The Atheist Pentecostal (with Colten Barnaby) | Ep. 65
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[00:00:00] Someone from our book launch team recently shared this quote. Thank you for putting words to so much of what I've experienced, and at the same time the hope I have for a different imagination for what could be what should be end quote. And that's from a 51-year-old pastor. If you've ever felt like the Christianity you were handed doesn't match what the Jesus you read about this book is for you.
If you'd like to read a copy before it comes out, we'd love to have you join our book launch team. You can find out more at edge of the inside.com or at the link in the show notes.
Welcome to another episode of Cabernet and Pray,
where we sip the wine and we stir the faith. And today you are in for a good one. We've got Colton Barnaby, and this is one of those conversations. This could have been four hours long. I didn't even get to all my questions. Such a fascinating person with so many perspectives and you are going to enjoy it today.
Colton has been married to his wife for [00:01:00] 12 years. He's the father of two. He studied church history in undergrad and graduate school at Oral Roberts University. And he's got quite a few stories about that. He makes content on Instagram and TikTok and it hasn't even been that long since he's been doing this and has absolutely blown up because, he offers something that is so compelling and you will see why soon.
He writes weekly on his substack and he's got a podcast called Ask the Next Question. This is a guy who is an incredibly deep thinker. Can translate that in ways that people like you and I can understand, and it is incredible gift that he has to offer. Incredible perspective, and I think you're really gonna enjoy this.
This is episode 65, the Atheist Pentecostal.
I've never shared this with anybody publicly. If this was SportsCenter, that would be like such a hot take. Skip Bayless [00:02:00] would've no idea. Stephen A. Smith would've no idea what to say if you drop that down. That is so good. The joke I always say is like, how'd you learn so much? Gotta drink a lot. The power of food and beverage to lubricate an environment.
Resistance to change is hurting the church. I'm not in the camp that God has a penis or a vagina or a body at all. I'm in the camp that God is at Universal Spirit. This is the strangest podcast that I've been on. I don't even know what to do. I'm kind of geeked up about this wine. This is my second glass, and it delivers a little more of a punch than I expected.
How if I get a little loopy. It's your follow up. You told me to drink it. I just show up. I'll also say, as a confession, I am a lightweight, so I've had like three sips of this wine and I'm already feeling it, so this is fun. You've uncovered the mystery, you've exposed the formula. You've just duct taped together a number of things that aren't normally hanging out together, and I'm here for it.
We're gonna sit down a table, we're gonna have a glass of wine and some food, [00:03:00] and we're gonna talk about the beauty of Jesus. Thanks for what you're doing with this podcast and for the creative way You're doing it in the. Beautiful positive spirit in which you're doing it. I really appreciate this venue, what you're doing.
It is fun, and yet you dig into the deep stuff. I've heard about your podcast for a long time, and I love that you're a pastor and that you explore the world of faith through wine that. Very unique. I never thought of church history in terms of wine drinkers. I love this question. Really got my mind rolling.
You had me with herbaceous notes. I want you to know I'm ready to just stay here and live in the wine tour. I will never forget the first time I bought a bottle of wine. By myself, which was yesterday. If you're familiar with Drunk History, I thought it's like drunk theology, so I, oh, I got a little spicy there.
It's the peach wine. Apparently the wine is, here we are. Here we are. Beer, we are, no, it's wine. Jeremy, by the way, drinking this [00:04:00] peanut regio at three o'clock in the afternoon is making me even more direct in my communication than I normally would be. I know why you have your guest drink wine. It makes sense now.
Yeah, I get it. A little bit of liquid courage should really unleash the beast. I think you've got a good podcast throwing the wine bit in there. That's nice, doesn't it? Cabernet and Prey. Yeah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Well, I've got one of the friendliest faces calling out other people online. Welcome to the podcast, Colton.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Oh no. That can't be what I'm known for.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: This is what my wife and I talk about you. You literally are like throwing down with people, but you are so likable and you've got a smile on your face and it's like. I don't have that. I don't have that quality. If I am going after someone, they feel it and everybody's like, oh, this is intense. You are like, Hey, let's have a hug and I'm gonna tell you why.
This is a horrible ideology. It's amazing.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: hey, we can be friends and, and, and you know, I can smack you down,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: I, yeah, dude, [00:05:00] that's so funny 'cause the, the whole internet culture, I got recently embroiled in a whole thing where I was like, oh, it's getting drawn into drama. And I was just like, I don't want this.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Well, you, you have the skillset for it. And so I'm just gonna do a plug up front, uh, after this episode. Dear listener, you're gonna wanna go check him out on social media. It is worth the follow, the entertainment is on point, but also you have incredible. I don't, I don't know if you wanna call 'em a hot take, but like, you have a way of like, all right, here's a soundbite.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna quickly tell you why it doesn't make any sense and I, I find it fascinating, so
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: thank you man. I really appreciate. That means a lot coming from you. 'cause
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Well, thank you. I.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: respect your work as well, so anytime I can get feedback like that from somebody else, I respect it means a lot.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Awesome. Well, I'm excited to have you on the pod today. We're gonna go all over the place exploring your unique journey, and I'm excited to hear your perspective on stuff. Before we do, we've gotta talk about some wine in our [00:06:00] glasses and so I will start us off and then we'll see what you're drinking today.
I've got a lovely. Gamay Noir is a 2024 from Story of Soil in California. I'm a member of these guys and this thing's beautiful. It's light. It's kind of like a little brother to Pinot Noir, which is my favorite. Uh, but I'm getting some great fruit notes. I'm getting raspberry violet, but then I'm also getting some minerality.
Now, some people want to. I'm about to give a note. Some people are gonna like, what? I'm getting potting soil in this, which is actually very nice. It feels very earthy. Feels like you're drinking something that was from the soil in the best of ways. So I'm enjoying this. This is delightful. That's what I've got in my glass.
Colton, what are you drinking today?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Mean, well, normally, you know, I'm a BOA Box connoisseur. Okay. You know, uh, we, I would never do anything, you know, like yellow foot or tail or whatever they call it. Uh, you know, the high-end stuff,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah. Yeah.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: on Easter we'll pop out the black box box
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Okay.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: [00:07:00] but today, now don't laugh at me folks. I've got, uh, I'm gonna try to pronounce this.
I've got a gara rah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah. You just gotta say it confidently. That's the, that's the secret.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: they'll never
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: They'll never know if you say like, you know what you're saying? They'll be like, all right, that sounds good.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: This is a, a red googly Moly from No, and it's from Esteban Martin, uh, The special wooden crate Variety from Costco.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm. Nice. So do you like it?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Hmm. Let's see. I love it. I love it. Doesn't quite live up somewhere in between boda and black. Um, what notes do I I taste maybe like a grape, a grape flavor?
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: That's the one. That's the one flavor you're not allowed to say.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Hmm. Let's see. I, I would say, yeah, I, I do like the way that it feel like it [00:08:00] falls over the back of my tongue.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Okay. Talking about mouth feel.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: mouth feel. One final sip. I don't wanna say, this is gonna sound crazy. I don't wanna say like eraser, like back of the pencil eraser, but you know, when you're a kid you used to, you, I chewed on those a lot in school and I'm kind of getting a little bit of that,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: I love that. That is a great tasting though. I love it when people make up random, like I'm pulling out a memory of something, tasting notes, and you just did that so.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: of that. It made me think of sitting in Miss SIM's algebra two class, just chewing on a, on the back of a pencil, wondering what is she talking about?
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hey, cheers to you on a great tasting. No, and cheers to you listeners if you are able to enjoy a glass with us on the pod today. Alright, Colton, let's get into it. You and I are both preachers kids,
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: yeah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: but I think you're like a third or fourth generation, right?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Yeah, my, my father is a [00:09:00] Pentecostal pastor. My grandfather and my great-grandfather was a Pentecostal pastor.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Okay, so what was that like being from such a lineage of pastors?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Well, you, you, uh, you know, I had to come up with what I thought was my Jonas story very early on. Right. You know, every good preacher's kid. When they become a preacher, they've gotta have a good Jonah story
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: that they never wanted to be a preacher and that they ran away from God's calling and then God just kind of forced them back into it.
And so that, for me, I spent a lot of time obsessing over, you know, making sure everybody knew I never wanted to be a preacher, even though that was all I wanted to be. Uh, but I think that's like a universal PK experience
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yes, yes.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: And, and you'll notice your pastor probably preaches a sermon like that listeners, right? Uh, not to hate on 'em, it's just is what it is. And, um, but it was interesting 'cause we were pa we were in a church in North Philadelphia that my grandmother and grandfather, they, they moved from South Bend, [00:10:00] Indiana where my great grandparents planted their church, which is we, uh. had their hundredth anniversary a few years ago.
I think it's about 106 years old now that since they planted that church and it's still going, my cousin pastors it today in South Bend, Indiana,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Well, that's cool.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: my grandparents, they toured the country as itinerant evangelists and my, their claim to fame was they preached, he, my grandpa, preached a sermon every day. Seven days a week for seven years. I
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Wow.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: legend or myth. I, I'm sure there had to be a sick day in their summer that they're fibbing about. But that was the deal. And then they moved to Philadelphia once they had their third kid, my father, they were on the road like that with two kids and planted this church in North Philly.
