Explore faith deconstruction, biblical wisdom, and LGBTQ affirmation with Colby Martin, author of UnClobber.
Listen and subscribe: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Amazon / YouTube
10 years ago, Colby Martin wrote UnClobber, an influential book advocating for a renewed look at six biblical passages generally used for excluding LGBTQ individuals from full participation in the church. In this episode of Compass, Colby shares his faith journey from growing up in the Baptist church, through personal transformation, to becoming a leading voice for LGBTQ inclusion in Christianity. Explore the intersection of spirituality, authenticity, and the radical message of love at the heart of the gospel.
Colby shares powerful stories about wrestling with religious tradition, evolving beliefs, and the costs—and grace—of living an authentic spiritual life. Discover insights from his celebrated books UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality and the brand new But What About? as we tackle clobber passages, spiritual deconstruction, and building a more inclusive faith.
Colby Martin is an author, speaker, pastor, and passionate advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church. His writing, teaching, and leadership have helped countless seekers and doubters find a home where faith and authenticity meet. As a former evangelical, he uniquely bridges conservative and progressive worlds, inviting everyone toward a more expansive, loving vision of Christian spirituality.
Episode Notes:
Colby offered some books for further exploration on deconstructing faith and biblical interpretation:
- How the Bible Actually Works by Peter Enns
- A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren
- Anything by Sarah Bessey
- What Is the Bible by Rob Bell
Some United Methodist-related resources on LGBTQ inclusion and reading the Bible
- Article: What is the Church's position on homosexuality?
- Video: What United Methodists believe about the Bible
In this episode:
00:00 Colby Martin and the clobber passages
02:11 Coffee and the soul
07:39 Colby’s spiritual journey to Unclobber
25:54 Where is the church while we deconstruct?
28:58 “But What About…” and what still needs to be said about inclusion
33:35 Why be compassionate towards those who aren’t?
39:25 How do you read and interact with the Bible today?
45:33 Further reading from Colby Martin
46:51 Rate and review!
Related Episodes:
- Transforming your experience with the Bible (165)
- When we question if we want to be Christian -- with Brian McLaren (90)
Help us spread the word
- Tell others: friends, coworkers, and anyone else might benefit from these conversations.
- Share us on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.
- Review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you download the episode. Great reviews help others find us.
- Email our host Ryan Dunn about future topics and feedback.
More podcasts
- Get Your Spirit in Shape and other United Methodist podcasts
- Rev. Ryan Dunn also hosts and produces the MyCom Church Marketing podcast
Thank you for listening, downloading, and subscribing.
This episode posted on November 11, 2026
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (00:04)
Back in 2016, a pretty influential book in certain Christian circles came out. And the book was called Unclobber, and it looked at six passages in the Bible that have generally been used to justify exclusion or prohibition of LGBTQ individuals in the church. These passages are frequently referred to as the clobber passages. And unklobber, the book, re-examined what those passages actually say.
In relation to homosexuality and identity, and pointed readers towards an inclusive position towards our LGBTQ siblings. In this episode of Compass Finding Spirituality in the Everyday, we're talking with Unclauber's author, Kobe Martin. We'll hear his backstory of going from working in an evangelical megachurch to now being a leading voice in progressive Christianity. And we'll look into some of the things.
Which still need to be said and addressed regarding LGBTQ inclusion and the ways in which we interact with the Bible. Colby's work isn't done. A follow-up book called But What About addresses more questions regarding faith, the Bible, and LGBTQ inclusion. And we'll get into what led to his writing of this book. If conversations like this are helpful for you, please subscribe to Compass on your favorite podcast platform.
Then go ahead and leave a rating, review, and comment about what you appreciate about this conversation or really any of the conversations that we have in general on the Compass Podcast. Thanks so much. Today, Kobe Martin is a traveling preacher, digital pastor, speaker, and advocate. You can follow along with his work at Kobe Martinonline.com or learn more by listening to this conversation right here on Compass.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (02:00)
Well, Colby Martin, thank you so much for joining us on the Compass podcast. Realize we're jumping across time zones and it's still pretty early in your day, but I I will ask you this as we get started. How goes it with your soul today?
Colby Martin (02:13)
with my soul? Okay, so we're starting real easy. I thought you were gonna be like, how's the morning coffee? And I'm like, oh, coffee is great, but you want to know about
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (02:14)
Yes. yeah, this is the softball portion. Yeah. uh
Colby Martin (02:20)
my soul. Whew, okay.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (02:23)
Some people
actually get turned off by the coffee question, Colby. That's why I like to go.
Colby Martin (02:28)
No, that's fine. As a as a a s a self-identified well, I've also tested multiple times as an introvert who can
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (02:36)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (02:36)
project extroverted energy when needed.
But I do naturally settle into the introvert. So yeah, I'm fine with getting right into the soul question. So how's
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (02:46)
Ah, great.
Colby Martin (02:47)
my soul today? Here okay, here's what I'll say. Uh, 'cause I've been thinking about this lately. Uh out there on my patio is a uh I guess you call them jack-o' lanterns after they've been carved. Is that correct? So they're pumpkins in their
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (03:01)
It's yeah.
Colby Martin (03:03)
natural state, and then when you turn them into something, they become a jack-o' lantern. Is that
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (03:08)
That's
my yeah, my assumption as well, yeah.
