I have titled the article  “Sam Allberry's slippery slope position on homosexuality.”  It is a response to the video uploaded on RZIM's Youtube channel titled  “Is same sex attraction a sin?”  You can find it  here>>  It is a brief 5 minute excerpt of a Q & A session. I request anyone reading this article to first listen to it.  

Sam Allberry is an articulate speaker and is very well versed with society's contemporary take on sexuality and gender. He is an Anglican priest and a resource person with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. He is also a guest contributor at Pastor John Piper’s “Desiring God” ministry and a contributing editor at Timothy Keller’s “The Gospel Coalition.” 

There are many things that I agree with Sam Allberry, not only in this video, but elsewhere as well. There are also some things I strongly disagree with, because of which, I have called his position a 'slippery slope.' There are three parts to this article. The first part deals with his position that “same sex attraction is not sin.” The next part of the article deals with his reference to himself as “same sex attracted Christian.” The last part looks at his position in the light of today's political dialog.

First Part
Is homosexual desire (same sex-attraction) a sin?
Sam Allberry is asked the question “Is same sex attraction a sin?” At 1 minute 24 seconds of the video  he says  responds “Sounds like it only requires a monosyllable to answer it. And I hate answers that always begin with “Well Wesbsters defines… “We need to be very clear what we mean by attraction. Some people use the word attraction   to mean  the capacity,  well some people would call it  the orientation  Is it a sin to have the capacity to be attracted to people of the same sex. I would say on that issue,  I don’t think it is a sin…”  

He gives the following reason for this conclusion. He says  “...the Bible makes a distinction between temptation and   sin....   So the experience of being tempted is not, in of itself, a sin, it is however a reflection of the fact that we have a fallen nature. That we are tempted in this way is a sign that we are …not the way we were meant to be. We have the capacity to be tempted in us and that is a sign that we are fallen… So temptation isn’t a sin, but indulging feelings and fantasies, looking with a certain intent, is a sin.” Here are the problems with his response.

Is he normalising the root and denouncing the fruit?
Is “homosexual desire” not a defiled lust?  Is just the act a sin? I believe the Bible differs from his response. In Romans 1:26,27 we find homosexual desire labelled as a degrading passion. Homosexual desire, along with certain  other kinds of wrong sexual desires, is a lust, a defiling passion (a potential sin), but it is not counted as a personal sin till we act on it either mentally or physically.”  Anything short of this answer is normalising the the “root” (the lust) and just denouncing the “fruit” (the act of homosexuality). 

An equivocated answer or an equitable answer?
How does Allberry come to his conclusion that homosexual desire is not sinful? He equivocates in his response by switching “Sin - in essense” with “Sin - in action.”  He is asked a question whether homosexual sin is “in essence” sinful, to which he gives an answer detailing when the homosexual desire becomes sin in “action.” The Bible is unequivocal on both of these stages. At stage one, any defiled lust is potentially sinful and at stage two, it becomes a sinful act. Any lust is NEVER neutral. Some other desires are non sinful even at the desire stage. Sexual desire for the spouse within marriage, is never a potential sin. A lust cannot claim the same immunity and status. 

The Designer's intent
In his answer, Allberry tries to imply that the capacity to feel sexual desire is neutral. Here we have to look at the Designers intent, why was the sexual capacity created? 1 Cor 6:13 we find  “... The body  (sexual capacity)  is not intended for sexual immorality  (or for any of the other prohibited sexual relations)” So the capacity to feel sexual desire, is intended for morality and not for immorality. In Proverbs 30:20 we find  "This is the way of an adulteress: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.” The adultness justifies her capacity for sexual expression merely as an appetite that has been innocently satiated. However, the capacity to have sexual desires has only one right fulfilment, it is between a woman and a man within the bond of marriage. When the capacity resonates with sexual inclinations towards  prohibited sexual expressions it is defiled.

I will now move on to the second part of my concern with Sam Allberry's position. That is his reference to himself as a “same sex attracted” Christian.

Second Part
“Same sex attracted Christian” A Pilgrim without Progress?
Rahab's life of faith transformed her from being a career prostitute, into a respected mother of faith in the lineage of the Messiah. This is the redeeming aspect of faith. Your past is of absolutely no consequence in the Kingdom of God. A songwriter put it this way “He wasn't surprised at where I had been, He was waiting for me at the end of my sin... that's where His mercy begins. Sweet mercy.” The call of Christ involves faith, a crossroads (repentance) and a carrying of our cross.  “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”  was the opening message of both John the Baptist as well as the Lord Jesus. There is a past and there is the present. 

So when sexual sins like homosexuality are discussed, like in 1 Cor 6:9-11, it was put in people's past. “Such  were some of you...” says the Bible. This is the way a “pilgrim progresses.” A Christian's current status is “Saint in Christ Jesus,” and not something rooted in the past. Rahab did not continue the rest of her life as an “adultery attracted believer,” but turned around to God.

