You may have heard the derisive label “Cafeteria Christian,” meaning those who choose which Christian teachings to follow or ignore as if they were in a cafeteria line. For two ELCA pastors, though, the phrase is worth reclaiming.
On their podcast Cafeteria Christian, co-hosts Natalia Terfa and Emmy Kegler, both rostered in the Minneapolis Area Synod, discuss the ways in which it can be helpful for people to leave certain elements of organized religion or church culture behind in order to live out their faith more authentically. Living Lutheran spoke with Terfa and Kegler about the podcast’s importance to them and their listeners.
Living Lutheran: For those who aren’t familiar with Cafeteria Christian, how do you describe the podcast?
Natalia Terfa: We’re a weekly podcast for people who are drawn to Christian faith and practice but have questions, hesitations or downright problems with organized religion and church culture.
Emmy Kegler: We think of the phrase “Cafeteria Christian” as a positive: we should be taking our lives and faith seriously enough to doubt, challenge and even reject beliefs and actions when they preach pain or cruelty instead of the good news.
Terfa: We really have a wide range of listeners. Some tune in every week, some just check in periodically or when an episode title or guest appearance interests them. Some are rostered ministers, or bishop’s staff or church lay leaders. Others have left the Christian church as a whole but are still working out what their relationship to Jesus and faith practice looks like.
Kegler: Our episode content arises organically from what’s happening in the world or the church or our lives, and we go from there. Sometimes we have guests or a series, but often it’s just me and Natalia having the conversations we’d be having anyway—we just hit “record” first.
How did you decide to start the podcast?
Terfa: I met author and podcaster Nora McInerny online in 2016. We very much had a mutual admiration society going, really appreciating each other’s work and passions and sense of humor. That grew into a friendship with deep conversations about life, loss, faith, God. We kept saying “not that kind of Christian”: not homophobic, not for the subjugation of women, not exclusively politically conservative, not unquestioningly committed to a Pollyanna-like view of faith as a perfect solution by which we’re delivered from any trial. But we had to go beyond “not that!” into “yes, this.” We brought in fellow pastor and intrepid podcast producer Matthew Ian Fleming, and Cafeteria Christian was born.
We should be taking our faith seriously enough to doubt, challenge and even reject beliefs and actions when they preach pain or cruelty instead of the good news.
Kegler: Natalia and I are the current weekly co-hosts. I came on board in 2018, and we have a deep bench of regular guest hosts, including DEI trainer and advocate Jesse Ross.
What have been some of your favorite or most memorable conversations on the show?
Terfa: We’ve had so many amazing guests. There are repeat visitors, [as we say,] “friend of the pod, friend of God” people like Ellie Roscher, Meta Herrick Carlson, Colleen Lindstrom, Angela Denker, Janice Lagata. We get to talk with best-selling authors like Kate Bowler and Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu and Erin Hicks Moon. Beth Silvers from [the podcast] Pantsuit Politics visits from time to time, and we talk about faith in the face of our nation’s policies. We truly have the best job to just hang out with incredible people and talk about how we want to do faith better.
Kegler: Honestly, I just love hanging out with Natalia for an hour every week. This podcast has been so sustaining for my heart and soul during really massive transitions in my life—through COVID, through leaving congregational ministry, through the birth of my two children. Every week I get to be in a space where I don’t have to do anything but be honest about the state of the church and the hope of the gospel. I treasure that so much.
How do you hope listeners experience or engage with the podcast?
Kegler: Every episode ends with us inviting our week’s listeners to “take what you like—”
Terfa: “—and leave the rest.” We truly and honestly hope for this every week—that listeners will find something to take and leave, challenge and comfort, pick up and set down. We always hope to be a safe space for open and curious conversations about faith and life and how they intersect, and we think the community we’ve created does that, and we think it’s really special.
What would you like Lutherans, in particular, to take away from Cafeteria Christian?
Terfa: Every week we’re amazed by the community surrounding us. People tune in at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays for our Instagram Live minisermons, we host regular Zoom book groups, we constantly hear from local and national and international listeners that what we’re doing is meaningful and important for them. People are hungry for sincere and intentional conversations about Christianity, for questions to be honored, for doubt to be recognized as a sign of faith.
Kegler: We’re both ELCA rostered ministers, and so much of what keeps us in the Christian church as a whole is tied up in Lutheran faith. Our history and theology is rich with potential responses to the world’s needs, from love of neighbor to dwelling in paradox. Cafeteria Christian gives us the chance to put Lutheran thought to work not just within congregational practice but in every corner of our personal lives and communal world. There are so many people who want to connect with Christianity, even when so much in the church has lost sight of Jesus, and we want to be where they are.
