Sam Allberry has, over the past decade, become one of the most widely recognised voices within conservative evangelicalism on questions of sexuality. As a Christian who has spoken openly about his own same-sex attraction while advocating a celibate life, he has helped shape how many churches—particularly in the UK, the US, and Australia—have approached LGBTQ+ issues.
This week, however, his name has come into wider public focus following reports of an “inappropriate relationship with another man,” prompting a wave of response, reflection, and debate.
The recent news has prompted a flood of reaction. Some express disappointment. Some offer support. Some seek to explain what has happened—or to draw firm conclusions from it.
But I find myself wanting to step back from the immediate commentary and ask a different question.
Not simply: “What went wrong?” But:
What kind of system produces this kind of strain in the first place?
More than one man’s story
It is very easy, in moments like this, for a person to become a symbol—a case study, a warning, an example to be analysed.
But before anything else, Sam is a human being.
And for many years, he has carried a particular kind of weight—living publicly within a theological framework that asks a great deal of him, not only privately but representatively.
He has not simply lived out his convictions; he has embodied them for others.
That is no small burden.
A journey from within
Before going further, I want to acknowledge something personal.
I find that I can understand these tensions very well—not from a distance, but from within.
From my early teens until my late forties, I did everything I could to fit into that same conservative evangelical world. I believed its theology. I embraced its vision of holiness. I committed myself wholeheartedly to living within its boundaries.
At one point, that commitment led me to take what I understood to be a step of obedience. I married a woman—and she, in turn, married me—believing that together we were honouring God’s created order.
It was not a superficial decision. It was sincere, prayerful, and costly.
But over time, we found ourselves facing a reality we had not understood. We discovered that marriage is not sustained by goodwill or friendship alone. The absence of mutual sexual desire was not a secondary matter, but something deeply woven into the fabric of what marriage is.
Slowly, we began to realise that what we had taken to be obedience to God’s created order was, in fact, obedience to an idea about that order—one that proved unable to sustain the reality of our lives.
During those same years, I was also involved in leading what was then called an “ex-gay” ministry, convinced that this too was a faithful expression of discipleship.
But again, pastoral reality began to press in. As I walked alongside others, listened to their stories, and witnessed their struggles, it became increasingly difficult to ignore what was actually happening. We began to see that, far from bringing freedom, much of what we were doing was causing harm.
At the same time, we also began to notice something else—the emergence of faithful, loving same-sex partnerships that bore, unmistakably, the marks of grace, commitment, and spiritual fruit. We found ourselves drawn back to Jesus’ own words: “by their fruit you shall know them.” And what we were seeing made it increasingly difficult to deny that God was present and at work in ways we had not expected.
In the end, this led us to a point of profound change. We made the decision to become an LGBTQ+ affirming ministry—not lightly, but because we could no longer deny what we were seeing.
That decision, however, came at a cost. We lost our financial support. We lost credibility within the Christian community we had once belonged to. And for some who had joined us along the way, the change felt like a betrayal.
It is from within that journey—not outside it—that I now reflect on these questions.
A changing landscape
Others, including my friend Anthony Venn-Brown, have already highlighted the psychological and pastoral cost of what has come to be known as the “celibate gay Christian” model. I do not want to repeat that work here. But I do want to recognise it.
For many, this model emerged as a more compassionate alternative to earlier “change is possible” approaches. It appeared more realistic, more humane, more psychologically aware. And yet, over time, questions have continued to surface—not necessarily because people lack sincerity or commitment, but because something in the lived reality of human experience presses against the framework itself.
Ideas do not exist in isolation.
Within conservative evangelical culture, attitudes towards homosexuality are often sustained by a whole underground network of assumptions, fears, loyalties, and inherited interpretations. Like the rhizomes beneath a bracken field, these beliefs spread laterally beneath the surface—intertwined with identity, belonging, masculinity, holiness, biblical authority, fear of compromise, and anxiety about cultural change. Even when one argument is challenged, the deeper network remains alive underground, sending up fresh shoots elsewhere.
When reality and theology collide
What we are witnessing is not simply a personal difficulty. It is what happens when a public theology meets the complexity of human life. And when that happens, we are faced with a choice. We can:
• reinforce the system more tightly,
• attribute the problem to individual failure,
or we can ask whether the framework itself needs to be examined more deeply.
A question beneath the question
For me, the central issue is not whether celibacy is possible. Many people—across different contexts and traditions—have lived celibate lives with integrity and depth.
The question is more specific, and more searching:
What does it mean to ask a particular group of people to live without the possibility of love, intimacy, and relational fulfilment—and what vision of God stands behind that request?
(I have explored this question in greater depth in an earlier article, “An Education in the Character of God: Forty years wrestling with faith, sexuality, and truthfulness before God.”)
The quiet inconsistency
Because once we ask that question, another emerges.
Christians have shown themselves capable of remarkable flexibility in many areas of life. On money, lending, divorce, remarriage, and other issues, what once appeared absolute has, over time, been reinterpreted, contextualised, or pastorally adapted.
