Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber’s project sought to transform purity rings — symbols of a patriarchal theology that she believes has harmed women.
Months after Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber issued a call for Christian feminists to send her their old “purity” rings, the once-discarded jewelry has been completely transformed.
The purity rings ― symbols of an abstinence pledge ― were melted or pounded down and reshaped into a sculpture of a vulva emerging from a throne of flames.
Bolz-Weber, the progressive Christian theologian and writer behind the project, unveiled the sculpture on Thursday at the 2019 conference for Makers, a feminist media brand.
Purity rings were a cultural phenomenon that emerged in certain evangelical Christian communities during the 1990s and 2000s. They symbolized a promise to abstain from sex until marriage. Critics argue that the rings, and purity culture more broadly, taught young people to feel shameful about their sexuality and suggested that a person’s sexual thoughts and choices ultimately determined their spiritual standing in the eyes of God. There was also no room for queer love within this theology.
Bolz-Weber was the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, a queer-inclusive Lutheran congregation in Denver. Although she was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, the pastor has become a prominent voice in progressive Christian circles.
The vulva sculpture project ― part of a promotion for Shameless, Bolz-Weber’s recently published book about sex and Christianity ― sought to prove that symbols of a harmful and patriarchal theology can be reclaimed.
Bolz-Weber told HuffPost that the purity rings’ transformation reminded her of Bible verses describing a utopia where people “beat their swords into plowshares.”
“It’s actually part of the tradition, that we can take objects that have harmed us and turn them into objects that help heal and sustain us,” the pastor said.
Colorado-based artist Nancy Anderson was responsible for transforming the rings into a vulva sculpture. Bolz-Weber told HuffPost that they received about 170 purity rings from all over the country, many accompanied by notes revealing more about the people who had worn them.
One ring was sent by a woman who wrote she remembered attending a purity ball with her father when she was just 11 years old, Bolz-Weber said. Another woman said she had gotten a second purity ring because she felt ashamed to wear the original after a sexual assault. One woman revealed that she faithfully wore her purity ring until her wedding day, believing in the church’s promise that this was God’s will. But the marriage apparently turned out to be “miserable,” Bolz-Weber said, and the woman mailed in her wedding ring.
Most of the purity rings people sent in were sterling silver. Those rings were melted into the vulva sculpture. The silver vulva sits atop red flames, meant to evoke a “Phoenix,” Bolz-Weber said.
Rings made from other materials were pounded and woven into a heart and wings in the middle of the sculpture. On the bottom, the word “Freedom” is spelled out in metal.
St. Thomas wrote about this. These whores succumbed to their lusts. They all need to REPENT and just become Catholic already.
Jacob Ross
We need someone to make a meme of this but with Luther in Heaven looking down on the current Swedish Lutheran Church with their lesbian Bishop and Pope Leo laughing in the background
The tattoo on her right shoulder is "the aeon" card from Aleister Crowley's version of the tarot cards. The deck is meant to be a complete symbolic representation of the metaphysics and ethics of his false religion and philosophy Thelema.
I know from personal, shameful experience that there are many members of Crowley's OTO who are members of Christian churches, including those who sing and play organ for catholic churches, and otherwise serve in church ministry.
In the upper degrees of OTO, initiates are instructed to make an idol in the shape of a penis for men (I have heard female initiates use a vulva). The phallic idol is to represent the initiates own penis, and the initiate is instructed to worship and adore the idol as a god.
And ye prots worship the Bible. See I can make stupid claims as well.
Anthony Ramirez
I agree it's stupid, exactly my point. Don't conflate the actions of the few as representative of the whole.
Camden Wilson
The thing is that there is no representation when there is no authority, so those who have embraced a nonsensical anarchy in order to make their own plastic "Christianity" can't even claim to be above these people.
The ECLA is truly worshipping satan and on a bobsled to hell.
Noah Bell
When is this stupid meme gonna end? Even the lukewarm Catholics get what's the veneration of Saints. Although they don't do it and neither they worship God tbh
Christian Parker
...
