The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is made possible by the generous financial support of our listeners and friends. For more information about the seminary, how you can support it, or applying to become a student, please visit GPTS.edu. Hello and welcome to another edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. My name is Zach Groff and I'm the host of the podcast, also Director of Advancement and Admissions, and I'm excited to kick off our long-awaited denominational debrief segment of the podcast. I'm a bit late this year in getting everything together, but all of our interviews are scheduled and arranged, and I'm excited to welcome into the studio today for our ARP denominational debrief, Pastor Ben Glaser. Ben, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Zach. It's good to be with you. Pastor Glaser is the pastor of Bethany A.R.P., Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Clover, South Carolina, and he has graciously agreed to join me via Zoom to discuss the 217th General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. It was held back in June, June 8th through 10th in Columbia, South Carolina at the historic First Presbyterian Church of Columbia. Those who are in the ARP or who have followed the ARP and are aware of their typical practice know that just the venue itself is remarkable because of travel restrictions and certain considerations in the state of North Carolina. The Synod was not held at its typical venue, Bond Clark and Retreat Center, up in Flat Rock, North Carolina, but rather was held in South Carolina, where it was a bit easier to gather. Pastor Glazer, like I said, ministers at Bethany, ARP, and Clover. He's been there since 2017. He's originally from West Virginia, a Marine Corps vet. He's a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. While he was at PTS, he also completed some coursework at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary there in the Burg. For seven years, he labored as an ARP minister in Ellisville, Mississippi at Ellisville Presbyterian Church, and he and his wife Brandi have four children. It is my delight to have my friend on the podcast today. Ben, as we kick off our denominational debrief, my first basic question is, who served as moderator this year, and why might that have been remarkable? This year, we were blessed to have Patrick Malfers, who's the pastor of the Old Providence Associate Reformed Peptarian Church in Virginia. And one of the neat things about that is that his father, Philip Malkrus, previously served as moderator of the Senate and handed off the gavel to his son. And it was a blessing to be able to witness that one of my duties in the Senate, as I am the bill clerk of the Senate, and so I get to sit up front with all the fancy people and see all the stuff from the backside. And so to see that up front was quite nice. And why was it remarkable that the Assembly gathered at First Prez rather than at Bond-Clarkin? I hinted at it in my intro, but I figured I should let you speak to that a little bit. We are blessed in the Associated Preparatory Church to have, as the governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, who is a member at First Columbia, be AARP and be a man who welcomes us into this great Palmetto State. to join together, so we were able to do so without any kind of restrictions or any outside interference by the civil government. And so we were blessed to be back in Columbia. Of course, we had met back in the fall at Columbia for the same reason. We had pushed back our normal Senate, like most everybody else, and had met in October down in Columbia, and we're glad to do so again. We were fed quite well by First Columbia, which is always the highlight of Senate for me, is eating. And so they blessed us with good food, and being in Columbia in June isn't always the best physical location, but we were mildly blessed to be down there. When you said you were fed quite well, at first I was thinking by the sermons and by the ministry of the word, and then you of course took it to quite literally and physically speaking of your actual like food food. And so that is classic South Carolina kind of move. I love it. We love our food, especially our barbecue in South Carolina. Ben, how many congregations, members, ministers are currently in the ARP? Give us a rundown of the basic stats. Well, right now, we have roughly about 253 congregations in the ARP. Of course, that number fluctuates quite a little bit, but our official numbers from the Senate this year was we have 28,257 members spread across 10 presbyteries. And the vast majority, of course, of our churches are located in the Carolinas and in Georgia. But we have a number of churches up north in the Mason-Dixon line in Pennsylvania, New York, and we also have a Canadian presbytery. And one of the unique things about this Senate this year is that our Canadian brothers and members of Northeast Presbytery, because of decisions made by their civil governments, were not able to join us at Senate. So they met with us via Zoom, and we were blessed to be able to have them with us. We consider, especially our Canadian brethren, to be quite an appreciable asset to the denomination. They kind of keep us on track. The old saying about Washington, D.C., that it's run with northern charm and southern efficiency. Having the Canadians allows us, again, to be focused upon our work. As a matter of fact, someone known to the listeners, Jeff Kingswood, served as our moderator several years ago, and people still talk about the fact that the quickest we ever got