And that's where I grew up. And it was interesting 'cause we were oneness, holiness, Pentecostals. Which means a lot of restrictions. Like women can't wear pants, makeup, jewelry, can't go to the movie theater, not supposed to watch tv, but we were in [00:11:00] one of the poorest and most drug infested dangerous neighborhoods in Philadelphia where my grandparents planted, called Kensington. Go Google it after this and just read some of the, I think the most recent, uh, New York Times article I saw about Kensington, the art. The headline was Kensington, the Walmart of Heroin. And I was like, okay, great. So
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Wow, what a title.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: I know, so most people that came to our church were coming in right off of the street. I mean, we had, we had, uh, girls that just got done work in the ave all night. They would come in in the same clothes that they got done working in and they'd be in church for Sunday service. We'd have guys that were, you know, passing out high on heroin or methadone in the front row. And my family's philosophy wasn't our job is to get them to follow our Holiness standards. It was. We would rather them be in here, in this state than out there in any state. And
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: they wanted to get them into the church. So it was a weird thing, uh, because entrenched [00:12:00] in being a pk, but also all of my friends, all like, all of my day-to-day life, the people that I saw were street people. You know,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: we were from the hood.
We lived in section eight housing. We didn't come in from the suburbs to do ministry. We lived right there. So it was a wild mix of things.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: So was that a, was that a good experience for you? I mean, you clearly began your young preaching life, so you had to have some favorable, but did, was there moments where you're like, I hate this, this is horrible? Or was it kind of all pretty cool as a kid?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Oh, I, I, you know, I, there were times where I viscerally felt, I hate this, but I had been conditioned to. Not be in touch with my visceral feelings and emotions and to reinterpret them. As you know, we are suffering to build the kingdom. And so there, you, you, I really didn't have any room to understand those feelings as such.
But when you're so poor that you're, you know, heating up a hot water kettle to give your little, uh, an [00:13:00] electric water heater to give your sister a infant sister a bath because you can't afford hot water and people from the neighborhood are bringing you food, uh, that are their leftovers and they're poor.
But you're, that even that poor, there was a lot of feeling of like wishing it didn't have to be that way, which it didn't, it didn't have to be dangerous. Um. But I also learned, and I think I still carry a lot of this with me, that like my life is not necessarily for me now.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: soften that, right?
Because I think our lives in some ways are for us, but it's not just for us. We're meant for others as well. So, I mean, I have a complex relationship with, with that, and Jeremy, interestingly, this past March of 2025. Our church building, which was built in like 1840s, big stone, beautiful cathedral. It was a Methodist church originally, um, burnt to the ground. It took a hundred firefighters two hours to put the fire out [00:14:00] in, in Philly and. That was so I wrote about it on my substack 'cause it was so symbolic for me in so many ways of like, kind of like the end, like the true end of a chapter of my life, but also emotional because that was where I spent all of my days, right?
Like we were always in that church building. And so it was the, the last stable that represented my childhood was gone. Very complex emotions around that. But yeah, there was good to it and there was a lot of bad to it.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: So one of the things as, as a preacher's kid growing up, I've heard about you, is that you are a Bible quizzing champion.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Oh yeah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: I wanna hear about that experience and I think there's probably the mag, probably the majority of listeners to this podcast have no freaking clue what that is and are like a what He did.
A what? So enlighten us. What is a Bible quizzing champion.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Man, I went all the way to the Bible bowl. You know, like we, we, we did the thing. So Bible quizzing [00:15:00] was, and I gotta imagine people in other denominations do this. I was in the United Pentecostal Church, the UPCI, they had a whole kind of league for Bible quizzing set up. Uh, and you would compete against other churches locally and then within your state, or we call it our district, and then you would go beyond that. Bible quizzing was the, the process of committing large portions of scripture to memory. You had to have a lot memorized and you would go to these competitions, there'd be four or five of you, uh, sitting behind a table facing the audience, and there was a moderator or a game controller, whatever you call 'em, sitting in front of you, and there was a box little controllers linked to it where you would press a button and it would light up. And so you, you had to hit that button first. To be the first light to light up to get your first chance at answering the Bible Quiz in question.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: there were two BA basic different kinds. It would be, they would either start quoting a verse, it could be any random verse in the Bible, and your job was to [00:16:00] tap the buzzer and finish quoting the verse before anybody else could.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Oh, not just say what it was. You had to finish it.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Finish it. Yeah, finish it and say, and say the citation for it, uh, the reference and then, or, and then they would've one where they would just say the reference and you had to hit the buzzer and then quote the verse. And so, uh, yeah. That, that was it. And I, you know, I was just, my whole life was like church stuff, so I didn't do, even do competitive sports or anything, but like
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: You did a
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: like.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Bible link.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Saying the books of the Bible faster than anybody else. This is where I found my worth and value as a child. How fast can I say all 66 books in the Bible.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: What translation did you use as as a Bible? Quizzer.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: we were King James. Only
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Oh man.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: King James. Only you know.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: So you're a little kid rocking old English.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: So you know what's interesting about that? To see you today? So obviously I didn't know that version of you,
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Yeah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: it sounds like you were able to thrive in that [00:17:00] environment and there is a parallel today.
You're using the same skillset in a very different way with what you do on your social media. Do you see parallels of that? Of like, Hey, I was kind of using that, using that ability, but I'm, I'm not applying it the same way.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: A a hundred percent. Absolutely. You know, uh, almost everything that I do with my social media. Um. The skills that I needed to be able to do that decently well. I got as a child,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: the information that I then now in input into those skills came in university and after studying throughout life. But, you know, I like my posts, I all think about them, is basically like structuring a sermon.
Like every good sermon's gotta have a good title, at least in our denomination. Like, you know, if a good preacher would have a good title that caught you, that intrigued you and made you think, what could this even be about? And it was even better if it sounded like it was something bad. But you flipped it into being something good, then you gotta have three points as you go.
So I, I kind of structure all of my content like that. And I think that the, my ability to [00:18:00] memorize and learn the text early on really helped me to retain a lot of the knowledge that I had later. And I, and I think I have a thing called I a Fantasia. I've never been tested for it, but I learned about, have you heard of a Fantasia?
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: I have not. What is this?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: So a Fantasia is now a documented condition where. Some people, most people are able to imagine pictures in their head. Uh, so if I say, think of an apple, you can think of an apple. If I tell you, think of your, your wife's face, you can think of her face. I can't do that. I have no image inside of my head.
There's no I, it's just blank. When I tried to imagine a picture, like a visual image, and I didn't understand that when everyone else says, imagine this in your head, that they were really doing it, I thought it was just like. Symbolic language or something, and then you know it in adulthood, I realized, oh, these people are really seeing pictures in their head.
I don't, one of the things that a lot of people with a Fantasia do is we kind of deal in words a lot more, [00:19:00] and so I, you know, I, I think I've always had an affinity for remembering the content of things because my brain isn't clouded with the images of things. I don't know. I, think that has something to do with it.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: That is fascinating. 'cause I, I will say, when I watch some of your videos, I, I'm, I, I so myself, the reaction like, you are just smarter than I am. Because you are able to take something super complex and then it's like, all right, here's a huge idea. I'm gonna boil it down real fast for you and then like, make sense of it and I watch you do it.
And it's like. Holy cow. Like you, you'll take a, an entire book, you'll take an entire theology or something and you'll just boil it down to some, you know, application point. So it's fascinating if, if you're connecting like, Hey, I don't see these images, you know, I don't see pictures, I just see these ideas.
But like, man, good on you then, because you have figured out how to, how to use that as a, as a skill rather than a weakness.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Or Thank you man. I, you know, I, it's hard to, it's hard to [00:20:00] hear compliments like that 'cause I'm so mean to myself internally. I'm still working on that. Uh, but yeah, you know, I'm really, I've always been very passionate about, explaining things clearly to people and understanding them as clearly as I can.
And I think a part of that, Jeremy, was the background. Being a oneness. Holiness Pentecostal means we were at odds with almost all of Christiandom because to be oneness meant we rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: So my family for four generations of being pastors, did not believe in the Trinity. Our entire denomination with hundreds of thousands of ministers in the denomination, thousands of churches across the US do not believe in the Trinity.
And so I wanted to, I believed with everything in me If you wanted to be saved, you had to do what Pete? What? What, uh, what he said, what Peter said in Acts 2 38. Repent, be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And ye will receive the [00:21:00] gift of the Holy Spirit the name of Jesus.
So that was what the distinction was. Trinitarians baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: in Jesus name only. Sometimes you'll hear us referred to that way, and I'm not, uh, Trinity, I'm not oneness anymore. But you would hear it referred to that way. And, uh, you know, the Jesus name only folks. I, I felt like it was incumbent upon me to be able to witness to other fight fake Christians, false Christians, the majority of them who were on their way to hell. And when I went to Oral Roberts University, that was my mission. I went there in my mind and with my and my dad's mind as a missionary to everybody at OU that was going to hell to
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: What a,
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: them
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: a take.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: of Jesus name only baptism and, and try to get as many of them bti rebaptized as I can.
And I can think of, at least off the top of my head. One megachurch pastor today with a 15,000 person megachurch, who I helped get, uh, convinced to get rebaptized in Jesus name only [00:22:00] while I was at OU. So I try, I tried to be as effective as I could, and so it was like, I was like, well, these are really complex ideas.
