The Other Cheek got a good schooling this week when covering the story of author and prominent conference speaker Sam Allberry, a strong advocate for ceilibacy about what he would call “same-sex attracted Christians.” The elders of his church, Immanuel, in Nashville, Tennesee found that Allberry was disqualified from gospel ministry and he has resigned.
The nuanced practice of these celibates gave rise some years ago to labels like “Side B” as distinct from “Side A” the non-celibate homosexuals who claim a Christian identity. We settled for “Celibate gay Christians” when it became clear that using Side B for Allberry was inaccurate. Thanks to our interlocutors.
In addition, celibate Gay Christians are split over nomenclature – Allberry is a priest – now under discipline – in the Anglican Church in North America whose bishops strongly rejected the idea of an idenity of “Gay Christians”.
Here is a diagram from a few years back, compiled by Kris Lewis, which attempts to set out the various tendencies in the celibate world. It comes with a caveat that some, such as Allberry don’t like thease labels, and the usage of some of these have faded from common use.
main Image credit: zeevveez / flickr