done at Synod was when Reverend Kingwood was our moderator. And matter of fact, next year, we'll be blessed by having Elder Bill McKay, who is an elder at Reverend Kingwood's church there in Ontario, be our incoming moderator. Yeah, I noticed that and I celebrated it as well. We have a close relationship here at Greenville Seminary with Grace Presbyterian Church there in Woodstock, Ontario. And Pastor Kingswood for a long time was the chairman of our board and kept our meetings very efficient. And he's also a God, much more importantly, he's a godly brother and a fine preacher. And he's spoken at our conference multiple times. And, you know, when The government allows, I guess we can say that now. He typically joins us for our spring conference. He's also a trustee for the Banner of Truth Trust, with which we have a very close relationship. Ben, how many of these churches do you think were actually represented in the Senate, either physically or by Zoom? Was it pretty well represented? Was everybody there and accounted for? We had not quite record attendance, of course, due to COVID stuff, but we did have a very large contingent Um, somewhat higher than normal and, uh, you know, part of it is being in Columbia, you know, it's somewhat easier for some of our, um, elders, especially, uh, to attend in Columbia and not just because of proximity, but. The church is out in what we like to call our Western frontier in Mississippi, in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. It's a little bit easier to drive to Columbia than it is Mount Clark. We were mightily blessed. Of course, being at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia gave us an opportunity to be a little closer with one another than we are sometimes when we're at the YAB. up in Bonn Parking. Can you give me a high-level overview of what was covered by the Synod? The main issue that we covered at Synod this year has to do with our retirement plan. As anybody who's involved in any kind of older business knows, you know, the old Defy Benefit Plan was for a long time a mainstay of corporate America, and for those of us in somewhat more established denominations, There was also a part of our, well, like everybody else in the five benefit plan, and anything else built upon a pyramid, the top became heavier than the bottom. And so we ran into some pretty serious physical troubles because of that. But the Lord has been extremely gracious to us in that. And so we were able to deal with that this summer. And we can talk more about that in a little bit. But the other big Subjects that we dealt with this year at Senate had to do with approving a brand new directory of private and family worship. which we were glad to receive and which has now been officially adopted by the Senate. And so we recommend that. You can find that on ARPChurch.com. And that can be a blessing to y'all. Also, we took in papers that our committee on theological concerns are working on related both to governmental interference in COVID-19, as well as Freemasonry. Now, we haven't made any decisions on those, but we have received them. And so, we also took in a report from our committee on restructuring. One of the things that we're engaged in right now in the ARP is asking two questions. One, who are we? And two, what are we going to do? And part of that is rethinking how the bureaucracy of AARP operates. One of the things we did this year was approve the dissolution of a couple of Senate committees, as well as a board that oversees Christian education. And the idea there is that we are going to streamline how we operate, and we're also going to return back to what is termed a Thornwellian view of the church in regards to the question about boards and agencies. And so we look forward to the future of that, but we got that started this year at Senate. When you say you all dealt with a couple of issues regarding government interference or engagement or the place of the civil magistrate, I should say, in the life of the Church, and also Freemasonry, are these issues that you all have studied or broached in the past and you're revisiting, or are these fresh looks at these things? The report on Freemasonry came out of a memorial. In ARP, we refer to overtures as memorials, just for terminology. A memorial from our Canadian Presbytery asking to study the issue of Freemasonry. And so we formed, we sent that to our committee on those concerns, and they've been working on that since the 2019 Senate. They're not done with their work that they sent a paper to the Senate for review and feedback. on the question of whether or not Freemasons and those involved in secret societies can serve in the office of minister or elder or deacon in the ARP. And in 2019, when that was first introduced, there was obviously much discussion on the floor. And we'll see where that goes. But there's no real defined end to that committee's work right now on that subject. Now, on the civil government side, they've also sent out a report for study and feedback in regards to how the domination of individual churches can deal with the civil magistrate when the magistrate puts down requirements that may or may not be in keeping with her authority as the civil magistrate. Of course, one of the historical things about the AARP is that we descend both from seceders and covenanters, and the seceders and covenanters both agreed that the civil magistrate, in accordance with the original Westminster Confession of Faith chapter on civil government, was to be a foster father and a nursing mother. But, as we all agree on, that nursing stops when it