I've gotta be able to explain this as clearly as I can, or they will go to hell and then it'll be my fault.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: And so I, that meant I had to understand the concept really well, so I tried to break it. And so I've always just had that passion for. Asking the next question, right? Like the first Stones that kind of default started to fall for me, were going to the movie theater because I was asking at youth conference, like when the questions and answer sessions, Hey, I know going to the movie theater is bad. I believe it. I'm not arguing with it, but I don't understand why, and I need you to help me understand why. And they'd give me the answer and I'd be like, well, what about this? And eventually they would just get mad thinking I'm being
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: I was actually just trying to make sure I could defend it. people to help them stop going to the movie theater so they wouldn't go to hell. 'cause that was like a salvation issue even,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah. It's so interesting in, in so [00:23:00] many traditions, and you're reminding me of being in junior high. I, I was always very curious. And so, you know, as a preacher's kid, I had a dad that I could be like, Hey, explain this theology to me. Or like, I don't understand this, or, you know, whatever. And thankfully for my childhood, that was never discouraged.
It was never like, Hey, stop asking those questions. But I remember one time getting in a conversation with a Mormon girl who sat next to me. And you know, she would say these things like, well, Mormons and Christians are exactly the same. And I was like, you know, not about to tolerate that as a junior high.
Very good Christian, you know, evangelical. And uh, so I remember I was like, no, actually there's a lot of differences and you know, here's some of the things that like you believe that we don't believe. And she's like, well, we don't believe those things. And I'm like, you do believe those things. And so I'm like telling her, you know, this and, um, this is, I look back on this and I'm like, I'm just such a different person now.
But I made a little packet for her, like a three page packet of just Bible verses that were all things that she didn't know were in the Bible, that were like issues with what she believed. And I gave it to her and, and it was like on a Friday, and I was [00:24:00] like, Hey, just read this over. I'm like, this is all in the Bible, you know, whatever.
She comes back that Monday and I was so excited to like, all right, let's talk about it. And, uh, I kid you note, she's like, um, my, I, I talked with my bishop about it. I'm like, oh. And uh, she's like, I'm not allowed to talk to you anymore, uh, about, about faith. And I was like, because of bible verses, like literally.
And it was like, yeah, like just shut it down. It's, it's sadly I've realized, you know, as an adult and have learned a lot more of these kind of stories, it's so much a part of so many faith traditions of, you know, this is the way we believe it. We don't believe it that way. And depending on how you ask the question, or if you ask too many, and you know, you, you strike me as someone who's just naturally curious, as am I, that's a liability.
If you have that personality growing up in a lot of these spaces.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Yeah, and it's like, it's personally threatened to the person you're asking, be threatening to them because they don't actually know,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: they've positioned themself as the person who knows [00:25:00] things. And now you are th what's not being communicated is you are now threatening to expose them,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Right,
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: only in front of you, but potentially in front of other people and to themselves as somebody who doesn't know the things that they. to No.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: right.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: if you ask too many now, I, I will say, uh, to, you know, uh, for my dad's sake, he never told me to not question. In fact, he would wa I, now looking back on it, he would wind me up and send me off to these things he like. You know, he always encouraged me to ask, he bought me a book on world religions when I was 12, and he is like, Hey, I want you to know to be a Christian like me, but not because I am, but because you got there on your own.
That was like
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: a value that he instilled in me, he would set me loose. I think my family always kind of pushed the mold in our denomination. Jeremy, I remember being a youth. And my grandfather used to be the general superintendent of our, of our, of our state, of our district, and there was like a lot of internal politics.
It's so like political enemies of my [00:26:00] grandfather. Other pastors, uh, saw that my hair was below my ear. Now, for guys, one of our holiness rules was your hair. You needed to kind of have white walls, like you couldn't have hair long enough to touch your ear. You couldn't have long hair or facial hair. And so they, they saw that at the youth camp.
It's like a week long youth camp thing. And. They pulled me aside, they pulled my grandfather into a meeting with like a bunch of other pastors and they were like, pastor Barby, like he, your grandson needs to have his hair shaved. Like, we need to cut his hair. They had like, they had like clippers like
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Oh, right on the spot, huh?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Yeah. Like they were trying to like make like some kind of like statement
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Okay.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: and, uh, because my grandfather had a TV and that was like a big problem. And, uh, my grandpa, I'll never forget, he's just like, okay, we'll sha we'll shave his head. As long as anybody in here who has hair below their ears agrees that they'll all shave their heads as well.
And everyone's like, they're looking at each other, no hair below their ears. They're all like, okay, great. And I feel like this is, like, my grandfather was like a Jesus moment, like confronting the Pharisees, you know? And he goes, alright, well it's time to inspect [00:27:00] everyone. Pull down your pants, take off your shirts, and lift up your arms.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: No.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: as a kid, but later is explained to me, right? Like they all have armpit hair and pubic hair. They all have hair below their ears. And so he was saying like, if you wanna come at us about the letter of the law right now, because my 8-year-old grandson, or 7-year-old grandson has hair touching his ears, then we're gonna go by the letter of the law. And so that kind of always taught me to push things a little bit that that spirit was in my family,
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: That's an incredible story.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: you know?
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Oh, I like that.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Yeah.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Okay, so you've got this huge foundation, very steeped in generations of this. Fast forward to you as an adult. Uh, you have described that your faith in God. To use your phrase, fell apart is, is how I've heard you describe it. Talk us through that journey. How do you go from all of this?
All the curiosity, all the certainty, all of the I know, all I know to now going Yeah. That, [00:28:00] that didn't work anymore. What was, what was that like? What, what triggered that for you?
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Great question, and people have asked me before, when did you lose your faith? And I, I feel like it's such a strange question, right? 'cause it's like, well, when did you lose your keys? You don't know. 'cause if you knew they wouldn't be lost, you'd be able to go back exactly to where they were.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Right.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: it's hard to say precisely when I lost my faith or belief in God. And I think about faith and belief a little differently too, but I can trace a sketch of it, right? So I get to, oh, are you? I'm very confident in what I believe. And a couple of things start to happen now. I always say, if I had not gone to ORU. an equivalent type school. If I had gone to a non-religious, like secular state school today, I would be a Christian nationalist fundamentalist, aspiring televangelist.
Like that's what I would be doing with my life. And, um. I say that because I went to this college I, my whole life, I felt like I [00:29:00] was trained in an apologetic approach to be able to defeat whatever Atheist professor tried to persuade me of evolution. When I got to college. I was ready to destroy them and convince 'em that the earth was 6,000 years old. But instead, I got to a Christian university with Christian professors. professors that spoke in tongues. Everyone, that's the kind of vibe of ORU, right? Tongue talk and holy roll and born again heaven bound believers in the liberating power of Jesus' name and whatnot. And they, you know, they are biology professors who PhDs in biology and so they're like, yeah, evolution is real. I'm like, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're not an atheist guy telling me you believe in evolution. You're a tongue talking charismatic, evangelical Christian telling me you believe in evolution. You got, so, I was more, a little more open, a little more inquisitive. Inquisitive. My, my guard in defense was a little bit further down. I went into the, all, all of the dorms at or u have a student chaplain and then there's a head chaplain. And I went into the head chaplain's [00:30:00] room. He's the senior getting ready to graduate, his name was Michael Romero. Love this guy. And he's got a picture posters, this is in 2007 going into the oh 7 0 8 election time.
So this is during the primary, uh, or right towards the end of the primaries. Of the primaries, and he's got a Barack Obama and a Hillary Clinton poster on the wall.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: I'm like, is this a prank? is this? You're a Christian. You can't have a Brock and I come to find out he's a Democrat. Several of the other students from his church in Austin, Texas that came were Democrats, and that kind of exploded my mind.
I would've never entertained anything from a Democrat before. And then I take church history 1 0 1. I was trying, I was there to study pre-law. I took a one church history 1 0 1 class. 'cause people said, Hey, this is a rigorous class, this is really good. And I was like, alright, well I want to know more about the beginning of Christianity to so I can show people why we have the faith of Paul and Silas and it's good enough for us.
So why isn't it good enough for you? Leave your Trinitarian ways and be rebaptized in
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: [00:31:00] Leave your Trinitarian ways, you pagan.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: And uh, and then. I take this church history 1 0 1 class from the most, the loveliest man I've ever met named Dr. James Shelton, who's a Catholic, Pentecostal, or a Pentecostal Catholic. The guy who starts off Pentecostal gets persuaded of the, the, that the Catholic church is the one true church and embraces that kind of post Vatican II charismatic renewal within the Catholic Church. So he's got the best of both worlds rocking for him over there and. I start to be exposed to the writings of Ignatius and and Clement and Polycarp and Justin Martyr, right? Inter tullian, and I'm going, man, almost everything these guys are saying, not just the Trinity piece. So much of it stands in such stark opposition to what I believe. But I think so am I to believe that me, Colton, in the 21st century [00:32:00] am am the one to stand over and judge these men, many of whom were either trained by apostles themselves or by the, by the students of the apostles themselves. They're within one to two generations of Jesus that I'm to judge them and tell them, and I became persuaded that, you know, I, I shouldn't just believe anything an early church father says because they're an early church father.
In fact, there was a lot of diversity of thought and opinion. There, but that it, whatever they believed that seems to con like work together. If it stands in stark opposition, then I should hold my current belief in a high suspicion. So the first thing that fell apart for me was reading Greg Boyd's book, This Pentecostals in the Trinity, I don't know a lot of people even know he wrote that book.