Ayden Ortiz
ALL OF YOUS ARE SCREAMING ABOUT WOMEN
i'd just like to remind you folks to read your bibles and see a direct parallel here with Aaron making the golden calf while Moses was in the mountain receiving The Law
… and Aaron was a man btw, an ordained priest too, and while his motivation might have been different, the repugnance of his Sin was possibly greater since he was standing at the base of a mountain covered by the presence of God, whereas this woman is an atheist who… oh wait, she too is surrounded by evidence of God yet chooses to worship the created things rather than the Creator
…. hmmmm, i guess the real lesson here is that humans are awful
Camden Jenkins
...
Grayson Gutierrez
The point is that there's not even 1 Catholic who worships the saints. There was however some dudes in the 5th century that did that but were destroyed by the Church.
Joshua Ortiz
There's the difference. Woman can never be ordained, and even if she was a man there's no valid bishops to do it in lutheranism (only on the Lutheran Church of Sweden those male bishops that were ordained by other man, winnie the pooh lesbian "bishops")
Gavin Perez
Yes, there is. They're all over the Americas
Christopher Kelly
Veneration = worship And here we go again besides implying most American catholics even believe in God
Leo Gonzalez
I mean some schismatic groups are idolatrous or very close to it like the palmarian "Catholics" so I've heard.
William Hughes
Wait do you have more sources on this? That’s huge if true
Jeremiah Scott
why are you picking a fight with me, scroll up and see that earlier posters said 'women', not 'feminists'
similarly, what's your problem pal; unless you're trying to correct my thinking to say Aaron's sin was greater than that of this pastrix, because he was a man and thus he has greater responsibility to deal with Sin, then i'm not seeing your dog in this fight
nice trips though
Josiah Rogers
Why are you so triggered? Literally everything in the article is what happens when women are ordained. There’s a reason that’s not supposed to happen.
Carter Garcia
mate, i thought you were mad at me for citing the earlier posters who said 'women' and not 'feminism'
you saying you're not mad?
cool, then why are we arguing?
Henry Garcia
I'm not trying to quantify the sin. I'm just saying the situation is different. One was a priest and the other a crazy whore pretending she's a priest.
Christian Baker
well there's no denying the distinctions, bruv – i'm more just pointing out the parallels and aiming to show that there's Scriptural precedent here; which then allows the believer to say; "meh, nothing here that God hasn't seen before and dealt with - and since it's possible that the earlier case was an even worse one than this temple prostitution, i probably shouldn't get too concerned"
then we can all just collectively disavow her and say 'tch, feminists huh?'
Nicholas Sullivan
alternatively ' tch, idolators huh?
Juan Taylor
or even more alt; 'tch, humans huh?'
Jonathan Cooper
by which i mean; 'tch, sinners huh?'
Nathan Bell
I get what you mean. winnie the pooh feminists. and women too :^)
Cooper Jenkins
the woman's a complete fool, I don't even care much for lutherans but I really don't think we should report everything this lady does, it's nothing but rage-bait. plus, she gets coverage from the new yorker, so she's obviously just there to demoralize prots
Leo Wood
As for the image on her shoulder, just Google it. It certainly is what I say it is as can readily be seen.
As for thelemites serving in church ministry, I am speaking from personal experience, as a former member of OTO of what other members told me regarding their "ministry" in the catholic church. Such people were a small minority of the OTO members I met.
As for the phallic worship mentioned in higher degrees of OTO, a book has been published revealing the OTO initiations. It was accurate for all the degrees I was initiated into. The things I mentioned are detailed in that book. I don't recommend reading such a book as its not good for the soul and can mislead or corrupt the mind.
If you do read the book, the point of interest would be the 9th (IX), 10th (X), and 11th (XI) degrees.
So as Stalin and Hitler. But that's not the purpose of the meme.
Lucas Hall
I don't get why they always hate purity rings so much. Yeah, it is wrong to judge people by past mistakes. A girl who has had sex before marriage is not ruined forever. She can repent and is forgiven. But aiming to be pure is a noble thing. Just cause I want my daughter to make right decisions doesn't mean I would shame her if she failed.
You don't have to be free from mistakes to approach God, but if your encounter with God isn't changing you into a better person who aims not to sin then you should just call it quits because you never knew Jesus and He will spit you from His mouth on judgment day.
