Pastor Jared Moore has been gaining notoriety for his stand for Biblical sexuality and his book* on the topic. He recently made a post on Twitter (“X”) in which he called out problematic teaching by “same-sex attracted” Christian, Sam Allberry, at a talk he gave in 2014 on the campus of the University of Idaho. Pastor Moore’s issue centers around this quote from Allberry:
I would love… to be opposite-sex attracted rather than same-sex attracted. I would love to be a husband to a wife. I’d love to be a father to a child.…I love family life. I’d love to have kids.
Pastor Moore then goes on to provide five comments in response that critique and call to repentance, but all in a very optimistic way. His tone is not aggressive, nor his words condescending. To quote his final point:
To summarize, the only thing keeping Allberry from biblical marriage is Allberry. I pray he repents, because he’s unnecessarily reaping loneliness. And he doesn’t have to. And…if you have same-sex desires, you don’t have to reap loneliness either.
This disagreement with Allberry’s opinion that one can be unchangeably “same-sex attracted”—thus burning with passion, longing for things he cannot change—caught the ire of many, including Allberry. He responded with a tweet thread that accused Pastor Moore of misrepresenting him. Allberry’s thread does not deal with the substance of Pastor Moore’s points, but simply asserts that he is mean and Allberry is not lonely.
Dealing with substance would be useful, as Pastor Moore was clear as to the type of loneliness he observed in Sam, a loneliness in regards to marriage and children. Examining Allberry’s quote again, it is understandable why Pastor Moore would describe that unfulfilled desire as “loneliness.” This seems to be a case of poke-holeism on the part of Allberry, as Pastor Moore didn’t say the word “lonely” or “loneliness,” and an attempt to strike at the real point of disagreement between the two: is sexual orientation a fixed state that a Christian cannot surrender to Christ, and pursue God’s design?
*EWTC News has not reviewed the book
Both Jared Moore and Sam Allberry have been reached out to for comment or clarification
Author’s note: Reading Sam Allberry’s response confused me, and I had to reread it. I was under the impression, after listening to talks and reading books from him, that he was open about experiencing loneliness as it relates to marriage and children. Even if Pastor Moore was in fact off-base on that point, though it doesn’t change the substance of his arguments, then I would argue it’s from poor communication on Allberry’s part.