I, I know you're very familiar with Greg Boyd's work, right? You
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yes.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: know him.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Yeah, he's, he's been a mentor to me for many years.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Okay. I, I've never met him, but he's been a mentor for me for many years as well. he came outta the same denomination. I came out of the United Pentecostal Church. I don't know if, has he [00:33:00] ever told you about that? I don't know if he talks about his teenage years.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: We, we, he has, but he has so many stories spanning so many traditions that it's like hard to keep up with him.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: can't get it all. So he, he came out of that, you know, he goes to, I don't know, what do you go to like Princeton or Harvard or Yale or something for divinity school.
I mean like incredible pedigree, uh, of education. And he comes out a Trinitarian and he writes this book won this Pentecostals and the Trinity. And I read it and it just shook me
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: the core that coupled with church history 1 0 1, I changed my major to church history.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Wow.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: I embraced the doctrine of the Trinity at that point in my life. And you know, he influenced me in many other ways, right? He's the first person to ever introduced a question that has remained unbelievably fundamental to my pursuit of understanding, which is what makes God praiseworthy.
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: Okay, God might be God, he might be the most powerful, but that doesn't make him worthy of praise.
That doesn't make him good. What is it about the character nature of God [00:34:00] that not only makes us fear him, but want to praise him? So Greg Boyd really for me was this kind of, this nexus, his whirlwind. I think I was a youth pastor for six years. I think every sermon I ever preached was just watching his sermon from the week before, taking notes and then ripping it like entirely to
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: I think a lot of, a lot of preachers have done that. Yeah.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: And so, and maybe that's where I got a decent at, like explaining things. 'cause he's such a good communicator already, so he's already distilling stuff that's complicated down to a, a great level. And then I would then take that and try to distill that down for middle schoolers and high schoolers and
jeremy_1_01-22-2026_131208: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_1_01-22-2026_141208: and college age students, you know, and, and try to try to deliver that there. So that that journey, once I realized the fundamental building block, that my entire principle of foundation of faith, like the biggest salvation issue was unsettled. I thought, you know what? I'm not here to win an argument. I'm not in life to have been right and. [00:35:00] Defend what I believe. I wanna understand my, my uh, uh, from Bible quizzing days.
The fundamental verse in my life has always been, I think it's Proverbs four, seven. I'm a little, I say probably I'm a little shaky on my Bible quizzing these days. Problems four, seven, which says, in all thy getting, get understanding. And I've always felt like, man. No, I can get all this other stuff, but if I don't get understanding, if I don't get wisdom, if I don't, why should I be scared to pull at the root of truth?
And so I just pulled at that route and pulled at that route and I continued to follow that to where I'm at today. And I think there's a lot of steps in be between here, but if we could sketch from that to David Bentley Hart's book, that all shall be saved. Um, reading that. I felt like I was losing my faith, like I had lost my faith.
I was wor, I was on staff at a Hillsong church in Chicago, uh uh, during this time and. I'm, [00:36:00] I'm reading David Bentley Hart's book. I I already, you already, you, you ever, like, you arrive places internally, but you don't know how to defend them, so you don't really even admit it to yourself. So I'd already be really felt like I couldn't embrace a doctrine of eternal damnation and, and, and, and it felt like I needed to embrace universal salvation as a doctrine.
I had already felt like beyond that I didn't really believe in God. But it was that book, specifically the line of reason, because he does such a good job in that book of annihilating, in my opinion, all doc, all, all every doctrine or philosophical framework to support the, what he calls the infernos view or the view of a hell of eternal conscious dormant.
It gave me the confidence to be like, all right, yeah, this is what I believe too.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: And then so and so David Bentley Hart does such a phenomenal job of defeating all of the infers ideas around hell of eternal conscious torment. Especially gave me the confidence to say, I trust my inner sense, my intu [00:37:00] intuitive sense of right and wrong. Because before he gets into all of his great. Uh, hermeneutical arguments, exegetical arguments, philosophical arguments. He tells a story where he is reading the story about Abba MCC Carious, a desert father, and he's going, wow, this desert father has more compassion and grace than God does in the story. I would never send anybody. To a hell of eternal conscious torment or something for not assenting intellectually to a certain worldview. wrong with this God?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: So that gave me this sense of confidence in stepping out a little bit. But between that and his book, the Doors of the Sea, in which he confronts the problem of evil, or what we call the Odyssey, he gets to the end. Essentially says there is no good thessy. There is no good theology around the suffering of evil. That explains it away.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: awful. It's bad, it's unjustifiable, we really don't know. I really don't know how to talk [00:38:00] about it, and I'm sympathetic to anybody who doesn't believe in God because of that. Now, between that and that all shall be saved, when he gets to that, all shall be saved. One of the arguments that he makes there is there's this, um. This appeal usually in the Infernos camp, people who believe in a hell of eternal conscious torment that appeals to like our sense of freedom, that while God loves us, he gives us freedom. He's a gentleman. C. S Lewis, the gates of hell are closed, locked from the inside, not the
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm. Right.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: type deal. And so you choose hell. God doesn't choose health for you and David be Hart's like, well that makes no sense, right? Like that would be an insane per no sane person would choose a hell of eternal conscious torment over eternal bliss.
If they choose it, it's because they think they're choosing something else, [00:39:00] which means. They weren't actually making the real choice so that God is then making them choose between something they don't fully understand or letting an insane person make an insane choice that they then have to suffer forever.
And that's a very depleted, watered down version of his argument. It's much more robust, so don't judge him on my
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: But I think you're, I think you're spot on. That to me is the most brilliant part of that book that got me over the line that I was, 'cause I was like, God wouldn't negate free will. And then the way he explains free will in that book, I was like, oh my gosh, this is it. Like, this is free will, you know? So yeah, you're, you're spot on on that.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: So, and, and, and then, so I basically get to that point and then I, but then I go, well, why don't we extrapolate this out even further? I would never create knowing that it would lead to the suffering of my creation. Like, here's
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I mean. If I, if I could, and I can't see the future, but if God can quote unquote see the future, which I know Greg Boyd has an answer for this, right? it, but like, if I could [00:40:00] tell or to use better language, uh, for, uh, those of you who read Greg Boyd before, understand process theology, open theism. If I could understand. With a perfect clarity every probability as though it were a certainty and project out into the future. All of the different ways this could play out.
If I know that having a baby today, if we conceive today, it has X amount of probability to lead to this child's suffering, tremendous torment, being taken, abused, and then dying in early death, where all of their suffering can never actually convert or turn into anything that builds character. 'cause people always like to say, well, suffering builds
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah. Yeah.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: builds character. I wouldn't have that child. I'd wait till tomorrow. I'd, I'd use my probability inducing ways to find a time that
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: where, where the probability would decrease or if I couldn't find that, I would not create.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: And so for me it's about account creation and accountability. God who creates knowing that there's a good chance. [00:41:00] Right. David or David Bison, I, I dunno if you're familiar with him. He's my favorite singer songwriter. I
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: listen to hip hop and black gospel music, but I also listen to David Bison. He's like the
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: He, he has like a, I forget what he calls it, like a dark Christmas album or something that I play every year. I have a record of it.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Yes. Okay. I love that you are familiar with with David. So he has this song on his cursor branches albums called Did You Push Us When We Fell? Where he says, when you set the table, when you chose the scale, did you write a riddle that you knew they would fail? Did you make them tremble? So they would tell the tail, did you push us when we fell? Even if you go outside of Calvinism, which is the doctrine, he's clearly critiquing there. you just say, did you know this probably would happened? Then you kind of push us when we fell, man, and it became very hard for me to affirm belief in the divinity of goodness. [00:42:00] Um. Now since then, right? Not since then a applying that then to understanding what I know about classical theism, which rejects that kind of anthropomorphized vision of God.
I'm critiquing right there. Right and says, God is not a individual like you or me as a created being that think in time and space and therefore make deliberative decisions or have a deliberative will, but God instead is the ground of all being the source of all goodness. He is will itself, all of our will and personality flows from the personality and will of God. different. I got to the point now where I can even, I can accept that as a reasonable explanation and description of God. The only thing keeping me from saying, okay, I believe again is, I don't know, dude, I lost somewhere in the middle. All that I lost my faith.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I can like find, I found like what I think is an intellectually [00:43:00] verified, like discernible, credible way of understanding God in a way that doesn't make him a monster. I just haven't been able to pick it back up again,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: open to it. I talked to a lot of the, my Christian friends or people that I talk to will tell me, you know, um, you know, I'm praying that you find your faith again. Some people will be offended by that. In the atheist community, I consider myself an atheist.
I'm like, okay, great. Like, you believe in this, you want it for me, it's, you think it's good for you? I hope I find it too, but I'm not gonna pretend like I did.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Do you think it's, it would, it would feel like intellectual dishonesty to you to do that? Is that, do you think one of the rubs,
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: it would feel like, you could call it intellectual dishonesty. I might just call it dishonesty
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: it, you know, like it would feel like I was lying to other people, like I was lying to myself. If God ends up being real, like I'm lying to him, like, like, so let's just think about it like this. If God, if God is real, who are we fooling here? I, he knows I either believe or I don't believe I could pretend to [00:44:00] believe Tull and Blue in the face. It doesn't change anything. And there's a, there's a professor at a Florida University, university of Florida. I think he was at Georgia before named Neil. Um, oh man, I can't believe him. Um, I'll think of it in a minute.