Indeed, within my own lifetime, the Church has undergone significant shifts—on divorce and remarriage, on the role of women in leadership, and in its response to the charismatic movement. Positions once regarded as settled have been revisited, sometimes contested, and eventually reconfigured in the light of experience, reflection, and the leading of the Spirit.
And yet, in this area, there often remains a striking rigidity.
It is as though here, and here alone, there can be no development.
That asymmetry is difficult to ignore.
Jesus and the weight of rules
When we look at Jesus, we see something both deeply serious and quietly subversive. He does not dismiss moral concerns. But neither does he allow rules to override the good they are meant to serve. When a sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, he does not hesitate.
He does not say, “The rule must stand.”
He says, in effect, “Of course you would act—so act.”
The rule exists for life.
Not life for the rule.
A deeper theological question
And this leads to what I believe is the deeper issue.
Not simply:
• whether a particular discipline can be maintained,
• or whether an individual has succeeded or failed
but:
Does the framework we are working within reflect the nature of God as revealed in Jesus?
What I have come to believe
Over many years, I have found myself drawn to a different centre, with increasing clarity.
I have come to believe that at the heart of reality there is a love that does not give up. A love that does not coerce, does not manipulate, does not withdraw—but persists. A love that seeks us, meets us where we are, and draws us toward life.
And more than that: I have come to believe that this is the love revealed in Jesus—not as an abstract idea, but as something lived and embodied in the world.
A love that forgives even in the face of violence.
A love that restores rather than condemns.
A love that goes to the very depths—and is not overcome.
And more than that: I have come to believe that this love is not bounded by death.
Living with risk
But this is not an abstract belief. It is something I try—often falteringly—to live.
And that is where it becomes difficult. Because life is complex.
Again and again, I find myself facing situations where there is no clear answer:
• If I act in this way, what will the consequences be?
• If I choose this path, who might be hurt?
• If I follow what seems like love here, will it lead to good—or to unintended harm?
To live by love is not to live with certainty. It is to take risks. It is to accept that I may sometimes get things wrong.
The quiet discovery
Again and again, I have found something surprising. Or perhaps it should not be surprising. That even where things seem uncertain or imperfect, there is often a deeper current at work. Things feared as failures are, in ways not immediately visible, gathered into something good.
Not as a formula.
But as a lived discovery.
Seeing this moment differently
And this brings me back to the present moment.
I do not see this situation as the failure of one man. I see it as a moment that invites the Church to pause—to reflect more deeply on what we are asking of people, and why.
To ask whether the frameworks we have constructed are capable of holding the reality of human life.
And perhaps most importantly:
To ask whether they reflect the character of the God we proclaim.
Not condemnation, but reflection
There will be many voices in the coming days.
Some firm.
Some certain.
Some quick to draw conclusions.
But perhaps what is needed is something else.
Not less seriousness—but deeper seriousness.
Not louder judgment—but more honest reflection.
Beyond the policing of thought
In some responses to recent events, language has been used that deserves careful reflection.
The suggestion that what is at issue is concupiscence—a disordered inner desire—points to a deeper assumption: that even the movements of the heart must be monitored, categorised, and brought under control.
But here we approach something more troubling.
Because once we begin to frame human experience in this way, we move beyond questions of behaviour into the realm of interior surveillance.
Not simply what we do—but what we feel.
Not simply our actions—but our desires.
And at that point, the boundaries become impossible to define, and the burden impossible to bear. It begins to resemble not a path of freedom, but a form of quiet coercion—what, in another context, we might recognise as a kind of “thought policing.”
Jesus’ own teaching seems to move in a different direction. He does not deny the complexity of the human heart. But neither does he construct a system in which every movement of desire must be subjected to scrutiny and control.
Instead, he draws people into relationship. Into honesty. Into a process of transformation that is lived, not monitored.
And perhaps that is the deeper question once again:
In the Christian life, are we being invited into a life of trust and transformation—or into a system that asks us to manage ourselves endlessly from within?
A final thought
If at the heart of reality there is a love that does not give up, a love that does not coerce, a love that does not abandon, then perhaps our task is not to construct systems that people must sustain at all costs, but to learn how to live within that love—and allow it to reshape our understanding of one another.
A note, if this should ever be read. . .
If, by any chance, these words were ever to reach Sam Allberry himself, I would want to say something very simple.
Not as a commentator, but as someone who has walked a similar road.
I know something of the weight you have carried. The desire to be faithful. The cost of trying to live within a framework you believed to be true. The scrutiny that comes when your life becomes representative of something larger than yourself.
Whatever conclusions others may draw, I hope you are able to find space—not primarily to explain, justify, or defend—but simply to be.
To be human.
To be honest.
To be held, perhaps, in a way that does not depend on performance or consistency.
And if there is one thing my own journey has taught me, it is this:
That truth is not something we secure by holding everything together at all costs. Sometimes it emerges precisely at the point where the system can no longer be sustained.
by Jeremy Marks, 7th May 2026