A series of articles by anti-social justice Dallas Statement leader Tom Buck served to focus attentions on part of the LGBT+ problem in the SBC by turning the spotlight on Sam Allberry and his UK based ministry “Living Out.” At issue were some 6-year-old articles posted on the Living Out website. Much of the deeper controversy on Allberrys ministry were left out of the discussion. Hardly a peep was being spoken about the current and ongoing controversy of Revoice 2019 and its considerable ties to the ERLC/ TGC and Albert Mohler’s SBTS or that SBC/TGC favorite Mark Yarhouse spoke at Revoice 2019.

In recent months leading up to Revoice 2019 (which took place this past week) the Southern Baptist media machine was in full swing to KEEP Revoice 2019 out of the news. The efforts of some in the PCA to address and condemn the “LGBT+ Flourishing” conference from 2018 have made recent denominational headlines and been the topic of multiple blogs. But the SBC regulars like Denny Burk and Albert Mohler have had nothing to say about this years event and its SBC ties even though TGC and SBC thought leader on LGBT sexuality and gender  Mark  Yarhouse was a keynote speaker at Revoice 2019.

A series of articles by anti-social justice Dallas Statement leader Tom Buck served to focus attentions on part of the LGBT+ problem in the SBC by turning the spotlight on Sam Allberry and his UK based ministry  “Living Out.” At issue were some 6 year old articles posted on the Living Out website. Much of the deeper controversy on Allberry’s ministry were left out of the discussion. Hardly a peep was being spoken about the current and ongoing controversy of Revoice 2019 and its considerable ties to the ERLC/TGC and Albert Mohler’s SBTS or that SBC/TGC favorite Mark Yarhouse spoke at Revoice 2019.

The Buck/Allberry skirmish launched a TGC interview between Allberry and 9MARKS editor Jonathan Leeman. Tensions calmed after a contrite Allberry agreed to “audit the Living Out website.” However no mention was made of the Living Out  “LGBTQ+Inclusion Audit” for churches  or that Leeman’s (and Mark Dever) own 9MARKS churches began to implement the Living Out training and audit in the Fall of 2018. All was nicely smoothed over and even Tom Buck tweeted out his deep appreciation of his brother Allberry and expressing thankfulness for his ministry. The sad reality in the SBC is that a major pro LGBTQ+ movement is thriving in our midst and those in leadership  are either playing DODGEBALL or SOFTBALL with it. This reality may set in far too late to stop the movement.

So let us take a look at who introduced  Sam Allberry to the people of the SBC and how he became a TGC editor.

(This article is a portion of a chapter in the forthcoming book “Social Injustice” available  http://www.gatekeepersonline.com/socialinjusticebook. You may preorder the book now. Type in the code Thomas for a free audiobook.)

Will the Real Sam Allberry Please Stand Up?

The Allberry Living Out Origins and Introduction

The ERLC conference on The Gospel Homosexuality and the Future of Marriage introduced a host of new speakers to the SBC in 2014 all claiming to be ‘same-sex attracted (SSA), but celibate’ Christians. (some professed to be in mixed orientation marriages- homosexual married to a heterosexual—yes dizzying by design). Though not advocating FOR gay marriage or approval of active gays in the church, these speakers represented a chorus who would begin with the SSA language, and in time, advocate openly for singles adoption and foster care supported by the church. By 2018, the SSA talking points would include open attacks on the nuclear family as an “idol” and brazenly deny that heterosexuality is normal or should be the object of a believer in their future identity.

