The dramatic resignation of internationally recognised Christian speaker and author Sam Allberry, after disclosures of an “inappropriate relationship with another man,” is sending shockwaves through evangelical circles and reigniting scrutiny of the “gay but celibate” movement promoted in many churches.
Anthony Venn-Brown OAM, Founder and CEO of Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International (ABBI), says the controversy exposes the glaring incomparability of religious teaching and human reality.
“For years, Sam Allberry became the global face of a message that said: ‘You can be gay, but you must never fall in love, partner with, or build a life with someone of the same sex,” Venn-Brown says.
“The gay but celibate message was presented as a Christian alternative after the collapse of the Exodus, “pray the gay away”, empire in 2013. The Exodus network of ministries claimed people could become heterosexual through prayer, counselling, and spiritual intervention.
“As confidence in those programs crumbled, many churches pivoted toward a new model: acknowledging same-sex attraction while demanding lifelong celibacy. But for countless LGBTQ people, it translated into loneliness, suppression, shame, and impossible expectations.”
“The foundational beliefs didn’t really change,” Venn-Brown says. “Only the strategy changed. The message shifted from ‘pray the gay away’ to ‘gay without the lay’”.
Allberry’s books, conferences, and teaching became highly influential across evangelical churches in Australia, the UK, and the United States, particularly among churches attempting to hold on to their traditional teachings on homosexuality while appearing more compassionate and culturally aware.
Venn-Brown, an author, former Pentecostal preacher and survivor of conversion “therapy”, says the situation raises much larger questions than the actions of Allberry himself.
“This is not simply a story about personal failure,” he says, “it’s about what happens when people are taught that one of the deepest and most beautiful of human experiences, love, intimacy, and connection, must be permanently sacrificed to be acceptable to God.”
For more than 25 years, Venn-Brown has worked with thousands of LGBTQ people from faith backgrounds, including survivors of LGBTQ conversion practices and religious trauma.
“One of the most common things I hear is exhaustion,” he says. “Exhaustion from fighting themselves. Exhaustion from believing their capacity to love was something dangerous, sinful, and must be suppressed.”
He said the growing fractures surrounding the celibacy movement resemble the early unravelling of the ex-gay movement decades earlier.
“We’ve seen this pattern before,” Venn-Brown says. “When theological beliefs consistently collide with lived human reality, eventually the cracks begin to show.”
MEDIA CONTACT
Anthony Venn-Brown OAM
Founder & CEO
Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International (ABBI)
+61 (0)416 025 231
FULL ARTICLE https://www.abbi.org.au/2026/05/sam-allberry-2/
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