He's fantastic. But he has this great book called is Make Belief. And, uh, I'm gonna feel terrible because I know this guy's, uh, name so well, and now it's slipping me. I really like him. Uh, he was on Dan McClellan's podcast not that long ago, talking about his book, uh, af After I made a video about it, I was like, uh, I'll let my narcissistic side believe that Dan saw my video and then decided, which is definitely, definitely not what happened. where he makes this distinction between beliefs and credences. And so he says he thinks that a lot of people who believe in God don't actually believe in God. They have religious credences that they hold to. Things that they credly believe. But when you really get down to brass [00:45:00] tacks, their actions in the way they live in the world, not just in one instance, 'cause you might have one instance of infidelity to your true beliefs, but in almost, nearly every instance, don't hold up to actually believing in that.
Like I, for example, the tradition we grew up in believed in radical healing. So you lay hands on somebody with faith in Jesus' name, they will be healed. We will raise the dead. You know, you got, um. What's his name? Smith Wigglesworth out here, uh, in crusades punching armless. Babies and arms are growing out of the babies new arms.
You know, I mean, we believed this stuff. Yet every time I was severely injured, in addition to praying before they, before they stopped to pray for me, they called 9 1 1 to get the ambulance out
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Right.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I'm not saying you can't believe in divine healing and also believe in medical doctors. But if you believe in medical, he divine healing to the extent that like, we can raise the dead. You know, I don't know who, who, who it was. Uh, uh, Tipton. I don't know if you, who Robert [00:46:00] Tipton is the old televangelist. You know, I, the great clip from him where he is like, we've seen midgets grow, which that might be offensive. I'm sorry, I'm quoting you know, if you have that kind of belief in healing, but the first thing you do is call 9 1 1 then. It's kind of, to me betraying that underneath of that credence is your true belief that if we don't get the ambulance here fast, it's gonna get bad.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: You know, you're, you're, you're poking at something that anybody who, who maintains a belief in God has to wrestle with. And it reminds me of a few years back, I don't know if you followed this, but, um, when one of the worship leaders at Bethel had a child that died at like two years old and it was this tragic death, and then her and her husband came out and said, uh, we believe God's gonna resurrect our child.
And they got everybody in the church to pray. And it became. Like this daily update where they would post on social media, Hey, we're praying, you know? And it was like,
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: grotes.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: watching it, it was just gut wrenching because I'm like, here are [00:47:00] two parents grieving, just a senseless loss that, you know, none of us would have any ability to make sense of.
And in their grieving, then they're adding this hope, which intellectually we would say, I understand why they're saying that. Right? Because like you could definitely. Take that from the text, but then emotionally I'm going, don't do this. Right, because like now you're adding a disappointment. And I think that's the tension there of like, we, we say we make room for these things, but we, we kind of functionally act probably more like atheists than we are comfortable admitting.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: a hundred percent. Yeah. And that's what I usually say there is, to the people who really do believe. We call them lunatics.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Right.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: within the church, like the example you just gave, most Christians that do believe in divine healing would look at that and go, what the heck is wrong with you guys?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: You know, I think about uh, fall revival at Oral Roberts where I went to school. Where, I think it was a guy named Daniel Kalinda, an [00:48:00] evangelist, big time evangelist over in Africa and all around the world, and he brought my friend on stage. I won't say my friend's name, who is deaf in one ear, is there, he's gonna do healings.
Is there anybody out there who's deaf? Well, my friend raised his hand. People point to him, he gets brought up on stage and they start praying for him to hear, and they're snapping in his ear. Can you, and it doesn't happen. Now, now normally you're gonna see the power of suggestion is strong enough. I think my friend might have had enough late night conversations with me in the dorm to not fall praise easily to that.
I think it might been what was happening there. poked out of a little too much. um, everybody was mad at this evangelist. Everybody was mad. The school administrators were mad. The professors were mad. The, the student, uh, you know, uh, leadership was mad because. He humiliated him, made him look like it was his fault 'cause he didn't have enough faith, blah, blah, blah. Yet what else was he supposed to do? If we all say we are here [00:49:00] at Oral Roberts Universities, that one of the premier healing evangelists in history, oral Roberts, is we're at his school and we're saying we're gonna heal his ear. And I could, I, I just, I knew right then, I was like, nobody here believes that God's gonna hear that.
You hope it happens, but there's a difference between hoping something. Wanting something to be true and believing that it is true?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm. That's so good. Colton, what, and share as much or as little as you feel comfortable with this, but
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Hmm.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: has been your family's response to this journey of yours?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Great question because it's so,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Um.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: it's hard to say because so many of the positions that I've arrived at, I arrived at over time, the, the, the publicly saying, I don't believe in God thing. in July a me, I, I told my friends that my wife knew that, but me saying it on social media started in like July of this last year, 2025. So, but all of the things that I would [00:50:00] talk about theologically, I was there already, like on most of this stuff a long time ago. And so my family on that side of things, my mom just like listens to anything I say and usually changes her mind to believe what I believe
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: She's reasonable and rational, but she also holds the thing like, you know, I don't, she still believes in divine healing.
She would tell you today that God healed her of cancer. you know, I don't know. I don't know what to say to that. Right. You know, maybe he did or he didn't. Right. But she believes that, I don't necessarily feel strongly about that as, as somebody who doesn't believe in God at all. But, um, my dad less interested in talking to me about the things that we disagree with,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: We don't need to argue, we don't need to disagree. Still a strong bond of love. You know, like I love my dad and mom to death. They love me to death. They've always told me, since a young kid, no matter what you believe or what you think, you're always our son. First and foremost. I was like, and I [00:51:00] think that gave me a lot of confidence to step out and just question things.
Honestly today saying I don't believe in God. My mom is like concerned, worried, know? Uh. But no change in connection or relationship. My dad has never addressed any of the things I've said online since I started posting online in July, which is when I started that, when I posted my first video on Instagram or on TikTok and then Instagram in August. Um. So I know we disagree. We just, you know, I, I, here's, I, here's how I feel about it. I, I'm interested in talking about these things with anybody. I would love to talk to my parents about these things.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: What? You know, what do I think? Like I'm right about everything and they're wrong about everything. And if I convince 'em to agree, agree with me on everything something's radical is gonna change in the world.
No. Like they're getting old. They believe what they believe. I love 'em. Right? to influence younger people more than I want to influence people that are, you [00:52:00] know, on that second half or last third of life. You know?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: hopefully they live 50 more years, but you know.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's. For a lot of people listening to this, that's where this gets very personal is when you start, and it doesn't have to be full-blown, you know, I, I, I am an atheist now, but just saying, Hey, here's this thing that my, my tribe has believed and I don't believe that thing anymore.
Like I think, you know, when I changed my view because of the same book you're referencing was the final Straw, David Bentley Hart's book, um, that was the final view where I was like. I, I believe this. And like, he, he gave me the intellectual permission to like, make sense of it fully. You know, and I always joke about, like with Greg Boyd, that Annihilationism was my gateway, gateway drug.
'cause like, that's how I got out of eternal conscious torment, you know, because it was like, all right, I can put a, a foot in this camp and it doesn't feel totally heretical. Um, but the moment I said, yeah, [00:53:00] actually I'm not an annihilationist anymore. I am, you know, Christian Universalist. It was like, whew. I mean, just walls go up and you know, people in a lot of the evangelical circles I come from probably don't know if they would consider me a Christian anymore because of that.
And so I think people have this where it's like, okay, we're exploring these ideas and it's fun to have a glass of wine and talk about. These ideas on a podcast where there's, there's no hate here. There's just love and openness and like, let's discuss this. But when these ideas get carried out into family dynamics and friendships, it's like, and I, I mean, I get messages, which I imagine you do too, but I get messages every single week from people like, Hey.
Here's what I'm going through. I got a message today, this morning, someone I was, I was talking about how do you navigate if, if someone you love is has become Christian nationalist. And someone messaged me and said, what do you do if it's your spouse?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Yeah.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: And I could just like feel the weight of that, of like, this is the person I love the [00:54:00] most.
You know, it's like, who has gone down this road? And then it's like, how do I then navigate it? And so I think. Ideas have consequences. Right? So it's like, it's not like we have these ideas in a vacuum. We, we have 'em relationally. And so I think it's helpful. I'm just grateful that, you know, you've, you've shared so much of your story with us today and just the dynamics of what it's meant to you.
'cause I think for a lot of people, they just need to know it's okay to, it's okay to change your mind. It's okay to have people that maybe struggle with where you land.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Yeah, and I think, don't close your mind. Like, I'm not, I, I'm not like, I'm an atheist now and I'm gonna argue and debate Christians and convince 'em that, you know, I just, man, do you have something new you can teach me? Maybe I have something new I can teach you. I just wanna understand things better.
Whatever the truth is. I'm not afraid of it. And I think, I think that's just so Im important, but I get that alienation and that fear. In fact, the reason Jeremy, are we trying to wrap right now? I don't know. Are you, do you want me to stop talking?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: No, this is good.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: That was such like a good, like [00:55:00] the way you did all of that.