Colby Martin (03:10)
Okay. Okay,
so out there on the patio is a jack-o'-lantern that I carved about eight or nine days ago. And if you've ever done which I haven't done, so my family for you know, as my kids were all growing up, we painted pumpkins. We didn't carve in part because the knives just felt dangerous, but also because of the painting, it just lasted longer. So you could paint the pumpkins
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (03:28)
Oh yeah yeah.
Colby Martin (03:31)
at the beginning of October and they would and I'm learning now, like, yeah, this is why, because after about day eight
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (03:36)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (03:37)
of
s carved said pumpkin, it starts to rot and deteriorate and fall in
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (03:42)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (03:43)
on itself. Okay, so how does this connect to my soul? Uh so two days ago I'm out there and I notice that my jack-o' lantern is just all like just caving in on itself and the and the rot is coming out through the eye holes and and and the the the creases of the pumpkins have all gotten intensified as the weather has sort of done its job on this. And I took a photo of it and I thought, wait a minute, this actually looks even cooler.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (04:08)
Right. Yeah.
Colby Martin (04:08)
Now. This looks even better. This looks
more eerie. This looks more spooky. This like this actually the vibe of this deteriorated, weathered, aged jack-o'-lantern is actually better than it was fresh off the belt. And then that made me think of
a photograph that I took of myself on a it was some call it a selfie. I don't know why I dodged that word. I guess I felt insecure. I took a selfie. Whatever. I was on an airplane traveling to your part of the woods actually a couple weeks ago and it was overnight flight and I took this I was documenting my travels because it was just an insane uh travel evening and the first photo that I took on the plane Ryan my face just looked so
Wrinkled and a weathered and su
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (04:53)
Oh dang. Hmm.
Colby Martin (04:54)
it was just like, that's terrible. So I took another one trying to be less gnarly looking. Posted that one a few weeks ago. I look at this jack-o'-lantern and I think, man, it looks even better in its weathered, age, deteriorated state. And I thought, you know what? There's something to that. There's something
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (05:11)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (05:12)
to
And I'm not breaking any ground here. You asked how the state of my soul is, how this is where my soul's at this morning where it's like, I like the grays coming in on my beard. I like the wrinkles coming at the ed my crow's feet. I like and I don't like. You know, I haven't I'm not dying anything. This is all natural. All of this is natural. But I do sometimes have that that conditioned response from the culture to look pristine and pure and young and all that. But
Then there's those moments where if it's actually the best version of us is the one who's
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (05:46)
Mm. oh
Colby Martin (05:47)
seen some things, the one who's crumpled in a bit from the the beating down of the weather, the one who isn't fresh and doughy eyed and and pure skinned right off the line, but it's like I've actually been here for a minute. I've gone through some things.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (06:01)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (06:02)
So my soul this morning is grateful for the the the the wrinkles on the face and the the the compact.
Of the hunching over of like, yes, life is really freaking hard. And look what I've made it through.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (06:14)
Yeah. Yeah.
And what if it's actually more pleasing to people uh when we are authentically who we are instead of like the beautiful version of ourselves? You know, I wonder
Colby Martin (06:26)
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (06:27)
about that all the time as I'm trying to kind of put my best face on or be the the macho invulnerable man. Like
Colby Martin (06:34)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (06:35)
what if people are gonna respond more to just bust it up, Ryan?
Colby Martin (06:40)
Hard to hard to believe. For for like I don't know if you do the Enneagram. I'm a type three on the
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (06:45)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (06:46)
Enneagram, which probably isn't at this point a surprise talking about, I was taking a selfie and I wanted the nice one. Okay, so all of that is classic type three.
But yes, that it's it is type threes are very much projecting a perfect, strong, impenetrable image into the world. See how perfect I am, how good I am at everything. And it it took me
I finally hit therapy in my in my early thirties and it took me that long to start to and I'm still learning to start to learn the beauty of vulnerability and that people actually do respond to authenticity and mess and imperfection. It but it my my point is that's not my natural instinct. I'm like uh it's hard for me to overcome that and believe that that's true.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (07:33)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I feel that as well. Well, I do wanna maybe jump into some of the the busted up history of of Colby Martin. Um, by recognizing that I just asked you a really tough question, like, Hey, what are you drinking this morning, Colby?
Colby Martin (07:45)
No, I'm good. I'm good. No, I'm good. This is this is em
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (07:52)
What do you got? All right.
Colby Martin (07:56)
I make 25 ounces of coffee every morning in my Kim X and put it into my nice Zojirushi uh thermos that keeps it warm. Pour it into a little tiny mug because I like little bits of hot coffee at a time. And this comes
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (08:09)
Oh, that's smart.
Colby Martin (08:10)
from uh this is San Francisco Bay Roasters. I got it from Costco last week, but it's their holiday roast. Now, generally, Ryan, I am against.
Dark roasts. Generally I'm against any gimmicky roasts. But for some reason, and it I I'll just it was marketing. The pretty holiday bag got me all excited and so I purchased it and I don't really like it, is my point. But I'm drinking it because it's a Costco two pound size bag. I'm like, I knew it. I knew I shouldn't have got a dark roast. But it's what I have.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (08:41)
man, see, Colby, this is why I don't lead off with the the coffee questions,
because I'm a dark rose person all the way. I'm an Enneagram number nine. I feel like we're at odds now. Uh it's gonna be an awkward interview, but task that we have to to move on with anyway. Well, yeah. Um
Colby Martin (08:57)
We'll find our way. I believe in us.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (09:00)
I so I'd I feel like it would be really helpful for our audience to maybe understand a little bit about kind of your spiritual journey up to this point or even up to like 10 years ago. And
And just understanding like what got you here? Like what is your your spiritual journey or your spiritual biography?
