In 2019, Kendra Arsenault, an Andrews seminary student, started a podcast called Advent Next, where she interviews ‘academics’ about current issues in Adventism.
Advent Next seeks to shape the worldview of Adventist Generation Z’s and Millennials who are in our educational system. They do this by interviewing select PhD professors and ‘professionals’ on various topics such as gender equality, hermeneutics, domestic violence, racial injustice, and environmentalism. The podcast show is funded by Adventist Learning Community, an official ministry of the North American Division.
On July 10, 2021, Advent Next aired the first of two interviews (honoring pride month) with former Adventist pastor Alicia Johnston. You may recall that in 2017, Johnston left her job as a pastor in Chandler, Arizona after coming out publicly as bisexual. To their discredit, the Arizona Conference referred to her as "a gifted theologian and pastor” after her departure. She now spends her time trying to convince an Adventist audience that the Bible supports LGBTQ deviancy. They call this ‘Gay Theology.’
After the pro LGBTQ podcasts with Johnston, Advent Next interviewed Paul-Anthony Turner, an LGBTQ affirming seminary student who believes that same-sex marriages should be allowed in the church.
After Turner’s July 31 podcast was over, Kendra Arsenault announced on air that she was bisexual and identifies with the LGBTQ ‘community.’ In her own words,
“At the end of that episode I revealed the reason why this conversation is so important to me. I'm also queer.”
She was terminated from her job as host of Advent Next on August 3rd. The official reason given was that she created an “irreparable breach” in her working relationship with Adventist Learning Community.
Her Twitter account said this on August 12:
I’m no longer hosting Advent Next. The conversations with LGBTQ+ pastors on queer theology and better pastoral practices towards LGBTQ church members apparently created an “irreparable” breach in our relationship. So the church decided to let me go.
Commentary
On one hand, NAD is to be commended for upholding Seventh-day Adventist biblical standards on sexuality and morality. You go, guys.
On the other hand, we don’t want to praise people for merely doing what they should do. So we offer them a non-effusive firm handshake and a brief nod of acknowledgement. Keep going.
If people try to use a tithe-funded ‘ministry’ to promote the LGBTQ agenda in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, they should be fired from the position. She should also be kindly and firmly disfellowshipped, and led to biblically resolve her moral confusion through the power of Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:13; 2 Corinthians 7:10). This is the correct thing to do (1 Corinthians 5).
There is another aspect to this story. The NAD is sensitive to numerous warnings that their incessant crusade for WO will fracture the gender distinction binary and result in LGBTQ+ marching into the church through that same door that WO used. They hotly (and foolishly) deny this ontological and historical reality. They know that allowing a bisexual host on one of their tithe-funded ministries (whose first podcast in 2019 was about WO) will demonstrate that the above warning was correct, and jeopardize their 2021 campaign for Women’s ordination. They cannot risk that, although there are a growing number of pastors and leaders in the church that view homosexuality as a viable alternative lifestyle that should be encapsulated with false sympathy. The NAD is largely sympathetic to this agenda, tampering with our LGBTQ statements and guidelines until one day soon, they will become fully affirming of this moral sin.
That’s the scoop from Lake Fulcrum. Stay faithful, dear ones.
Jesus is is alive, and His Word will guide us through the moral minefields of our world!
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“The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).