Embodied Grace: New LSTC Faculty Member Dr. Elyssa Salinas-Lazarski on Sex, Spirituality, and Womanhood

Before a gathering of women reflecting on faith, identity and their own sacred worth, Dr. Elyssa Salinas-Lazarski spoke through story and poetry. She recalled the relationships that had shaped her, including those with her grandmothers, and invited participants to consider a theological truth that is at once deeply personal and universal: Our bodies bear the image of God.

Salinas-Lazarski, LSTC’s new Visiting Assistant Professor and Strategic Alliance Coordinator for the recently awarded institutional Lilly Grant, recently served as a plenary speaker and workshop leader at the 2026 Women of the ELCA Triennial Gathering. Centered on the theme “I Am Worthy,” drawn from Psalm 139:14, the gathering offered participants opportunities for worship, learning, reflection and connection.

“The joy was palpable,” Salinas-Lazarski said of this year’s gathering. “There are people yearning for more gatherings [like this one] to share their faith and learn.”

In her plenary presentation, “Our Sacred Bodies,” Salinas-Lazarski explored how human bodies reflect the image of God. Her workshop, “Claiming My Sacred Sex,” focused more specifically on sexuality, different forms of love and the Christian tradition’s use of erotic poetry as an expression of faith.

“These were vehicles to get the group of about 100 women to consider their own relationships between sex and faith,” she said.

Salinas-Lazarski has written for Women of the ELCA since her time as a seminarian. The organization, she said, has consistently affirmed her writing and perspective, as well as the voices of many other women. When invited to speak at the gathering, she welcomed the opportunity to share her own story while affirming the experiences of those in attendance.

For Salinas-Lazarski, worthiness is not something bestowed by other people or earned through achievement. It is rooted in God’s grace and made visible through the incarnation of Christ.

“I continue to go back to images of God forming us as a potter forms clay, the intention and deep love that lives in our very flesh,” she said. “Worth is connected to value, and what I’ve reflected on is whenever I’ve felt lacking in worth it was because I put my worth in anyone’s hands besides God.”

That understanding grounded both of her presentations. Through theology, poetry and personal narrative, she encouraged participants to resist separating their spiritual lives from their embodied experiences.

“I hope my keynote as well as my workshop sparked conversation on how they can connect their faith to their bodies and sex, that they do not be divorced from their bodies to explore their faith,” she said.

Salinas-Lazarski joined LSTC’s full-time faculty on July 1 as a Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow. An LSTC alumna, she earned her Master of Divinity from the seminary in 2015 and later completed her Ph.D. in Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Her teaching will focus on theology from a Latina perspective and Lutheran theological history.

In her work with the Lilly Pathways Grant, Salinas-Lazarski will help connect the listening conducted by field organizers with the development of LSTC’s Public Church Hub, creating resources shaped by the expressed hopes of African Descent, Latine and queer communities.

“I am thrilled to explore the what if of theological education and listen to what is needed,” she said. “What lies ahead is unknown, but it is the anticipatory unknown that is filled with hope.”

Her message to the women gathered also speaks to the work ahead at LSTC: “They are worthy of God’s deep and passionate love, as the people they are [today] and however they change in the future.”