This is not to say that besetting sins do not come calling again. But as pilgrims on a journey how do we look at such lusts? What is the promise of Salvation all about? A student asked Bishop B.F. Westcott, who was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University a question.  ‘Are you saved?’  ‘Ah,’  said the Bishop,  ‘...a very good question.'  But before he replied the bishop clarified three passive participles of the Greek verb “to save” and used it in his answer.  “I know I have been saved,’  he said;  ‘I believe I am being saved; and I hope by the grace of God that I shall be saved.’”  As the Bishop pointed out, there are three tenses of salvation: we have been set free from the  penalty of sin, we are being set free from the power of sin  and we will be set free from the  presence of sin. Yes, we will always struggle with sin, but we are not looking back but looking towards Christ, the Author and perfecter of our faith  “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”  (2 Cor 3:18).  Our identity is found in Christ and not in our past. Our fractured lives are being transformed to become like Christ. 

Our twofold response to sin has a negative and a positive. The negative response towards sin, includes saying “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions (Titus 2:12). This is not a suppression but rather a 'putting to death' the sinful passion, through the Spirit (Romans 8:13). Next, there is the positive element which is the transformation of our minds (Romans 12:1,2). Which involves the way we view sexual expression. So a man prone to adultery is left with a twofold task. One is to 'put to death' the temptation. Next is to be transformed in the way he looks at women."From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh...". writes the apostle Paul in 2 Cor 5:16. We are to “...Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity” (1 Timothy 5:1(b),2)

Third Part
Is Sam Allberry's positioning Biblical or Political?
There are two political positions that concur with Allberry's position. 

Political position 1 Sexual orientation is immutable. 
In referring to himself as “same sex attracted” Christian, Sam Allberry is implying that for some people like himself, their sexual orientation is immutable, even after they become a Christian. In an article at the Desiring God website, he quotes sn instance where a lesbian couple become Christian. After coming to Christ, they change and start to view each other as sisters in Christ after stopping their homosexual relationship. This is Biblical. The way we look at people have to change. These women corrected their view according to the Bible. This is the rule for everybody. In 1 Timothy 5:1(b),2 Paul says  “...Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” A believer corrects his view to look at older women as mothers and younger women as sisters, in all purity and stop viewing them as potential sexual partners. Sam Allberry ends his article with his usual ambiguity. He says “the point is not that their story is typical or normative...” Why did he say that? If that was the normative and typical response, then he should also be viewing younger men as brothers and older men as fathers and stop calling himself “same sex attracted” Christian. Is that the reason why he says that the example of these sisters need not be normative? Is his persistence in the “same sex attracted” Christian position, implying that some can change (like the sisters) but some cannot (like himself). 

Political position 2: Homosexual desire is an objective disorder and not a sin.
So by this definition, homosexuality is a sickness and not a  sin. Only its outworking, either mental or physical, is sin. So they can say Homosexual desire is not sin, only the act is sin. We have seen Allberry use this argument in the Q & A above, where he normalises the root and denounces the fruit. In this way, Allberry's position is closer to the political position than the Bible. The Bible calls the desire a sinful desire (potential sin) that becomes a personal sin when we give in to it. Even at the desire stage this desire is is not neutral but defiled.

Allberry's position on sexuality: A help or a hindrance? 
Sam Allberry is somewhat an enigma. In many of his controversial presentations, (he has non controversial ones as well), he starts from a strong Biblical position and ends with ambiguity. For example, he starts his Q & A session that we have just seen, from a strong Biblical position on marriage, temptation and sin. He then broadens the issue, i.e., all face temptation. He then ends with ambiguity “homosexual desire is not sin.” I have named it Sam Allberry's A,B,C, (Agree, Broaden, Confuse). So at the end of the presentation, rather than strengthening the Biblical position, he leaves the hearer with ambiguity. 

This can be seen in another video where he talks about gender identity. He starts with a strong Biblical position that God made only two genders, male and female. He then moves on to broaden the issue, i.e., all experience gender dysphoria in some form. He then confuses the issue. “David experienced gender dysphoria (1:08:49) David was a pretty boy (effeminate), The Lord Jesus also experienced gender dysphoria (1:13:56). So there is no clear position on gender dysphoria as all of us surffer from it in some form. That is a ridiculous generalisation. Contrary to Allberry, the distress the Lord faced in his redeeming work, that included flogging and crucifixion, cannot be correlated with gender dysphoria. He cannot generalise by saying all experience gender dysphoria. Again he leaves the hearer with ambiguity after starting with clarity.

Allberry's position confuses the Christian message by substituting Suppression for Sanctification. 
Homosexual abstinence is the message that Sam Allberry promotes. This is more like the catholic position on homosexuality that seeks to form abstinence groups for people with homosexual desires.  They too treat homosexuality as an immutable condition. 

Sam Allberry's smuggles into Christianity, the immutability of homosexual orientation and the non-sinfulness of homosexual desire. His positioning fits better with current political narrative than Christian doctrine. Further, his A, B, C, approach leaves the hearer with a confused picture. I believe that because of these, it is a slippery slope position, a small step that would start a slide of events that moves progressively further away from the Biblical orthodoxy because of the unbiblical elements in it.