Right? Then it was like this, this is
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: That's just me like having a heart moment going, like, I'm just connecting. So many people are gonna hear you and be like, oh, man, that's, that's my journey to some extent.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: You just did it so well. I was like, this might be a wrap. Oh, that was really good. Um, so, you know, like I, um, the reason I posted in July and the reason I started a substack was I had not talked publicly about any of my beliefs politically, theologically. In 13 years, I'm, I, I'm a financial advisor.
That's what I do full time. People are always like shocked when I
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: That is shock. I'm gonna be honest with you.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: and um, you know, 'cause I worked at a church for six years. Great church. I'm friends with the people Pastor Ed Gungar. Um, and you know, they got Dr. Chris Green and Jonathan Martin. Were like teaching pastors while I was there and I just, I loved everybody there. They fired me [00:56:00] and uh, uh. I still went to church there for six years after they fired me,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Wow.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I got a job selling cars for a year. I got into financial services and that's just where I was. I applied to work at 30 churches. Everybody at Sanctuary was super gracious to me. It was like a financial reason that they file fired me that lay off.
I think there was more ideological stuff of parents being upset that I didn't tell them. Their, uh, friend from school, their kid's friend from school was gonna go to hell. There was like a problem there. And because he was gay and um. none of the pastors at my that church believed anyways. It just is a problem.
So I applied to work at like 30 churches. Nobody wanted me, and I had great references. Like all the staff at Sanctuary, the church I was at, they all like gave me great references like uh, and. Nothing, man. Just nothing. And those are, there's some hilarious rejection stories in there. I got told
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: wildest stuff.
I felt like, why? Why I didn't get chosen. so I go to work as a financial [00:57:00] advisor, and now I'm in a space where I don't want to alienate potential clients, not because I care more about getting rich than I care about. Truth, but because like I was broke and my wife was teaching first grade in, uh, Tulsa, Oklahoma, like, like the lowest, one of the lowest teacher paying states in the country.
I had $180,000 in student loans from a, the, from two theology degrees. And, uh, you know, I, I was not good at sale, so I was like struggling to make it work and I couldn't afford to lose one client over an opinion, you know? And so. Then as my network grew in, mentors in business, peers in business, all of them are very right wing conservative Christians, like
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: in that like sphere, right? And um, I just was like, man, I don't wanna lose relationships. I don't wanna lose mentors. I don't wanna, and so I just muted myself and I developed this really bad fear of rejection. I even backslid. For a while away from the based good theology I developed. [00:58:00] And then I went to work for a Hillsong church.
Like my wife at this point, she's like, doesn't even believe in God earlier than me. She's like, why are you doing this? Why are you going to on staff at this Hillsong church? Why you're, you know, I was also financial advisor night and I was on staff at this church and it was just like, man, I just. I craved and longed for the approval of the people who I related to and resonated with.
Like that world is my world. Today I call myself an atheist Pentecostal because I, if you wanna take Pentecostal away from, you're gonna pry it outta my cold dead, know, morbid, rigid fingers. Because that is my entire culture and heritage. That is how I see and understand the world. I still mostly listen to Fred Hampton when I'm in the car, or Fred Hammond when I'm in the car.
I always say that on a podcast, anytime I reference Fred Hammond, I say, call it Fred Hampton. I listen to Fred Hampton too, love Black Panthers. And um, you know, I call myself that. I just wanted that approval. But I had realized I was muting myself. I was denying myself. I was never showing up almost [00:59:00] anywhere as the full representation of who I always was.
I was always cutting off castrating parts of my identity my therapist's like, you gotta stop doing this. Me, we, we need to you, you gotta work through this fear. And so he had me take steps. The first step, I started a substack and that was low stakes. Nobody read it. Just like 10 friends of mine would like look at my substack.
And I did that from January through July. Every week I put out a new, uh, article on Substack, just kind of whatever was well on my mind, what I was thinking about. And then July he's like, Hey, let's push this out a little bit further. Why don't you make a TikTok? Nobody follows you. Post a video on TikTok. Just say a, something you're afraid. Everybody that you're afraid would reject you. Would reject you for, uh, and, and put it out there in your style. And I did it. then that video got 2.3 million views
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Gosh.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: and I was like, I'm gonna fire my therapist. He said, nobody would see this. You know, like this is a disaster.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: think he's your business coach actually.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: [01:00:00] Exactly. He's my business coach. He is in many ways, right? Uh, actually, and, um, you know, I, I got Eminem lyrics in my head, right? Uh, this is a, uh, this is a disaster, such a catastrophe for you to see. So damn how much of my ask you ask for me?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: anyways, I don't know. That just happened anyways. And, uh, and then I'm like, all right, well I'll post another one. I'll post another one. And it's just on TikTok. I'm like, most of these people don't have TikTok. And then he is like, dude, this is like you're being your true self and like have invested. 'cause I never stopped reading theology, never stopped
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: philosophy, never stopped reading political theory, just always consumed and talked to my close friends about it and my wife about it, which I'm blessed with a lot of close friends from ORU who understand we have similar backgrounds and developed in similar ways. And so. He's like, this is what you're supposed to do, man. Like do this. And so I just kept doing it. So I'm not saying whoever's out there listening to my voice, I'm not telling you this to say you're supposed to be a or Instagramer. That's not necessarily what I mean. [01:01:00] But you know what? I think there are people that have rejected me because I've done this and I just don't know.
'cause we just haven't talked about it. But I am lucky enough that it's none of the people that I care about the most. And I think a big part of that is because I'm realizing my journey doesn't have to be their journey. I think one of the things that both sides do is we feel like everybody around us has to agree with us. I realized I was afraid of people rejecting me if they knew what I believed. But my therapist pointed out to me, Colton, you know what they believe? It couldn't be further from what you believe, and you're not rejecting them. if you have space for them and they don't have space for you, you're not rejecting them, they're rejecting you.
You can't do anything about
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: That's good.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: you wanna be in relationship with people who only love you for somebody that's not really you, that
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: relationship with you if they knew who you really were or what you really think? you know what? I think for every relationship that I've lost in this process. I've gained that are that that will last [01:02:00] forever. I've built amazing relationships with people that I've just met online from talking about this kind of stuff, and I think if you have that attitude of like, when I'm around my parents, my job, I'm not, I don't care what my dad believes. He's been wrong for 68 years. And I loved him then like, what's it gonna be? You
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Oh, that's amazing.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: So I just, you know, I don't need to bring it up and, and I tell him, I think like the way, what he told me as a child, no matter where you go or what you believe, I'm always gonna love you when I'm with my dad or when I talk to him, dad, I just want you to know how grateful I am for how. Much you gave me and it wasn't anything material, right, because that didn't happen. But like he gave me so much more than material things, you know, I'm grateful for. I tell him all the time, dad, thank you for teaching me the lessons you taught me. Thank you for helping me see the world. Thank you for loving me.
I love you. You're such a great father. I wanna be as good of a father as you and you. You can honor your, your, your, your parents. That way now. people are in situations where just that's not gonna happen because their parents are gonna cut them out. I think that my dad, being a [01:03:00] second, being a pastor's kid himself, he's already disillusioned to a lot of stuff.
You know, like the average churchgoer is almost always, in my experience, devout and extreme in their faith than their pastor actually is at home.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: been around a lot of pastors just like you have. So you might corroborate that or
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah, yeah.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: But yeah.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Man, that's a word for someone today, Colton. That is, that is so good.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Hmm.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I have like a bunch of other questions that I want to ask you that I'm, I would take your entire day, so I'm not gonna do that. We're gonna go to our speed round, which are the questions I ask everybody. Uh, and we get to compare your answers to everyone else's answers.
So we'll start with this and, uh, uh, just for the record, I have some killer questions I wanted to ask you that we don't even have a time for, but you were such a fascinating person. We might have to do round two of this. Okay. So here's where we go. If you were to think about one of the best glasses you've ever had of [01:04:00] wine in your life, is there a story that comes to your mind?
Was it a specific bottle,
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Hmm,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: place people you were with? Do you have anything? What's the best wine you've ever had? I.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Uh, the best wine I ever had. I, I can't tell you what it was called, but I know when it was and I remember tasting it and I remember thinking like, this is the best wine I've ever had. Um, was at a wine tasting, with somebody from the church here in Chicago that I worked at. They hired like a Somalia to come in and they brought in a bunch of wines. They brought in all of these different food pairings that went along with each different wine, and we, they had, they, they had us like, gave us a little notepad. We were,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm. Yes.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: it right, how to get your nose in there, really how to twirl different types of wine and then what to eat to pair with it.
And then he had us like. Write down our tasting notes and then we review them and talked about them. He gave us his tasting notes and it just, there was something about that experience that made every single glass of wine there so much more [01:05:00] enjoyable
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: was so much more present in the experience of tasting them than I had been when I'm just throwing back a boda.
You know what I mean? Uh, I think one, one of the best pictures anybody has for me in college that I wish would get deleted. Is there a picture of, you know, okay, I, you can cut this. If you can need to cut this. I don't know if this is appropriate to say. Oral Roberts University, standing in the middle of the dorm hallway, standing completely naked with a box, with a box of franzi, just like extreme dropping right into my mouth.
Right? So that was how I learned how to drink wine in
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Wow.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: So this experience totally different and I can't, I can't say exactly what it was, but. Um, like what kind of wine? 'cause we tried several different, but there was that, that experience of being like fully present and slowing down, taking time to really like, experience it, it made, I have never drank, drank wine the same since then.
