Cabernet and Pray

What do you do when the very people who introduced you to Jesus can no longer recognize the Jesus your faith has led you to? C.E. Jarnagin is a priest, researcher, and author who's asking that exact question in his new book The Congruent Life, and he brings a rare combination of Anglican liturgy, pastoral honesty, and zero tolerance for religious veneer to the conversation. In this episode, Jeremy and Chad work through what it looks like to hold your full humanity inside a faith community, why Christian nationalism and the Jesus of the Gospels are not remotely the same, and how a small church of 160 people (including a dozen former pastors) might actually be doing something the megachurch model couldn't.  Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/uTzs1Mo9F2c  ----------------- My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/ Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in  Links: https://www.instagram.com/chadjarnagin https://www.threads.com/@chadjarnagin 

Bethany Cseh is a pastor who spent years standing at a pulpit she wasn't sure she was allowed to occupy, internally justifying each sermon as something other than what it actually was. That tension turned out to be the beginning of a longer, stranger education. In this episode, Bethany joins Jeremy to talk about co-pastoring two completely different churches with her husband, what happened when they tried to merge them into one service, and the counterintuitive theology that emerged from the wreckage: that God is revealed more fully through our distinctions than despite them. They also get into merit badge theology, walking as a spiritual practice, and why John Piper is the last person you want picking out a wine for you. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/ZpURVmhmfyc  ----------------- My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/ Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

Beau Stringer spent years as a lead pastor in evangelical spaces. He's on the other side of that now, working in adult discipleship at one of the largest United Methodist churches in the country and making the case that mainline churches are the best thing most deconstruction-adjacent Christians have never heard of. His image for them: public libraries. Quiet, scattered through communities, not selling anything, full of wisdom, and genuinely open to everyone, including the guy with the shopping cart and all his belongings. In this conversation, Beau and Jeremy dig into how you read the violence of the Old Testament alongside the Sermon on the Mount, why faithfulness sometimes looks like a shrinking church, what happens to a pastor's theology once the job stops limiting his imagination, and why grief might be the most honest response to leaving behind a faith tradition that raised you. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/-oCLLdUojqY  ----------------- My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/ Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

What does it actually take for a church to be a safe place? Anthony Parrott, co-pastor of Table Church DC, has spent 17 years in ministry and a lifetime accumulating enough theology to know when it stops being honest. In this conversation, he and Jeremy trace a winding path through open and relational theology, trauma competency, why packaging spiritual formation into a program is its own kind of abuse, and what it looks like to pastor a church where the point is not to have it all figured out. Anthony is a guy who will tell you exactly what he thinks about Augustine, John Piper, and a white Malbec he found at Wegmans, and somehow it all fits together. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/4bxba43_Twk ----------------- My new book, The Edge of the Inside, releases March 31. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/ Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups  Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

What happens when a former pastor trades the pulpit for a microphone? In this episode, we sit down with Stuart Delony, host of Snarky Faith and author of The Tribulation Survival Guide, for a conversation that is equal parts hilarious and razor-sharp. Stuart unpacks why fear-based theology is basically a drug dealer's business model, how humor functions as a Trojan horse for spiritual healing, and why the end-times obsession that haunted so many evangelical childhoods is, frankly, more pagan than Christian. Pour yourself a glass — the slippery slope has never been this fun. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/nqVuL7BUh0g  ----------------- Want to read my upcoming book BEFORE it comes out on March 31, 2026? Be a part of our book launch team and get early access: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/book-launch-page Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

This week on Cabernet & Pray, we sit down with Collin Packer for a conversation that feels as honest as it is necessary. Collin shares his journey from fundamentalist pastor to working in the Texas State House, from not voting for 12 years out of theological conviction to wrestling with what it means to let “justice take a side.” We talk about racial reconciliation, political discipleship, the cost of speaking prophetically in church spaces, and why some of the best conversations about faith might happen around a table with bread and wine instead of behind a pulpit. This episode offers a hopeful, deeply practical vision of what a Jesus-shaped presence could look like in our cultural chaos. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/MouIpaYlklw  ----------------- Want to read my upcoming book BEFORE it comes out on March 31, 2026? Be a part of our book launch team and get early access: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/book-launch-page Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in  Links: https://www.instagram.com/collin.b.packer/ https://ltrministries.com/ 

What if the Bible’s most familiar wine stories have been quietly misunderstood all along? In this episode of Cabernet and Pray, Jeremy sits down with New Testament scholar John Anthony Dunne, author of The Mountains Shall Drip Sweet Wine, to uncork what Scripture actually says about alcohol. From the wedding at Cana to the myth of “biblical grape juice,” they explore how modern anxieties have flattened a far richer, more embodied faith. Find out why wine was never just a metaphor, but a theological statement about God’s generosity and presence in the ordinary.  Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/PpMW6yzzJmA ----------------- Want to read my upcoming book BEFORE it comes out on March 31, 2026? Be a part of our book launch team and get early access: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/book-launch-page Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in  Links: https://amzn.to/4anM7EV  https://www.thetwocities.com/ https://www.instagram.com/johnnypepper2/ https://www.facebook.com/@johnnypepper2 

What happens when someone can no longer believe in God—but still can’t let go of Jesus, Pentecostalism, or the church that formed them? In this episode, Jeremy sits down with Colten Barnaby, who calls himself an “atheist Pentecostal,” to talk honestly about losing faith without losing integrity. They explore church history, certainty vs. honesty, why pretending belief can feel like a moral failure, and how many people leave Christianity not because they hate Jesus, but because God has been presented as a monster. It’s funny, vulnerable, unsettling, and surprisingly hopeful—a conversation for anyone who’s tired of fake answers and still hungry for truth, meaning, and a better imagination for what faith could be. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/I_6YYZKdvtE ----------------- Want to read my upcoming book BEFORE it comes out on March 31, 2026? Be a part of our book launch team and get early access: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/book-launch-page Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in  Links: https://www.instagram.com/coltenbarnaby/  https://www.tiktok.com/@coltenbarnaby https://www.youtube.com/@coltenbarnaby1 https://substack.com/@coltenbarnaby

What if the most sacred spaces in your life aren’t churches at all, but ordinary moments of shared humanity? In this episode of Cabernet and Pray, Jeremy sits down with author and spiritual guide Matthew G. Matson to explore Cathedrals of Connection—a vision of faith that shifts holiness away from institutions and back into the space between people. Over a glass of wine, they talk about decentering programs, resisting performative spirituality, and rediscovering God in silence, conversation, parenting, travel, and the everyday rhythms we usually rush past. It’s an honest and gently subversive conversation for anyone who senses that Christianity has lost something vital—and wonders if connection itself might be where the divine has been hiding all along. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/TagcIay1C5Y  ----------------- Want to read my upcoming book BEFORE it comes out on March 31, 2026? Be a part of our book launch team and get early access: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/book-launch-page Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in 

What comes after deconstruction? In this episode, I sit down with James McGrath to talk about what it looks like to move beyond tearing faith down and begin the slower, braver work of rebuilding it with honesty, humility, and curiosity. We wrestle with Bible scholarship, doubt, certainty, and why faith that looks like Jesus may require fewer answers and more courage. If you’ve ever felt stuck between what you can no longer believe and what you’re not sure you can believe yet, this conversation is an invitation to keep going. Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/TGCzj4O5w0g  ----------------- Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/patron-sign-ups Trying to make sense of faith? There's something better waiting for you. Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in  Links: James' new book: https://amzn.to/3XG2CGE