Sam Williams Makes Christian-And-Bi-Inclusive Funny – Watch The Video
Growing up, comedian Sam Williams learned a hard lesson early on. In his small, traditional UK town, being different wasn’t an option. For a kid quietly realising he was attracted to both boys and girls, the world felt hostile.
“I learned quickly that the worst thing you could ever be was a queer bloke stumbling through the woods in search of intimacy,” Williams recalls in his PinkNews essay.
This was the era of Section 28, a notorious law that forbade schools and local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality. In practice, it meant teachers couldn’t even acknowledge that LGBTQIA+ people existed, leaving a generation of kids to figure things out in total silence. For anyone who grew up feeling like they had to hide a part of themselves, does his story sound familiar?
Finding yourself through punchlines.
A move to Brighton for university offered a new world. While a brief flirtation with the drag society proved wigs weren’t for him, stand-up comedy was a perfect fit. He found a way to process his identity through performance, earning him the Komedia New Comedy Award in 2023 and a spot at the prestigious Pleasance Comedy Reserve at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024. He turned the idea of being a punchline into a career.
While his comedy career took off, something else was stirring. It began with an unlikely source, John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem Paradise Lost. The poem taught him that faith wasn’t about rigid proof, but about hope, and the belief that a better, kinder world is possible. This wasn’t a rejection of his old self, but an addition of something new.
Still, reconciling his sexuality with Christianity presented a challenge. His search for answers led him to an unexpected place of acceptance, a primary school with an Islamic faith ethos where he worked as a teaching assistant. The experience proved that faith and acceptance could coexist. This encouraged him to find a Christian community that felt the same. He found it at Union Chapel in London, an affirming church where he was eventually baptised by a gay minister.
For Sam Williams, faith and queerness are not in conflict. “There’s inherent queerness to faith,” he says, and he might be right. Both require you to hold a belief in something unseen and to have the courage to live your truth, even when others don’t understand it. His story is a powerful reminder that you don’t have to choose between parts of yourself to be whole.