E even,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: drink much alcohol now because of Calor, I'm an extreme calorie counter. I've lost 150 pounds in
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: [01:06:00] Wow.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: and so I just can't usually afford the, like I fasted today until today because I'm gonna have wine. Uh, so I don't really, I don't do it that often, but I, the experience is completely different because I sit, I try to make sure I smell it.
I look it up even after, like, after I've had my first couple of sips. I'll look it up and I'll, so that's my answer to that. I, I, I wish I knew what it was called, but I, I'm not good with that kind of stuff.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: That's an amazing answer. Well done. Alright. Which church or which member of church history would you trust to pick out a bottle of wine for you and who would you not trust and why?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: God, this is a good
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: What like, figure in church
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Uh huh That you would say that person gets to pick you a bottle out to drink, and then one person you're like, absolutely not that person.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I'm gonna give two people that I like.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Okay.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Who I would trust. Gregory of Nisa.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Okay.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I think, have you ever read any of Gregory and NSA's stuff on like where he is talking about like the local culture? It's kind of [01:07:00] interesting. He like writes about, you know, where he was, uh, in Nisa. He's like, there, he, he writes about how like there, how elevated everybody was. At that point in history, which I think now we think everyone's smarter and knows more than they did back then. That's not the case. He's like, you can't bump into a shoe shiner or a delivery boy or a baker that won't debate with you the finer points of christological difference in
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: you know, the, the usia or hypostasis of, of, of, of the Godhead. And they, he's like, they're all debating and arguing these different things. And there there's more to it than that. But there's something that tells me that Nisa appreciated. Culture, right. Education and understanding. Where I think if he was picking out a wine, I, I can't imagine he would just pick one like crazy.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Nice.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I wouldn't trust who I liked just as much, if not more than Nisa, who influenced Nisa, is origin. Okay. Origin one of the one, one of the goats to ever do it. Right. I love, I love talking about origin because people like to say he was a [01:08:00] heretic. Even their idiots, like all, all of the church fathers after NI or after Origin, loved origin. said that he was like one of the best theologians of all time, like up to recently. But despite his theology being so good, he was such like a wild man. Like he was so willing to like Buck, right? Like he, you know, his doctrine that really got condemned wasn't just a pocket of stasis, like universal salvation.
It was the pre-existence of souls, which is like such a wild out there idea for everybody else in Christianity. But he also just took things so like extreme, right? Like I'm pretty sure he castrated himself. was lusting
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Oh, really?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: like one time he like threw himself into a bushel of thorns. He was like so aesthetic in nature.
I can't imagine him enjoying himself and really like really, really knowing you know what to do.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I think Colton, I think as a general rule, if you have castrated yourself, you should not be allowed to pick wine for other people. I, I feel safe to make that rule on this podcast right now.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I, dude, I, I really hope I'm not slandering [01:09:00] origin, like, I hope I'm not like inventing that fact. Yes, he did castrate himself Okay. As a young man because of lust. Okay. I Googled it just now.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah, I feel like you're automatically out of the running to pick wine for anybody from that point on.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: that he puts on my table, you know what I mean? I'll take, I'll take his, his ex approach to understanding God in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, any day reading scripture in the School of Christ. Wine recommendations more.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: that might be one of the most interesting answers we've had yet to that question. Well, well done. All right. You're gonna have a lot of options on the next one. What is something you used to believe that it turned out later you were wrong about?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Everything. Everything. I'll just go. Most recently. You know, and instead of giving you something trivial that came to my mind first, I'll say that you can have socialism in one state. You know, I, I, I, I was, I was on one for a, a for a week or two about China. I was in my China era [01:10:00] loving it. Like, and you know, I think that some of the, what I'm about to say is still correct, but, you know, uh, this idea that China. Embraced the dang reforms and brought capitalism back into the com, into communist China, uh, in order to enhance, uh, uh, industrialization. Because Marx wrote about how you can't have a socialist, communist society without industrializing first. So communism or capitalism might be an a required, a necessary step in the economic development of things.
And so what China's doing is they're on this 50 year plan, which is what they say to get to full communism. There's now they're phasing out capitalism. But, uh, I posted a video about that and I just got roasted by Maoists in my comments who were like, you clearly haven't read Marx's letter to Sulich. You clearly haven't read Mao on Contradiction.
And then I did read those things and I was like, oh yeah. I, I was, I was not really thinking very clearly about how like Marx was writing for a European context and how he said this would develop differently in different cultures and about how Lenin and [01:11:00] Mao are very clear that you cannot have communism or, or socialism develop in a single country, like trying, is trying to do, because if it's surrounded by global capital, it'll either be crushed or be co-opted like Stalin did, uh, with state capitalism in the USSR.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Wow.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: I was wrong. They got me into comments. They changed
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Oh,
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: mind.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I think people are realizing why you're getting a lot of views on social media. Um.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Yeah. I don't, I think most people though, who talk about that stuff, you know, I, I never imagined it would convert, but
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I love it. What do you see as the main issue facing Christianity in America today?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Hmm. Um. Yeah, like as you ask me that question, I think of something and then I'm thinking of what I think is the root of that, and then I'm thinking of what I think is the root of that. So I think theological education, probably the fundamental root, like a lack of theological education, is leading to
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: A dramatic, uh, misfiring in so many [01:12:00] ways that it's hard to then pluck and name them all. And I think that like, I hate this. Concept of like this term deconstruction. And I, I know I sound Britt Hartley, no Nonsense Spirituality called me out for this take where she was like, you're just trying to sound different. I love Britt. She was like, she was like, you're just trying to sound different.
And maybe that's what it is. It's just like when I was like, quote unquote, what we call deconstructing now, that term hadn't been coined. Like that metaphor hadn't been yet misappropriated from darida to mean something that it doesn't even, that darida didn't even mean that it means yet. Uh, and then spread all around the place, but. I, I, it, I was like changing my faith, but my way of thinking about it was I'm learning and growing. I'm unlearning stuff that was bad, and I'm learning stuff that's good. And I'm developing my ability and capacity to interrogate my own assumptions and think differently. And then this idea of deconstructing deconstruction came along, which, as I already said, does not mean what daron means by deconstructing the way that we use it. All of a sudden now it's [01:13:00] directionally focused. I'm dismantling things, and then that leads people to the question of, well, should we reconstruct? Well, no, you shouldn't reconstruct because if you reconstruct, uh, that's a prescription. And, uh, and, and it's like, all right, you shouldn't tell people to reconstruct. don't know. the question? I know this does tie back to your question, I
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: What do you see as the main issue in Christianity today?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: main issue of Christianity, and so like, I think what most people call deconstruction today. Just learning stuff because like, it's like what people who aren't in seminary call learning about theology everyone else that's going to seminary is learning if they're at a good seminary and not just like an indoctrination camp for your denomination, because there's a big difference
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: if you're in a real seminary, you're, you're unlearning, uh, a a lot of bad doctrines.
You know, like I went to OU from my bio. I was lucky. Weird enough. ORU is not a bible college, so they have. It's a D one university that accidentally brings in good professors all the time, despite the [01:14:00] president's, the president of the university. What he wants to do, he's, he's a douche. He's got me banned from all the school social media.
That's a whole nother story. You know, he would, he would, he wishes it was an indoctrination camp, but these people got tenure and so. Uh, we were just learning, getting a theological education from people who were still Christians, pastors even in a lot of cases. But that like, oh yeah, like the Bible has contradiction and contradictions in it.
Yeah. You should read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus. Uh, and your hermeneutic should understand that just because the Old Testament says that God did this doesn't mean God did this. If it looks different than how Jesus looks like all those things that like we're learning in the deconstruction space was just theological education. But
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: it as deconstruction to me, feels so narrow and like limiting and prescriptive, overly prescriptive that I'm just like, if we, and, and, and then it creates defensiveness where people are like, well, don't deconstruct, don't get around that. If we just had a better, like, if we had better theological education, it'd be harder to, to, [01:15:00] to, for people to be drawn into Christian nationalism. It'd be harder for people to be brought into dogmas that harm and hurt people, I think. Right, and even at OU. Right. I had professors that were Catholic charismatics, United Church of Christ, professors, Methodist professors, Greek Orthodox professor, uh, Baptist Professors, Pentecostal professors, uh, Anglican professor, like, and they were all colleagues that worked together.
So when you learn to study theology from that kind of like ecumenical approach that's looking at everything, they're not gonna be constantly insulting their peers in their class. You know, it just created things differently. I think that if I, I, there's few people I know with a good theological education who are c can be Christian nationalists. It's
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: people who went to some indoctrination camp for, you know, some Joel Webb and Guy who recently made a video about how black people aren't educated enough to be pastors. They haven't gone through enough theological education. I'm like, dude, you don't even know anything. Like, let's quiz you.
You know, let's, like, I just want [01:16:00] to do a, I wanna catch 'em live and just do a quiz on theological terms. You know, what does
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Theological terms.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: what is volunteerism and university of
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Oh.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: your theology reeks of it, and you've probably never even heard the words. You don't even know who John's Dun Scotus is, or William Akaka is, and why they destroyed your theology so badly.
Anyways,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I wish you were a little bit passionate about it. That would be great. Let's a little bit passionate.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: an atheist, like so passionate about Christian theology,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: It's, it's what's so fas fascinating. What is something blowing your mind right now that you're learning?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Oh my gosh. Oh, that is such a good question. What's blowing my mind right now that I'm learning, uh, that Steve Bannon is, calls himself a Leninist? Have you heard this?