Colby Martin (09:19)
Sure. I often, when I travel, I say, hi, my name is Colby, and I'm a recovering Baptist. this is the world from which I came. So I was born and raised into a family whose dad came from a long line of Baptists, mixed with some Mennonites, by the way. Mennonites are really cool people. Uh and so are Baptists, although whatever. We'll save that for another another conversation. Uh, but yeah, that was my that was my heritage. So growing up, we were uh like
Any good Baptist family. We were in church about 47 times a week. This was just what you did, how life was organized. And uh all of that changed pretty dramatically when I was eight, nine, ten years old. Somewhere around there, my parents divorced, and that really rocked the family, and it rocked the church. And as a result, my mom ended up taking me and my two other brothers out of the Baptist world, not necessarily.
I don't know that it was conscious for her out of the Baptist world, but just out of the church that we were at, just needed a fresh start. So we found ourselves at a generic evangelical Bible church in town. So I grew up in Oregon. I don't know if I said that. And while it wasn't forty seven times a week anymore, praise God, it was still just an obligation thing. I was just going to church because this is what was expected.
And then uh all of that changed for me, Ryan, about the age seventeen. Um, I was going into my senior year of high school.
And it was that summer leading into uh my senior year, and my youth pastor wanted to take a church van full of kids uh down I-5. So if anybody of your listeners know uh the West Coast, I-5 runs from Seattle to Mexico, it's just the main interstate that runs there. So all the way down I-5 from Oregon down to Southern California to spend a week at a conference called SEMP. Uh
S E P, which stands for Students Equipped to Minister to Peers. Because if there's anybody who loves acronyms more than the federal government, it is churches. We love
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (11:22)
Uh it's the churches. Yeah.
Colby Martin (11:24)
our acronyms. And so I go to this conference mostly just because I wanted to go to SoCal as a born and raised Oregon boy. I thought that sounded pretty dope. Uh so we go to this conference, and the whole point of the uh of the week was to train high school students on how to
witness to people so they could go back to their schools and like save all their friends. Cause I don't know if I don't know what it's like in the Methodist world, but for Baptists, the whole name of the game is to get somebody to say a magic prayer. And if you can
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (11:51)
Mm. Yeah.
Colby Martin (11:52)
get them to say the magic, I think we called it the sinner's prayer. If you can get them to say the the sinner's prayer, then that gets their name written in the Lamb's Book of Life, which means when they die they go to heaven and not hell. So it's great. So we the point of simp to train you to witness to people and save your friends. Now that first
afternoon after they'd trained us in the morning and apologetics and how to defend the faith. They send us out into Huntington Beach, world famous beach down in uh LA. They send us out two by two, because that's biblical. And so me
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (12:23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Colby Martin (12:23)
and another meet another 17-year-old kid, we're walking and we're like coming up to random people who have spent
Their entire year saving up money to travel, let's say, from North Carolina to take a family vacation to the world famous Huntington Beach, and then they get some
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (12:39)
Mm.
Colby Martin (12:40)
punk teenagers walking up to them and be like, Well, excuse me, ma'am, can I ask you a question? Uh and so we walk up to people and the whole goal is to try to pivot the conversation to a conversation about their s you know, basically if you were to die right now, do you know where you would go?
And then try to get them to say the sinner's prayer. Okay. I come
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (12:59)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (13:00)
back from that first day on the beach, a zero percent salvation rate. I didn't save one soul. And I get back to my room and I lay down on the bed in the room of Sana, and I just start weeping. I just start sobbing. Uh which now in my life, I mentioned earlier, hitting therapy once I hit 30s, that made a big difference. So now in my life, I'm a pretty easy cry. But back then
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (13:25)
Okay. Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (13:26)
This was a new experience for me. And also I'm just a 17-year-old kid weeping and not really understanding why. And as I'm soaking my pillowcase and snot and tears, I I I don't know how I would phrase it now. I might use different language, but at the time and for many years after, how I'd describe it is, I heard God say to me. Now, not in an audible sense, but kind of in the way that we're like, I just there was someone talking to me.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (13:55)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (13:55)
And
God said, uh, Colby, you have a choice to make right now. Which by the way is how I knew I was never really good Baptist because my God gave me free will. so God said, Colby,
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (14:05)
Mm. Okay.
Colby Martin (14:06)
you have a you have a choice to make. God said, You can, if you want, keep going on the path that you're on. And I knew what God meant, which was I can keep going about the world of pretending. Cause what had happened to me on that first afternoon.
And this took me years later with the spiritual director to kind of fully put language to it. But I was essentially being exposed as the fraud that I was out there trying to tell people, hey, here's how to have a relationship with God through Jesus. When I really didn't it didn't mean anything to me. I was saying
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (14:39)
Mm.
Colby Martin (14:39)
just the words, but I didn't have any uh real connection to that for myself. And so that sense of being a a fraud, um, it it broke me.
