago suburbs with her wife, daughter, and menagerie of rescue animals. She is a middle school Health...
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Crushed Episode 1: The Feel-Good Story
In 1998, fans across the country fell in love with the home run race as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased baseball immortality. Sportswriter Joan Niesen recounts her memories of that summer, examines the history and mythology of the home run and asks why people across the country wanted to…
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Rev. Jeff Grant, Minister and Co-Founder of Progressive Prison Ministries
“I was dressed up looking the part, but deep inside, I was just vacant. I just was not someone I was proud of anymore.” Jeff Grant, J.D., M.Div. is Co-Founder of Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc., the one of the world’s first ministries serving the white collar justice community. Jeff co-hosts...
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Wilhelm Verwoerd, Researcher and Facilitator
“We would also be very conscious of preaching anti-communism because people were saying that the African National Congress, you know, former President Mandela's political party, they were really not liberation fighters, they were terrorists.” Wilhelm is a facilitator and researcher based at...
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Nadia Bolz-Weber: "Panic on the Road to Jericho"
“I spent the entire time praying, and cursing, and praying and cursing.” Enjoy this bonus episode featuring a story Nadia Bolz-Weber told live at a Moth storytelling event in New York City in 2015. The Confessional is produced in conjunction with The Moth, a non-profit dedicated to the art and...
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Elizabeth Lesser, Co-Founder of Omega Institute
"And that was the moment ... where I was like, 'Girl, you can be a good mother and a happy, embodied woman, but you can't be a good mother and a liar.'" Elizabeth Lesser is a bestselling author and the co-founder of Omega Institute, the renowned conference and retreat center located in Rhinebeck,...
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Dr. Ray Christian, Storyteller and Fulbright Specialist
"I got the super squad, the dirty dozen. Nobody needs to know what's going on here; I'm handling everything." Dr. Raymond Christian is a retired US Army paratrooper who grew up on the poverty-ridden streets of Richmond, VA. He has taught African American History and Storytelling at Appalachian...
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Joshua Harris, Storyteller and Author of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"
"If you can call people to a higher standard and tap into that fear, that ‘I'm not trying hard enough. I'm not really loving God enough. I'm not sacrificing enough,’ there is always going to be another person coming along with a book or a conference to sell that is going to tap into that and say,...
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Claire Bidwell Smith, Grief Therapist and Author
“I just remember the feeling of having his arms around me, and I just felt so sickened that I had chosen this instead of my mother.” Claire Bidwell Smith is a therapist specializing in grief and the author of three books about grief and loss. Visit her website to find her offerings including...
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Sarah Edmondson, Actor and Former Member of NXIVM
“I essentially told her to override that very important internal compass called your gut instinct. And I told her that that wasn't accurate. She was just scared and that this is normal, that you hit up against fears that are going to stop you from your true potential … I told her to trust me, and…
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Maria Hinojosa, Journalist
“You know, it comes down to a human error, but one of massive proportions because you're dealing with humanity and people's lives.” Maria is the host of Latino USA and one of the most respected journalists in the country. She also has a new memoir. It’s called Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and...
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Amber J. Phillips, Storyteller and Reproductive Justice Activist
“My attachment to success prevented me from doing the one thing that I value the most in my life, which is showing up for other black women.” Amber is a storyteller, creative content strategist, and reproductive justice activist whose work imagines a world where Black womanhood is an expansive...
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Jonathan Williams, Writer and Pastor
“So what I ended up doing was being an incredible dick to my father. That's what I ended up doing.” Jonathan Williams is the Lead Pastor of Forefront Church in Brooklyn, New York. He co-wrote his first book She’s My Dad: A Father’s Transition and a Son’s Redemption with his father Paula Stone...
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Joel Leon, Storyteller
“But like being a father, I have to excel at that because a lot of people were expecting me not to.” Joel was born and raised in the Bronx. He is the author of A Book About Things I Will Tell My Daughter and God Wears Durags Too. His recent TED talk on co-parenting is recommended viewing for...
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Kasey Anderson, Singer/Songwriter
“I truly believed that we had gotten Bruce Springsteen to commit to this benefit compilation. And so when I went to present that to the group, I went back through my emails and there was no such communication.” Kasey currently serves as a program coordinator for a recovery services nonprofit in...