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Okay. No, I have not.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: So normally you think of Leninism as like a left wing [01:17:00] ideology, right? Like Marxist, Leninist, right? But Bannon like openly refers to himself as a Leninist because he's like, Hey. Well, Marxism is the political pH is the, is the economic philosophy, right? Uh, materialist philosophy. And, uh, Leninism is like the political strategy to bring that about plus more of the philosophy on top of, but in large ways it's a political, uh, philosophy of, of structuring revolution. And so he's like, yeah, I just, I apply Leninist, uh, like revolutionary politics to like what we're trying to do.
He doesn't say with fascist. Right. He's basically trying to bring about fascism through Leninist means.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: like they have developed a vanguard, right? Like this is like a core tenant of Len. They developed a ec, uh, inte, inte vanguard of young people who are being like indoctrinated through think tanks that they are training up in, raising up to replace.
The entire bureaucracy of the United States. So he says, I'm Len. This, I don't wanna reform the United States of America. I wanna completely tear all of it down to the [01:18:00] ground and rebuild it from something brand new. And he's like, we have 5,000 people or 10,000 people. The first 3000 are already in place and the next wave of 7,000 are about to be put in.
That's why we need, he says, that's why we need a third term. I watched this talk. He gave it something. It's crazy. They can just say this stuff out loud. so like their aim is the destruction of democracy. Uh, as Peter Thiel says, democracy is an outdated software and America has to get over its dictator phobia.
And so what's blowing my mind is that these people can have such unbelievable, unhinged un-American, anti-American political ideology and strategy and talk about it so loudly. And yet no one seems to hear. It
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Come on. I hear you.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: blows my mind.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: What's a problem you're trying to solve?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Hmm. Theological education. So I'm working on like, um, beyond my content, I'm in the process of creating, I guess you would call them like the, the e the e-commerce word is digital products.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: [01:19:00] Yes. Okay.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: level courses and theology overviews. So that's what I wanna start with. I eventually wanna be able to do courses, so I went $180,000 into debt so that I could. You know, get the theological education that I got that I'm so glad I got. Everybody can't go $180,000 into debt for that. And so there's gotta be some kind of a solution. And there's people out there that have. Bad versions of this that are teaching in that are basically little indoctrination camps.
I've referenced one of them earlier before we started recording, right. And, uh, these things are, are dangerous. Something's gotta be done. I think St. Stephens University, there are some schools that are offering different classes and things you can take, and those are beautiful. I, I don't ever wanna, like, I'm not trying to start a seminary, but I wanna provide like an on-ramp that maybe could lead people to things like that.
Maybe they can start studying a little bit more. So my first three things I have coming out soon are a. Uh, a survey overview on Christology and Trinitarian theology, a survey and overview on the doctrine of soteriology, the doctrines of soteriology [01:20:00] and on c and then one on Christian ethics, how they developed throughout Christian history.
What has everything that has been said, notable about these different things, who said them, how they developed and morphed from one thing into another or reverted back into another thing. To just try to give people a clear overview of the, of the multiplicity. And diversity of thought. That is the history of Christian theology.
It is not just a couple of things. It's often taught to people as well. Then people believe this, then the reformation happened, and then they believe this, and then the great awakening happened, and then they believe this and they don't understand that actually so many different things have been said throughout all of it.
And David Benley Hart talks about like the generous, um, he calls it like a, a, a generous, uh, um, mo uh. Oh man, I'm, I'm not gonna butcher a David Bentley heart quote. You know what I mean? Uh, a cosmopolitanism, a generous cosmopolitanism, right? That is the history of, of Christian thought in this book, tradition and apocalypse is like a great o overview to [01:21:00] understand what tradition Christian tradition actually means.
So
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: that that's a problem I'm trying to solve and how I'm trying to solve it.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah, that sounds,
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: 'em for like four bucks or something like that. I
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: uh.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: about the topic and then be like, if you, if you wanna know more about Christology, put Christology in the, in the comments, and then they'll get a DM with a link to a $4.
'cause if I'm gonna take time away from my wife and kids, I've gotta be compensated for it. You know what I mean? Uh,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I think you can charge more than $4, but I'll just, I'll, I'll leave that out there for you.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: 15 pages long. Gimme like, like nice little overviews. And then maybe I can develop courses or something after that.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yeah, that's awesome. I like that. Um, okay. Maybe it's a similar, what's something you're excited about right now?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Okay, well, I was excited about taking my kids to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend, but now everybody's sick and I have to just, after we get off of the air, I have to call
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: beg them to transfer us to another weekend. one stoked about because my kid, my, my 4-year-old loves wa water slides, man. So we were about to go have a great time. Uh, other than that, uh. [01:22:00] You know, I have a, a, I work with a, a nonprofit that my friend and I started. He runs, he's the executive director and I'm on, I'm just on the board now called the Black Legacy Advancement Coalition. Black. BLAC. It's based in Detroit. Uh, we do job training, job skills, life skills, housing, procurement.
Uh, uh, we have a, a men's house and a women's house. We're working on building a hundred unit apartment building with mixed use retail. We're gonna use that money to subsidize the housing above to try to help make sure that as money pours into Detroit, these communities aren't displaced. We do a lot of different stuff and we just got back, man.
We got in, we got excited, uh, uh, welcomed and accepted into Harvard Business Schools Upswell Forum for social entrepreneurs working in communities of color. It's a very long name, and we were at Harvard Business School for a week last week. In, in, in. Like from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM learning from Harvard business professors, how to scale and grow, fundraise our, our nonprofit, uh, and make a bigger [01:23:00] impact.
And we got to hear from some just unbelievable leaders outside of Harvard, Harvard Business School like Tulane Montgomery, who runs New Profit, which is like the original, uh, venture philanthropy firm that like launched a bunch of big nonprofits. We got to hear from Gerald Tavian, who's like the founder and former CEO of Year Up who. gave us like the world's greatest masterclass in fundraising.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Hmm.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: and so now we have, that program's gonna continue for like four more months, virtually, um, online. But, uh, so I made, um, unbelievable new friends. There was 10 nonprofits selected, got to send three representatives, so made some unbelievable connections in friends. I learned a lot that I think we're gonna be able to make so much of a bigger impact with Black this year, uh, than we have been around for five years. I think this is gonna be our, our most impactful year in our community yet. So I'm pumped about that.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Wow. That sounds awesome. Alright, Colton, is there anything. We have not addressed. We've gone all over the map. We didn't get to all my questions, but is there anything before we close this episode that you're like, look, we can't close this [01:24:00] unless I say this, that you gotta, you gotta fit in before we wrap this up.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Yeah, man, you guys, listen, there's this guy here, uh, named Jeremy Jernigan, who is just popping off on social media, and you're not, like, if you're not following him, you need to already, if you just came across this. And you're like, what is this? Then you, you need, you need to actually hit follow, like, subscribe.
And then beyond that guys, he has a brand new book coming out soon. I hope you're, you're telling people about it already called the edge of the Inside. I have the opportunity to be an advanced reader and uh, I've been digging into it and it's, it, it's so far, it's incredible. So make a note of that for the launch date when that comes out and buy that book.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Wow. I, I'll pay you the check that I promised you to say all that. That was great.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Yeah. No. No, you didn't. You didn't ask me to do that at all folks.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: That was very kind of you. That was not what I was asking you to say, but that was very kind of you and I am stoked that you're on our launch team. That's uh, I was very [01:25:00] touched by that. Alright, so people who are like, I like this guy, this guy's wild and crazy and has got some great ideas, what's the best way for them to connect with you online?
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Great question. Uh, Instagram and TikTok at Colton. Barnaby, C-O-L-T-E-N,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yes, I got the, I got this wrong a few times and I had to apologize to him.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Never trust a Colton with an ON, right? Never. But also, you won't find me,
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: Yes.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: ones. There's a couple good ones. And then, uh, on, uh, Substack, uh, Kensington Comb. KOAN. Or you can just do Colton Barnaby.
It'll probably come up. Uh, my Substack is free. Check it out. Uh, podcast. Ask. The next question is on YouTube. It's on Spotify. Podcasts, anywhere you listen to podcasts. And, uh, then I have a personal YouTube that I, I should start loading up uploading to Colton Barnaby one, I haven't, I don't really do much there.
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: You, you've got a few other things going on, Colton, so it.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: things
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: It's okay. Well, hey, this has [01:26:00] been an absolute delight. Uh, you are as pleasant in real life as you, you come across in your videos. And to have a mix of someone with your intellect and your friendly, kind, sweet demeanor is, is rare these days. So thank you from all of us, uh, who get to enjoy your content for the work that you're doing, the posture in which you do it, and thanks for sharing your journey with us today.
I think it's gonna be. Hugely encouraging for a, a lot of our listeners.
colten-barnaby_2_01-22-2026_144516: Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Just block Greg Boyd. Whatever you do. I, I'm terrified of my heroes ever seeing anything that I put out there, so just make sure Greg Boyd never sees this. Please block him from this specific
jeremy_2_01-22-2026_134516: I can't, I can't make a promise to that. He might see it, but, uh, you, you need to meet Greg Boyd. You guys would absolutely love each other, and I think he would dig the work that you're doing. So thanks for taking the time. Thank you, listeners for joining us on another episode. We will see you all on the next one.