It it that's all that's the only way I can say it is it is it broke my soul to be that disintegrated between who I was pretending to be and who I actually really was. So God said you can keep going on this path if you want. Life's all about you, and you just kind of pretend. Or God said, You can you can make a choice to change and you can take a different path and you can start making your life about something bigger, something different. You can make your life about me and my love for people. And so that was the moment for me that I
Knew that I wanted my life to be about
I talk about it now as being a conduit of God's love. And it's taken many shapes and forms since then. Uh, you know, that was twenty-six some years ago. Uh, but that was the week where I I changed my plan. I was planning to go to college to study graphic design, uh, but instead I enrolled in a nearby Baptist college to get my bachelor's in pastoral ministry. And uh and that's yeah, that set me off on a twenty plus year career.
decade or tw twenty plus year career of being in pastoral ministry. Which obviously I'm not a Baptist anymore and we can get into that. But that's that was kinda how the whole thing started was was that that
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (16:00)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (16:01)
event.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (16:02)
Well and then what what led to you uh re writing the book that a lot of us would probably know your name for, the Unclobber book? Um yeah, how did
Colby Martin (16:10)
Mm-hmm. I'll
hold I'll hold it up for those who are watching on video. For those
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (16:14)
Ayup.
Colby Martin (16:15)
who are watching on podcast or listening on podcasts, I'm sorry, you don't get to see. But yes, okay, so what led to that? Was that your question? Okay.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (16:23)
Yes, mm-hmm, yeah.
Colby Martin (16:25)
So unclobber and the subtitle is Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality. How did I get from a young Baptist preacher kid
to
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (16:35)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (16:35)
now ten years ago publishing my first book, which is all about the ways that the Bible has been misused to justify discrimination against those who identify LGBTQ. So here's how that happened. I graduate from college, I get my degree in ministry, I get my first job working at a church in Salem, Oregon, and I am
I am on the path, baby. Like this, I can see, I can see my life laid out for me. Like this world of evangelical Christianity, as you know, is made for guys like me. And for better or worse, and oftentimes
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (17:05)
Hmm. Yeah.
Colby Martin (17:07)
worse. Uh and so I I'm like, okay, this is working out well for me. But then a year after graduating, I did that thing that
Leaders in high control fundamentalist religion very much frown upon, which is I started reading books, specifically books that were not approved by my Baptist professors.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (17:34)
Oh.
Colby Martin (17:34)
So these were uh these were and there were still books within the Christian family tree. They were just not the narrow, rigid um perspective that I had been born, raised, and trained under. And so I started learning that the
Throughout the 2000 years of of Christianity, the the church has always had a long, rich tradition of people asking questions and coming to different kinds of answers. And there's been rich diversity within Christian thought for 2,000 years. And so this gave me permission to start to ask questions and get curious about my faith. And the way I talk about it is um, you know the the game Jenga, that block game, the one you play like
one time with your kid, the tower falls over and we're like, all right, we're not doing that again. The ROI on Django is obnoxiously low. Like that's a one and one and done for me. But in Django you pull these blocks out and you put it back on the tower and you gotta twist it and turn it and try to
not knock the thing over. Well, I started reading these books and it and I started doing the process of what I now refer to as auditing. I did like an audit on my belief tower. And I would
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (18:38)
Mm.
Colby Martin (18:39)
pull out these little blocks of belief and I would just get curious about it. I would ask questions about it. I would like w how have people thought about this in the past? How do people think about it today? And sometimes those blocks of belief, after research and study and consideration and prayer, I think, okay, I want to keep this belief and I'll add it back to my tower, but I gotta
a little differently. I'm gonna hold it a little differently. And then other times there's these beliefs that I think in good conscience, I can't keep believing this. Like this doesn't actually make sense anymore in light of what we know about the world or in light of what I see in the scriptures or whatever it is. And so we toss that block aside. And then other times I think we kind of just take these blocks of belief and we don't know what to do with them. And we kind of just set them on the edge of the table. And we think, okay, one day I'll come back to that. But I I don't know. And
The the how that connects to my book on Clobber is I'm one year out of college, I'm working at this church, I'm doing this audit on my faith, I'm starting to open my heart and my mind to the possibility that there might be ways to think about Christianity beyond just the narrow Baptist view. And I'm studying for my final licensing exam to become a pastor, and I'm walking through the church lobby on my lunch break and I'm reading the policies and procedures manual, just riveting material.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (19:54)
Right. uh
Colby Martin (19:54)
And I get to I get to this line
that says, practicing homosexuals cannot be members of the church. And I remember stopping dead in my tracks and thinking, practic, sure, I understand.
the correct, I'm using scare quotes for those who are just listening, the correct theological belief here. My head knew the right answer. Being gay is a sin. Same sex marriage is not God's design, etc. But for the first time, my heart, you could say, was confronted with the downstream effect of that. You're telling me like
They can't be members of the church. And then I kept reading and it outlined like they can't be elders. They can't serve as pastors. They can't serve in the children's ministry. They're welcome to be greeters and parking lot attendees. And of course they can give of their tithes and offerings. And and
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (20:48)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (20:49)
I just I can remember vividly this moment of feeling, my head and my heart are in two different places on this. And I did not see that coming. Because at that point in my life I didn't know anybody who was gay. I didn't have any gay family members. It just wasn't a topic I'd
considered before. I just sort of assumed that what I'd been told, or about what Romans one says in Leviticus and Genesis nineteen, that this was the correct uh position. So that was one of those moments where
I had this kind of block of belief that I didn't know what to do with. I set it on the edge of the table. A few years later, now I'm working at a a a mega church uh down in Phoenix, Arizona. And I decided to pick that block of belief back up off the table and be like, All right, I gotta resolve this this tension, this head and heart that's been out of alignment for a number of years. I gotta resolve this. Um
And so I've I gave myself permission to dive into the klobber passages. And the klobber passages, for those who may not know, are the aforementioned six verses that historically have been used to tell gay people you're an abomination, you're unnatural, you can't be gay and Christian, etc.
And so I took all the tools of the trade. This is what evangelicals, this is what drives them nuts about my story, is I took all the the training that you gave me. Like I'm I'm applying all the tools of the trade to understanding, putting these passages in their historical, cultural, linguistic context. And I discovered, spoiler alert, that the church has gotten this topic wrong. That the Bible does
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (22:19)
Mm.
Colby Martin (22:19)
not say what we've been told that it says. And so this in about 2010 caused me internally to now share.
Shift my position to be fully inclusive, fully affirming of LGBTQ people. But as you recall, I was working at this large evangelical megachurch. And so once again, now my head, now that my head and my heart were aligned, I was now experiencing a new kind of tension, a new lack of alignment, where my internal convictions were no longer matched with my external reality.
And I survived, you could say that way for about a year until September of two thousand and eleven. It was a Tuesday night. President Obama signs the repeal for Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (23:03)
Mm.
Colby Martin (23:03)
This was the the prohibition against gays and lesbians uh serving in the military. And I go to bed that night.
Thinking to myself, well, this is this is a good thing. The repeal of don't ask don't this like that seems like a discriminatory policy to me, and ending discrimination feels like a good idea. So
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (23:20)
It's good. Yeah.
Colby Martin (23:21)
I that's what I thought. And so I did what all wise, mature, grounded adults do when you wanna engage in politics. I went to Facebook and I
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (23:32)
Yeah come on.
Colby Martin (23:34)
shared an article announcing the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
And I put six words. I wrote, I'm glad this day finally came. And I hit post. And I go to bed. And I wake up the next morning to a shockingly large red number next on top of the little blue F on my phone. And I open up Facebook and just comment after comment from people in my church who are losing their minds. is why is is our church now pro-homosexual? Uh why is our pastor advocating for the gay agenda? Uh
And I get to the office and my boss tells me to take the post down because his phone had been blown up all night. I take the post down, think that's the end of it. They call an emergency board meeting for Friday. So I'm summoned to this board meeting for Friday where I'm where I'm asked to give an account for my theology on sexuality and my position on same sex marriage. Um and I told them about my work with the Clobber passages and I told them
Yes, I s I believe that LGBTQ people are beloved children of God, just like all of us. And yes, I would be in favor of same-sex marriage and think God blesses that just as much as us straight folks. And they um responded three days later with a letter of termination effective immediately. And so that, my friend, is the story behind Unclauber. That is
How I found myself, uh, jobless, how I found myself questioning that maybe I'd gotten God wrong back when I was seventeen years old and I thought I was being called to be a pastor. I'm like, well, maybe,
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (25:07)
Mm.
Colby Martin (25:08)
maybe I was wrong. Because here now is a body of humans who now say to me that you're unfit to be a pastor because of ideas in your head, because of beliefs that you hold in your mind. You're no longer fit to be a pastor. And
I tell this story a little bit in Unclobber. In addition to talking about the clobber passages, I tell some of this story and I talk about how that ended up leading me to to San Diego, where we started a church back in 2014, uh, and ran that for about eight and a half, nine years. Um, and just really had started to discover the beautiful uh diversity within the the greater family of God. And yeah,
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (25:46)
Mm.
Colby Martin (25:46)
so Unclobber, it's now ten years old and
It's my f
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (25:50)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (25:51)
one of my top three books I've ever written.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (25:53)
Well,
you so you had this kind of severing um from your your spiritual past. Were there parts of the church at that time that um came around you or it helped you stay engaged in the faith or sent you a counter message where, you know, maybe maybe what you're falling towards is not all that all that bad, but is actually more
Colby Martin (26:16)
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (26:16)
of a grace filled message?
Colby Martin (26:18)
No, sadly no. Uh
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (26:19)
No. Come.
Colby Martin (26:20)
I I was pretty uh sheltered could be one way to say it. Um naive. I just I didn't have a a a good grasp of the broader
family of of Christianity. And so there's even a line in my book on Clobber where I'm reflecting on just getting fired. I'm questioning whether I misunderstood God. And I think to myself, there's like, there's no way who's gonna hire me now? Um and I think I I I made some joke in the book where I said, what am I gonna do? Become an episcopal priest? Like that was about the extent of what I knew
about I'm like I know the Episcopals are super liberal, but their way of doing church seemed at the time so foreign and so off
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (27:06)
Mm-hmm. oh
Colby Martin (27:07)
putting to me that it's like, Well, I don't know that I can ever be a pastor again. Uh now I've since then two things, since then, yes, I've learned there's a lot m more
beautiful uh options within uh the Christian faith. There are those in the United Methodist world who are fully affirming and inclusive. There are those in the Presbyterians and the Lutherans and the United Church of Christ and uh and the growing number of churches that are post evangelical
And are are fully affirming of it's also super encouraging to me over the last 10, 12, 15 years. But I will also then say that that line, what am I gonna do? Become an episcopal priest is really f ironic because I'm currently halfway through the process of getting ordained in the Episcopal Church right now.