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Abby Wambach, Soccer Star
“I didn't feel like, oh, I need to call my lawyer or anything like that. I felt like I was totally with it. And then I did the breathalyzer and I can't remember exactly what number I blew, but it was like, I think, two times the legal limit. And I thought, this machine is broken.” When Abby…
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Darin Strauss, Writer
“And then all the emotions sort of flowed and I started crying in a way I don't think I have since or probably didn't before. I was just sort of heaving and then I thought, wow, this is going to ruin me. This is the end of my life. You know?” Darin lives in New York City. His memoir Half a Life…
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Wilhelm Verwoerd, Researcher and Facilitator
“We would also be very conscious of preaching anti-communism because people were saying that the African National Congress, you know, former President Mandela's political party, they were really not liberation fighters, they were terrorists.” Wilhelm is a facilitator and researcher based at...
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Forgiveness and Reconciliation with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
“So it's not necessarily an overnight thing. And the only person, the only person or people who get to decide if a person should be forgiven, are the ones harmed.” Season two of The Confessional is coming very, very soon. In the meantime, I invited my good friend Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg on the…
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Melissa Febos, Memoirist
“You know, it was like very hot - with that particular hotness of a terrible, terrible thing driven by desperation beyond the immediate situation.” Melissa is a literary phenom who has won a gazillion awards for her incisive, honest, colorful writing. Her third book, Girlhood comes out in the...
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Mishka Shubaly, Singer/Songwriter
“I held Nate's face as far away from me as I could so that he couldn't hit me. And then with my right hand I tried to destroy him” Mishka has an MFA in writing, but prefers to live out of his van while touring as a musician. He is a storyteller, a songwriter, and a shipwreck survivor....
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Amy Brenneman, Movie Star
“I just was super hungry sexually. I was super out there. I just didn't want to be the victim. You know, I wanted to run the show. And I did.” Amy has a degree in comparative religion from Harvard, but most folks know her as a famous actress. She’s a mom, a producer, an activist and the host of…
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R Eric Thomas, Columnist at Elle.com
"So I just googled, 'how to tell if your boyfriend is a Satan worshiper.'" Eric lives in Baltimore with his husband. He’s a playwright, a columnist for Elle, and the author of Here For It, a book of essays about how to save your soul in America. https://twitter.com/oureric...
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Theresa Thames, Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University
“On the playground, people would be singing this song, Yo Mama's on Crack Rock. … And I love that song because I love chanting it and everything. And I also loathe that song because it was my truth. I grew up in the height of crack cocaine in poverty, and my mother was on crack rock.” Theresa…
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Chris Schuhmacher, Software Developer
“I came into software development relatively late in life. You know, I'm in my mid 40s and my training actually started in 2014 inside the walls of San Quentin.” Chris is the founder and developer of Fitness Monkey, an app that encourages the physical fitness of addicts in recovery....
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Lenny Duncan, Lutheran Pastor
“I run into someone in Boulder, and they're like you want to do some speed? And I was like, ‘hell, yeah.’ And I do some speed, and I just fall off the map.... I didn't see my daughter for 13 years after that.” Lenny now lives in Vancouver, Washington where he is doing the crazy thing of starting…
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Megan Phelps-Roper, Former Member of Westboro Baptist Church
“We would see something terrible that happened, like if there was an earthquake or a fire or floods or hurricanes, or a celebrity died. Everybody around me, my family, the church members, we'd be celebrating and making plans to go and protest the funerals. And, you know, at the same time on...
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The Confessional Trailer
The first season of The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber will drop weekly starting April 21. Do you have something you’re not proud of that you’d like to confess? Leave a voicemail at 618-CONFESS, that’s 618-266-3377, and we may play it on an upcoming episode.
About this show
Forget the selfies and social media updates of everyone at their best, three-time New York Times best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new podcast, The Confessional, invites guests to share stories about times they were at their worst. Guests talk honestly about what led to that moment, what they learned from it, and how they changed as a result. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran Pastor and the founder of House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado.Everyone needs grace and healing, no matter your beliefs. Step into The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber - a carwash for people’s shame and secrets.
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The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber