The Fall of Sam Allberry and Why It Matters

Sam Allberry shot to prominence more than decade ago with his book Is God Anti Gay? and the founding of Living Out, a ministry promoting celibacy for same-sex attracted Christians. In 2023, he relocated from England to the US to serve as Associate Pastor at Immanuel Church in Nashville, TN. He also began to serve as a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. This past week he resigned from both positions because of an “inappropriate relationship” with another male.

The Christian world is shook.

Some History

A couple decades ago, Christendom began to debate about how believers should respond to same-sex attraction. As is often the case with theological debates, several camps formed. Here’s my distillation: “Side A” said go for it, gay sex is okay. “Side B” said gay sex is unbiblical, so refrain from it, but identifying as gay is fine provided one is committed to a life of celibacy. Side B proponents present themselves as “gay Christians.”

While these two sides duked it out, additional sides formed. “Side X” (as in ex-gay) proposed that orientation could and should be changed, and “Side Y” deemphasized orientation change but promoted a position free of sexual orientation-based identity. In other words, Side Y didn’t think in terms of orientation, but urged people to identify with Christ rather than their sexual tendencies.

Xrs and Yrs posited that Side B, while claiming faithfulness, created a slide chute back to gay behavior. And with Sam Alberry’s fall, many of them are saying, “I told you so.”

Side B Skeptics

The pushback against identifying as “Gay Christian” goes like this: We don’t attach porn addiction or adultery to our Christian identity—why “gay Christian”? People with a desire to jump from partner to partner don’t introduce themselves as, “I’m a serial relationship Christian” that would be normalizing sinful desires. Side B skeptics often cite 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (Italic supplied.)

Such WERE some of you. You WERE fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners.

Should we introduce ourselves as, “I’m a fornicator Christian,” or “I’m an adulterous Christian”?

That would silence a potluck line real quick.

I Stand with Identity

I admit to being a Side B skeptic. I have several reasons, the chief being that I see our new identity in Christ as being absolutely core to our sanctification. People become what they think they are. If we define ourselves by a sinful sexual appetite, regardless of what appetite it is, we quietly and slowly mold ourselves into the shape of that appetite. Consider this:

“A child frequently censured for some special fault comes to regard that fault as his peculiarity, something against which it is vain to strive.”

We can see in this statement that identity as “bad boy” leads to “bad boy” behavior. We humans become what we think we are.

Let me build out the reasons I’m a Side B skeptic.

Our desires don’t define us. Our Father does. And as He defines us, we believe. This pulls us into the reality of who we are in Christ, Who changes our characters to be like His, until one day He will come again and change our bodies. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18).

Identify and abstain is torture. To tell a person to identify as gay but refrain from the behavioral expression of gayness seems like a perpetual chokehold. I don’t identify as an unfaithful wife then force myself to stay with one husband. I ask God to transform my natural waywardness from the inside out, and to give me faithful love for my husband. Staying married to one man while identifying as a wandering soul feels like prison; staying with him from a heart made new feels like home.

It assumes orientation. The idea of sexual orientation is at least extra-biblical, and probably just wrong. The Bible simply identifies right and wrong sexual behaviors without allowances or caveats for people “born that way.” While it does seem some same-sex attracted people will never be opposite-sex attracted, that is not true of all gay people. I find it duplicitous that culture talks about human sexuality as fluid until the idea of going from gay to straight is mentioned—then it seems sexuality is fixed. My point is that orientation assumes a fixedness that may not be the case.

It misses out on a blessing. Conversion changes us. The Master Sculptor molds our born-again softness into a fuller and fuller portrayal of His image. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor 5:17). “The things that you once loved—the things of the world—you’ll now hate, and the things you once hated—the things of God—you’ll now love!” God promises transformation with a new identity, not as an end product of transformation, but as the gift He gives us making transformation possible.

I’m a Side B skeptic because I want every blessing Jesus has to offer me—the new self, the promise of growth, and the fellowship of other pilgrims walking the same path.