The “idolatry of family” language comes straight from the halls of Drew University Theological School and feminist theologian, Janet Fishburn. The attack on the Christian family is driven by political goals seeking the eventual outcome of weakening and destroying the incubator of Christian conservatism in American culture, which hinders the advance of progressive causes like the feminist agenda. Among the herd of SSA speakers introduced at the 2014 ERLC conference was the soon to be rising star, Sam Allberry—a self-proclaimed SSA gay priest from the Church of England. The British Parliament had redefined marriage in the UK by a 2013 decision. The Queen had signed gay marriage into law and 2014 witnessed its implementation. The Church of England, being a state Church where the Bishops have seats in the House of Lords and the Queen is the head of the Church, required compliance to and embracement of the law of the land. The Church of England has very small weekly attendance. By 2017, the number of actual weekly attendees was below 725,000 out of a population of 67 million. Numbers continue to decline rapidly, and fears are increasing among church leaders that forcing gay marriage on the church may cause an even more rapid decline. The response was to call for a report or study, and the task was assigned to Sir Joseph Pilling a retired agent of the British Department of Health. The end goal of the effort was to address the issue of the acceptance of gay marriage in the Church of England. From the Pilling Report came a recommendation two year facilitated “conversation” (in other words, a controlled dialogue or dialectic) on the issues of homosexuality and marriage. This “dialogue” was to be carried on by selected leaders and controlled by the church and conducted in various locations around the UK. Part of what arose as representing the “historic, conservative” view of marriage and sexuality was a ministry called Living Out, which was founded by an assortment of same-sex attracted, gay, Church of England priests. One of those priests was Sam Allberry. Operating from the position of fixed sexual orientation, and resourcing the same psychological community researchers and leaders like Mark Yarhouse and Stanton Jones, Living Out conducts conferences across the UK using various approaches and nuanced language. For example, though the front page of the website states halfway down that they prefer to use the label ‘same-sex attracted’ instead of the phrase ‘gay Christian,’ the opening paragraph on the site states, “We are a group of Christians who experience same-sex attraction bringing out into the open the questions and dilemmas that gay Christians can often face.”

Living Out leaders, including Allberry, have enjoyed massive promotion and acceptance as the go-to source for issues related to LGBT+ in the Church of England. This is despite the often self-contradicting and nuanced language which often confuses readers and listeners. Allberry’s book, “Is God Anti-Gay?” became a hit among evangelicals leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. Living Out—though left on center by promoting fixed homosexual orientation, and not historically biblical at all—became the new “conservative/biblical response to homosexuality and marriage” in the Pilling Report conversations. To date, the members of Living Out remain publicly opposed to gay marriage, yet push for narratives of inclusion and ordination in the name of celibacy or “mixed orientation marriage” adherents by LGBT+ members of the church and clergy. Allberry and others from Living Out were invited to speak in the 2014 ERLC conference in the US and soon became very popular with The Gospel Coalition (TGC) as writers and speakers in TGC conferences. Allberry became an editor on LGBT related issues for TGC, and writes and speaks for ERLC and Russell Moore—the advocate for change in the US conversation on LGBT-related topics. Allberry also went to work for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries as a speaker and writer. These positions placed Allberry and Living Out at the very heart of the LGBT and marriage issues, providing “answers” which is actually driven by a politically motivated order of Parliament in the UK for a State-owned Church of England. This reality, and how it relates to the church in the US, where the two are separated in order to protect religious freedoms guaranteed in the US Constitution, has thus far failed to become part of the serious questions that have arisen as a result of the Living Out advocacy for SSA Couples living together, singles adoption, and church “hospitality” toward the LGBT+ community, taking several years to come to the full attention of more conservative evangelicals.

By 2019, though, it has come under scrutiny and objections have finally been raised. Allberry had also been joined on the TGC/ERLC conference circuit by others like Rosaria Butterfield, who is billed as a pastor’s wife and homeschool mom, and is also a former lesbian and liberal academic whose specialty is in critical theory and queer theory and literature informed by Freud, Marx, and Darwin. At present, over a dozen people with a variety of backgrounds and “testimonies” have been employed by TGC and ERLC to further the SSA—celibate—LGBT narrative in the biblically conservative US denominations churches, seminaries, and parachurch movements. The great common uniting factor is the embrace of fixed sexual orientation and the ever-present influence of Mark Yarhouse, and American Psychological Association (APA) compliant “Christian psychology.”

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[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]