And I forgot that I had written that line until uh it's like a year ago. I was in this meeting, this Zoom meeting, uh, with several like uh episcopal leaders and and the Bishop of San Diego. She's like,
I have a question for you. And she pulls
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (28:09)
No.
Colby Martin (28:09)
open my book and she's like, Can you tell me more about and she reads that line to me and I'm like, Oh, I forgot I wrote that. So yes, I guess I am gonna become an episcopal priest.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (28:19)
That yeah,
yeah. I I don't know how you defend something like that in the interview that you just say like this Holy Spirit sense of humor. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Colby Martin (28:26)
Yes, yes. Absolutely.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (28:29)
Well, you mentioned it has been ten years now since Unclover came
Colby Martin (28:32)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (28:33)
out. And I I was reading in one of your posts on the Substack that you you're seeing more book sales today on that book than you did ten years ago, uh, which is probably not
Colby Martin (28:41)
Not wild. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (28:42)
the course that you would have chosen for something like that, right? That, you know, maybe you just kind of get it out there and it
creates its wave and starts something where um books like that are not needed quite as much. But uh
Colby Martin (28:55)
Yeah, yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (28:57)
but that's not the space that we're in. The reality is that books like that are still needed, even so much so that that now you've kind of come up with a follow-up book. Can you tell
Colby Martin (29:05)
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (29:06)
us a a little bit about like what inspired uh your follow-up here and but what
Colby Martin (29:13)
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (29:13)
about?
Colby Martin (29:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So on Clobber, 10 years old, and you're correct. The goal for that book is irrelevancy and obsolution. Like I can't wait till the day the publisher calls. They probably won't call. It'll be an email. But it that's what people say. I can't wait till the publisher calls and says, Hey, we're pulling your book out of print. Nobody's buying it anymore. That that kind of means like it's not needed anymore. But yes,
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (29:35)
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Colby Martin (29:39)
it has
It has almost sold more copies each year than the year before in the last 10 years, which is um remarkable that the the the harvest is still that plentiful. So what I've learned I've learned a lot of things in the last ten years since this book came out. And one of the things I've learned is that for many people, uh the klobber passages are really the primary thing.
standing in between them and full affirmation of our LGBTQ siblings. Meaning if if they can just figure out what to do or or how to better understand the clobber passages, then they're they're good. Like, okay, I'm ready to go. Like let's
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (30:23)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (30:25)
everybody's in, let's go. Uh I've also learned then that other people have reasonable follow-up questions. I hear you on the clobber passages, yes.
But what about Adam and Eve? But what about God making two genders in Genesis? But what about biblical marriage? Like these are the kinds of questions that have been showing up at my events. These are the questions that
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (30:52)
Mm.
Colby Martin (30:52)
show up in my email inbox. People want to know. But what about stories of ex-gay people? People who say, like, they used to be gay, their life was horrible. Now they're not gay and their life is better. Um, but what about the idea of love the sinner, hate the sin?
And so, yeah, this book is my uh attempt to follow up, to kind of pick up where Unclobber left off in some way. And it's called But What About? The subtitle is The Most Asked Questions on Faith, the Bible, and LGBTQ inclusion. And the first half of the book is my attempt to address these uh these questions that kind of still hold people back from full inclusion and full affirmation. And then the second half of the book.
Which I'm even more excited about. If it would have made sense, I would have started the book with this. But the second half of the book are m are my own, but what about questions for consideration?
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (31:44)
Mm.
Colby Martin (31:44)
But what about the divine preference for diversity that we see all throughout Scripture? But what about the trajectory of inclusion that began in the book of Acts with the early church and never should have stopped?
But what about the idea that maybe beliefs aren't even what matter anyway? And so this is uh this is my next book. It comes out November seventeenth. And uh I I think we said earlier this podcast episode episode is gonna come out a little early. So you can pre-order now if you want. Um
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (32:12)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (32:15)
and it stands on its own. You don't have to have read unclobber. In fact, in the beginning of the book, I do a couple pages of like a unclobber summary, little summary charts of of each of the clobber passages. Um
But obviously uh you can get on Clobber 2 if you want. But this book, I think, is really gonna be a uh a helpful resource to continuing to move toward the ultimate goal of, or I should say my ultimate goal, of the affirming position being the majority position within Christianity. Like that's my own personal kind of life mission that.
This wouldn't be a minority view anymore. There would be a one day, and it might not be till my grandkids,
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (32:54)
Right. Hmm.
Colby Martin (32:56)
but there'd be one day where like the majority position within the Christian church is to a f fully affirm R L G B DQ siblings.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (33:04)
Hmm. Well, I may be on my way to now understanding um why this is important to you, but your your new book does make a point of trying to guess listen to the unaffirming standpoint with a a sense of of compassion. that's gotta be a tough a a tough recommendation for both yourself because there's harm in your past, but also for anybody else who's been uh
harmed by positions of non inclusion. So why why is that compassion so important to you?
Colby Martin (33:39)
First of all, I'm glad that that came through. I'm I'm glad that that you picked up on that tone, that posture, that energy, 'cause I d I did try to write it with with compassion and with empathy and with understanding of those who are not yet affirming. Um the reason why uh I mean there's a couple of reasons why. One is I
I used to be you, not you, Ryan, but to the non-affirming
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (34:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (34:10)
reader, I used to be you. And were it not for the people in my life who modeled for me what uh a more open, gracious, hospitable, um kind of Christianity looked like, I don't know how far I would have been able to move on my spiritual journey. Meaning there were people that held the door open for me to grow in my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.
