Pastor Sam Allberry offered his thoughts in a conversation on “The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast” regarding whether or not someone can experience same-sex attraction without sinning. The question, which Allberry observed “has become a very scrutinized part of our conversation,” arose as he was emphasizing the need for church to be a safe place where people can share their sins and the messiness of their lives.
“So often in church, it can feel like church is where I’ve got to be ‘Christian enough,’ which is why we find we’re sometimes hesitant to share struggles, sins, burdens, that kind of thing,” Allberry said. “And we have such a beautiful message to proclaim, a message of grace.”
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“And Jesus himself says,” Allberry added, “‘By this will all people know you are my disciples’—not by your doctrinal statement, not by the quality of your music, not by the rhetorical gifts of your pastor, but ‘by your love for one another.’”
Sam Allberry: Temptation vs. Sin, Not Attraction vs. Deed
Sam Allberry is an apologist, author, speaker, and associate pastor at Immanuel Nashville in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of a number of books, including “Is God Anti-Gay?,” “7 Myths About Singleness,” and “You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches,” which he co-authored with Ray Ortlund.
Allberry is also a celibate Christian who experiences same-sex attraction. During his conversation with Dr. Ed Stetzer and Daniel Yang, Allberry shared several thoughts about how church leaders can help create cultures where people don’t feel like they have to “have it all together.”
Stetzer asked Allberry what it looks like for a church to show grace to people experiencing same-sex attraction, noting that part of what Pastor Andy Stanley was trying to accomplish with his controversial Unconditional Conference last fall was to create “a grace-filled place for people to struggle” and to help “parents to stay in connection with their children who identify as LGBTQ+.”
Stetzer alluded to “thoughts and concerns” (which he has shared with Stanley) that he had about that conference and noted that Allberry expressed his own concerns in an article for Christianity Today, titled “Andy Stanley’s ‘Unconditional’ Contradiction.”
“We want our churches to be places where it’s safe to confess any kind of sin,” Allberry told Stetzer. “And so when it comes to an issue like same-sex attraction, we want to not be so treating that issue as if it’s a sin entirely of its own kind of category that would make people feel like, ‘I could never share here that this is something I struggle with.’”
“But we do want people to know it is a sin,” he added. “It’s something to be confessed.”
