A few days ago, Immanuel Church Nashville released a statement that associate pastor Sam Allberry had resigned from his position following an “inappropriate relationship with an adult man,” the nature and extent of which he failed to fully disclose. Allberry is a rather high-profile evangelical leader whose public ministry has been professing and defending the position that homosexuality is sinful while also freely admitting to same-sex attraction.
Allberry was a frequent contributor to prominent evangelical publications like The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God (both of whom have now removed Allberry’s contributions from their websites) and the author of books like Is God Anti-gay?. Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?, 7 Myths about Singleness, and What God Has to Say about Our Bodies. Allberry made his ministry and career by being a same-sex attracted man committed to celibacy based on his interpretation of Scripture. His ministry and career have now come to a screeching halt for exactly the same reason.
Josh Olds
This moment is not a time for us just to comment on the fall of yet another public figure or decry the hypocrisy of church leaders who preach one thing and do another. This is about a human being who is living with the weight of a failed conviction in their desire to faithfully serve God. At the same time, that conviction is one many would not feel is necessary — one that rethinking would lead to freedom and flourishing.
As I pondered all this, I began to wish I could speak directly to Sam, not as an analyst or an opponent, but as a pastor who truly wants to see him flourish.
Here’s what I would say:
Grace and peace to you. I’m writing as someone who grew up in a faith tradition where making a distinction between sexual orientation and sexual practice represented the “liberal” position. Your writing was a key part in my eventual movement to being fully affirming and fully inclusive of same-sex sexual behavior within marriage. Granted, some might consider that a slippery slope.
Your ministry has been characterized with a compassionate thoughtfulness and a clarity of conviction that centered your central desire to live faithfully before God, even in areas you found difficult. It is clear that you — with a clearly personal interest in the outcome — have truly wrestled with the biblical text and the history of the church and genuinely come to the belief that your same-sex attraction was something sinful if put into practice.
“There is grief in the tension between longing and belief you lived with for so long.”
Public failure is always painful, but particularly so when it intersects so directly with the very convictions that have shaped your vocation and identity. That burden must be very heavy. There is grief in that — not just over your actions, but over the tension between longing and belief you lived with for so long.
Now that it has become public, you have not only lost that close relationship but also the relationships and standing with your church and those connected to your public life. Those with an affirming position, or those outside the faith, may well be quick to note your actions as hypocritical. Those with an even stricter view against same-sex attraction might use this as evidence that even attraction must be labeled a sin. There is a great weight and difficulty here.
You have long articulated a vision of discipleship for the same-sex attracted that calls for costly obedience, and many have been inspired by your willingness to embrace celibacy as part of that calling. At the same time, I wonder if the cost you’ve borne points not only to your desire for faithfulness, but a deeper question that is worth revisiting: Have your convictions made space for the fulness of human flourishing God intends?
I ask this not to attack you, but to genuinely and hopefully gently point out the tension in your life and express that it is OK to reevaluate one’s beliefs and convictions. It doesn’t have to be giving in to sin. It doesn’t have to be compromising your faith to feed your flesh. Perhaps it is that this longing you have within you for intimate and romantic connection is not a perversion but the way God created you to be.
There is a tension here between what you think and how you feel.
I’m not going to run through the so-called clobber texts or debate your position against you here. You and I both know there is a growing body of faithful, Scripture-honoring Christians who have come to see the heart of the biblical sexual ethic is not gender complementarity per se, but a covenantal love that reflects God’s own intimate closeness and faithfulness. Reevaluating your beliefs on Scripture’s stance regarding monogamous same-sex relationships and marriage would not be a defection of your desire to be faithful to God’s word but would represent a desire to interpret Scripture correctly.
“There is a tension here between what you think and how you feel.”
You would not be alone in this journey. Other evangelicals have made this journey, including men like Tony Campolo, Steve Chalke, David Gushee and Richard Hays. If I may be so bold, I would include myself on this list. We have come to this conclusion not because we throw Scripture out, but because we take it seriously — and we also take seriously the fruit of the Spirit’s indwelling seen so abundantly in the lives of so many queer Christians who are faithfully navigating their sexual identity and their belief in Jesus.
It is here that I find myself thinking about Paul’s teaching in the epistle to the Romans, in chapter 14, where he addresses deeply contested questions about what faith looks like in practice. Should Christians eat meat or abstain? Should they celebrate certain days as sacred or treat all days alike? The cosmopolitan nature of Rome was such that there were believers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds all trying to determine which of their practices and rituals were personal or cultural convictions and which were religious demands. These were not trivial matters for the early church — they touched issues of identity, Scripture, tradition and conscience just as the issue of same-sex behavior does today.
Into that context, Paul does something striking. He doesn’t resolve the debate. Rather, he reframes the issue around a matter of conscience before the Lord. He calls these things “disputable matters” and says that “each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind” (Romans 14:5). The call is not to doctrinal uniformity or an elevation of these matters to foundational orthodoxy. It is for love, grace and acceptance — including a refusal to place a stumbling block in the path of following Jesus.
You and I would disagree that same-sex sexual activity is a disputable matter. As a matter of fact, you’ve said we cannot just agree to disagree on this matter because “In the case of homosexual practice, the gospel is very much at stake.”
But I wonder if you could bear with me and explore this line of thinking. In our time, faithful Christians — people wholly committed to the authority of Scripture and the Lordship of Christ — have come to differing conclusions about same-sex relationships. This difference comes not out of a disregard for Scripture or for humanity, but through a desire to be faithful to Scripture and see a humanity that flourishes. This matter is, I believe, very much akin to the issues Paul is speaking about.
“This longing you have carried may not be something you are called to suppress indefinitely.”
Amid this, I want to affirm to you my belief based on this passage that your commitment to celibacy was correct for you. It was built out of your desire for faithfulness. Paul writes that anyone who has doubts about eating should not eat and it is sin for them if they do so. Your conviction that placing your same-sex attraction into practice is a sin does, I believe, make it sin for you. In light of the recent revelation that you engaged in a same-sex relationship that you felt, by your standards, was inappropriate, I believe it is altogether correct for you to remove yourself from positions of leadership.
But that does not mean you must stay there. I don’t write this to argue or persuade you in a forceful way. I doubt you will even ever read this. But as a pastor, I want to offer this to you from my heart: This longing you have carried may not be something you are called to suppress indefinitely, but it may be something that can be redeemed and rightly expressed within the kind of committed, Christ-centered relationship Scripture celebrates.
If this is true, then this failure in your life could be an invitation — an invitation to reexamine, to heal and to allow God’s grace and love to flood your understanding. This could be an invitation to consider whether the abundant life God promises might include, rather than exclude, the possibility of a faithful, covenantal, same-sex relationship.
You have given so much of yourself in service of the church. You have opened yourself up to the world, made yourself vulnerable, and the pain you are currently experiencing is part of that. Whatever comes next, I pray you have the space to hear God, to rest in God’s mercies and know the way forward with God to a future filled with flourishing.
You are not alone. Your story is not finished.
Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.