That if I don't turn around and extend that same sort of grace and kindness to those who are still on the journey, then then like what am I doing? What like w I I'm I'm betraying my own past and I'm betraying those who modeled it for me. So part of the compassion is, yeah, I've been there before. I understand.
I understand the arguments. I understand the reason. I understand the fear. So much of it is fear that holds people back. Like I get it. So I I don't want to uh to come out all aggro or to be super defensive or to be on the attack uh would just
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (35:12)
Hmm.
Colby Martin (35:13)
be going against a former version of myself, which is not kind. Because I was doing the best that I could.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (35:17)
Mm.
Yeah.
Colby Martin (35:19)
I was doing the best that I could with what I had. I believed in my heart. I believed in my intention. I believed in my desire to understand and to know God and to and to live with conviction. So I believe that most people are doing the best they can with what they have. So I have to meet them with compassion. And then the second reason why compassion is so big for me is this takes me back to um
Tiknot Han, he's he he was, he passed away a couple years ago, a Tibetan monk who did a lot of work at the intersection of Buddhism and Christianity. And one of Tiknot Han's books, he reflects on what he calls the most revolutionary teaching of Jesus, which is to love your enemy. And TikNot Han said he's thought he thought a lot about like how to actually do that. How do you love your enemy?
And he came up with a um, I don't know if he used the word formula, I think of it as a formula, but he came up with a formula of understanding leads to compassion and compassion leads to love. And he explains that by when we come up against our enemy. And I think it's important for us Western modern people to to expand or maybe soften our our
Definition of enemy. Because if we're just thinking, you know, like you know, the Vietnam War, or if we're just thinking like World War II, the Nazis, like, those are what enemies look like, so therefore I don't have any enemies. Well, no, anyone who maybe is like an ideological other from you, or anyone who like your world views collide so much that like sometimes you don't even want to do life with them anymore. You have to you draw these hard boundaries, those are a kind of enemy. So
In order to practice what it means to love our enemy for Technodhan, you begin with understanding why. Why is that person the way that they are? Why do they think the w the way they do? And usually when you get underneath someone's why, you find out pretty quickly, oh, you think that way because of you were raised in a certain climate or condition, or because your background is this, or because you currently live in a certain environment. Like understanding people's whys.
can lead you to the sense of wow, if I was you, then I would be you. Like y
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (37:34)
Yes.
Colby Martin (37:36)
you are the way you are for really
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (37:38)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (37:38)
good reasons. And that understanding leads to the compassion of the, oh that makes sense. Not agreement.
Not agreement. This isn't like how now I agree with you. We can understand people with while still disagreeing and that understanding leads to the compassion of, that makes sense. I I get now why you think or see the way you do. And it's that compassion piece finally that unlocks the door to love. Because once we see that the other person is just human like we are, with the same kind of fears and insecurities as we are, that compassion piece, now all of a sudden they're not your enemy anymore, they're your sibling.
And you can love them 'cause you realize we're all connected, we're all the same. So compassion is huge for me. If I don't lead with compassion, I have I'm on the wrong track to
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (38:25)
Yes.
Colby Martin (38:25)
s at the starting line and I'm gonna be just three miles into the into the race, realizing I'm going in the wrong direction.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (38:31)
Hmm.
Well, thanks for that. I asked partly for myself as somebody who works heavily in social media. Um, there are a fair number of detractors out there in social media world. I think that you've encountered that as well. And um it it's helpful to have a frame of compassion in mind. Uh w one of the criticisms that often run up against is um in in your church's stance, people will say you're just throwing away the Bible, which
I appreciate then your approach, which is very, I guess, what it would it be bibliocentric in terms of like unpacking this uh standpoint from uh looking at the actual pieces of scripture. And I'm wondering if there is a a consistent practice that you use in approaching the Bible? Like it what does reading the Bible look like for you? Are you
Y you're not just opening
Colby Martin (39:31)
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (39:31)
to a page and going with what you feel, but w what else is part of your process there?
Colby Martin (39:35)
Yeah.
Yeah, not to be an obnoxious stickler, but I would actually disagree with your uh character or your description that I would that I'm bibliocentric. Actually that's actually what I came out of. So the world
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (39:46)
Yeah. Yeah, okay, huh.
Colby Martin (39:48)
of uh you know, I'm painting with a broad stroke here, but it I painted with it for a long time, so I'm pretty good at it. The the world of evangelicalism is very bibliocentric, which is to say
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (40:00)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (40:00)
the Bible they believe the Bible is the word of God.
even though the Gospel of John very clearly says that Jesus is the word of God. So it's like uh and I'm being a little playful with language there on on purpose, but so I came from a tradition that saw the Bible as like the most important thing and and and uh but I wouldn't say that neither my current practice of my faith nor my books um come at it from a bibliocentric
perspective. I
I take Jesus at his word when he responded to the question, teacher, what is the most important thing? Like we actually have that on record. We don't have a ton from G I mean, he didn't write anything down, so everything we're relying on is, you know, second, third hand account. So we don't really have a lot to go on.
And when you consider that there were a number of people who took advantage of that opportunity to ask him in person, like what matters most? Um, and and Jesus gave an answer to that. And it wasn't believe the right things, you know, it wasn't
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (41:14)
Mm. Yeah.
Colby Martin (41:16)
know the Bible inside and out. the fact that his answer was like love, love God, love your neighbor, love yourself.
