Arizona Conference of Seventh-day Adventist pastor Alicia Johnston has come out as bisexual and has resigned from her role. She released a video discussing her resignation, which was played for the church service.
“It’s wonderful to finally be able to say ‘This is who I am,’ and that’s something I love about myself,” Johnston said in the message.
Johnston served as the sole pastor of the Foothills Community Church in Chandler, Arizona, since January, 2016, succeeding Stuart Harrison who was the founding pastor of the church in October 2001.
Johnston completed her Master of Divinity degree in 2012 from Andrews University and served as a church-planting pastor for the Carolina Conference of Seventh-day Adventists prior to coming to the Arizona Conference. She shared her coming out and resignation with her congregation and the leaders of the Arizona Conference this week.
Her decision to resign from pastoral ministry came at a point of “complete disagreement with the Adventist Church on its teachings on LGBT people,” Johnston said in her video message. She found herself unable to continue ministering without being honest about that fact, she said.
“There are a lot of things I love about the Adventist Church and having been raised Adventist.” But when it came to the Adventist Church’s published stances on LGBT people, Johnston felt disconnected with the church.
Johnston is not the first LGBT Adventist to resign from full-time ministry and will likely not be the last. However, she is the first Adventist pastor to publicly share a coming out story through video. Her message was received with statements of affirmation and support on social media.
Johnston enlisted the help of Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer for filming and editing her video message. The Oceanside, California-based husband and wife filmmaking team produced the documentary “Seventh-Gay Adventists” and are vocal advocates for LGBT people in and out of the Adventist Church.
Johnston said she could no longer remain silent because silence is literally killing people. “That institutional silence needs to be broken,” she said.
The video is a rambling discussion of Johnston’s views about the church, and how she rationalizes her unbiblical lifestyle. She claims that you don’t just look at the law, but you have to look at the totality of scripture, and claims that SDA views about the LGBTQ lifestyle are biblical.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church follows behind society by a few years. It is under increasing pressure to conform to LGBT issues.
“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot.” Luke 17:28.