And then not only that, I have a uh chapter in the new book where I I go to the final meal that Jesus had with his friends. And I I think it's safe to say Jesus knew the end was coming for him. So he he probably intuited this was his last chance to impart his final words of wisdom to his friends. And what does he choose to say? He says, I'm gonna give you a new commandment.
And you can imagine all the disciples getting really stoked, like, cool, we're gonna get something new. And then he says, Love one another as I have loved you. It's like, okay, first of all, not super new. You've been kind of beating that drum for three
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (42:02)
Mm.
Colby Martin (42:05)
years, but also this is the thing that Jesus distills everything down, his final word is people will know you are my followers by this, that you have the correct doctrine of atonement.
No, that's not what he said. Jesus said, people will know
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (42:23)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (42:23)
you are my followers in this. You love one another. So I I I know I'm being kind of an obnoxious stickler, but I don't see my work as as being bibliocentric. I see it as being uh Christocentric as is a as a broad way, but even like
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (42:39)
Mm.
Colby Martin (42:40)
just love-centric. For me, love has to be the thing that matters most if I'm going to claim to follow Jesus.
If I'm not going to claim to be a follower of Jesus, then I can do whatever I want with my life. But because I claim to be Christian, or at least I try to be Christian, that means I have to organize my entire life around love. As St. Paul said, I could have all the wisdom in the world. I could know everything. But if I don't have love, I'm just an obnoxious gong. I'm a symbol that's just making loud noises that nobody wants to listen to. So love really is the thing that matters most to me. And then
Obviously I care about the Bible. I've written and now three books that engage pretty uh pretty detailed and and intensely with the Bible.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (43:24)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (43:24)
So to your question, I would say this. Um recently I read a book by Pete Enns called The Way the Bible Ac or How the Bible Actually Works. It's currently my favorite book on the Bible. So if anybody is looking for like books about the Bible, can't recommend that enough. Pete Enns, How the Bible Actually Works. And he posits that the Bible is uh
That the way to read the Bible is through like the lens of wisdom. That we're we approach the Bible with a the goal of attaining and achieving and exercising wisdom. That it is not and we know this. The Bible's not a rule book. The Bible's not a law book, even though it has some rules and laws in it. The Bible is like this.
long, vast, diverse library of all different kinds of genres that reflect many individuals and cultures and people groups effort to try to figure out who God is, who they are, and how should we live. And that work is the work of wisdom to try to figure out how to do life and to do it well, to do it meaningfully. So when I read the Bible, it is looking through the lens of love. If I have not love, I'm a noisy symbol.
They'll know this. They'll know you're my follower by how you love one another. Love is the thing that matters most. Um Jesus says you'll know them by their fruits. So like these are the lens that I view that I come to the Bible through. If I if my interpretation of anything doesn't lead to good fruit or doesn't lead to some kind of love for God's self or neighbor, I probably need to go back to the text and and try again.
And then I also engage it as a wisdom book to try to sort out what does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus now in the 21st century? Because sh this might shock you, but our world now is very different from than the world of the Bible. So
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (45:12)
Truth.
Colby Martin (45:13)
it's kind of useful. The Bible's kind of useful sometimes, in some ways.
But it's not all that helpful for me to know what color of bowl I'm supposed to sacrifice for which particular sin. It's just that's not super helpful to me.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (45:29)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (45:30)
So wisdom, it takes a lot of wisdom.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (45:33)
Well, Colby, thanks for sharing so much of that. We've come to the really awkward part of the interview where I uh ask you where people are gonna get a hold of you and is there like do you like routing people to your sub stack or where's a good spot to keep track of all things Colby Martin?
Colby Martin (45:51)
Uh when I go to Starbucks, uh and the Breest always asks, like, what's a good name for the order? Uh I'll tell them Jack, because
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (45:59)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (46:01)
Jack is easy to say, it's easy to hear, they get it right. Eight times out of ten, when I say Colby, they mishear me, they misunderstand me. Like it's just it's weird to say, it's weird
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (46:12)
Mm-hmm.
Colby Martin (46:12)
to hear. So at Starbucks, my name works against me. That's my point.
On the interwebs, my name works for me. There's not
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (46:21)
Yeah.
Colby Martin (46:21)
a lot of Colby Martins out there. So here's the good news. Your listeners, your viewers, you can seriously just go to Google, type in Colby Martin, and you're gonna find me. You're gonna find my Substack, my website, my Instagram, my YouTube channel. It's just real easy to find me using the Google machine. Colby Martin.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (46:38)
Awesome.
Colby Martin (46:39)
There it is. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (46:41)
Well, Colby, thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us so candidly and um your perspectives as well. It's much appreciated.
Colby Martin (46:49)
Wow, it's great to meet you. Thanks for having me on.
Ryan Dunn (He/him) (46:51)
Thanks for joining us on this episode of Compass Finding the Spirituality in the Everyday. If you'd like to dig deeper, head over to our website, unc.org/slash compass. There you're gonna find episode notes and, of course, more episodes to explore. We'll also have some links to Kobe Martin's work and several books that he recommended for fruit future spiritual growth. I want to give a big thanks to the team at United Methodist Communications for making this podcast possible.
If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Compass on your favorite podcast platform. And if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate and review. That of course helps others find us and supports the work that we're doing.
Thank you for taking this journey with me, and I'll see you next time on Compass. Peace.