comes to the worship across church and the sacraments. And so we're looking more into how to define that and help our churches, especially up north, where governments have taken a more direct move in the last year and a half in trying to impose on the church restrictions when it comes to meeting and the like. So those were the two kind of major things on that regard. A little bit ago you mentioned the name of James Henley Thornwell, particularly in relation to how the ARP is going to restructure things regarding their boards or agencies and the work of the church at the synodical or national level. In a nutshell, what do you mean when you say that the ARP is becoming more Thornwellian in its approach to the work of the church and ecclesiastical structure? Who has the right to declare the business of the denomination and the business of the church? And who has the authority to serve on such committees and deal with whether it be foreign missions or whether it be missions within the bonds of the existing denomination? And who has oversight of that? Does the Synod have that right, or does a board have that right? And we, like most presidential nominations, have given that authority over to boards and are now, for various reasons, most of them having to do with financial interests, reducing the cost of such things, returning that power back to the Senate. No longer having a hired staff to look after these things, but to have men authorized by the Church of Christ on the local level, ministers and elders, oversee that work and to ensure that that work is being done in light of the wishes of the Synod. For our listeners who might not be quite as familiar with James Henley Thornwell, and particularly with the historical context around his support of these ideas of the proper distribution, the biblical distribution of power and exercise of authority in the church, I refer you very simply to prior episodes of the podcast where my predecessor Bill Hill interviewed Dr. Nick Wilborn regarding what are called the Thornwell-Hodge debates over church boards. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Ben, you mentioned that the retirement plan or the pension plan was the big issue at Synod this year. Can you give us some detail about it? Could you go into it a little bit further and open up for us what the Synod is doing to address what is a financial crisis in your Rawls retirement plan? The basic problem is that we were at first told we were about $13 million in the hole. in regards to that claim. Now, we have a special committee. We like to come up with fancy name for them. So it was called the SCONAR committee, which is a special committee on net assets reallocation. And they went back and really looked through the books and discovered it was not $13, it was really $8.5 million. Now, That's still a lot of money, but that committee was able to work to secure about $6.3 million to cover that $8.5 million shortfall. The Lord has been incredibly gracious to us in providing the funds that we need to meet the responsibility that we have to retired ministers and Senate employees. and to provide for them what has been promised to them. Now, obviously, we still have $2.2 million, but that's a much more manageable amount to work towards. And also, as part of that, we had to discuss and figure out a way to take care of men who have already put money into that. How much are they going to get back of that? What are we going to do for them? So, you know, that was a large part of the discussion on the floor at Senate this year was how to go about that. Now, as you noted at the beginning, I'm from West Virginia, and I learned math in West Virginia public schools. So, to discuss more about that would involve me taking my shoes off. And I don't think anybody needs that. So, we, you know, have been receiving communications since Senate. And that's an ongoing work to establish exactly the future of that. Right now, we're partnering with the PCA and the RBI to set up a 413B for those who are interested in that. But we're also allowing those who would like to opt out to take their buyout and put it into private retirement funds. And so that's an ongoing work right now. And we'll hear more about that at Senate in 2022. But the thing primarily to take from it is how blessed, again, the Lord has been to us as a denomination and could have gone Very bad, and it could have gone almost in a terminal direction for the denomination. But we, again, have been blessed both by the men of the SCONAR committee and by the gifts of private individuals to meet the need. And we, again, continue to see the mercy of God upon the ARP in the midst of, again, something that could have been much worse. And so we give thanks for the future work we're going to get to do with the nomination because of the hard work of godly men. I'm continuing to pray for the ARP and my friends in the ARP as you all sort through these difficult issues regarding the retirement plan and the pension plan. And my hope is that we do see a creative and effective resolution to the crisis in the years ahead. Just for our listeners' benefits, if you're unfamiliar with some of the terminology that was used, RBI stands for Retirement and Benefits Incorporated. This is a permanent agency of the PCA, and it specializes in advising ministers and their families on matters pertaining to retirement plans, benefit packages, insurance of all kinds, particularly life insurance, health insurance, and disability insurance. and navigating those murky waters as a minister where you also have mixed into that very peculiar regulations regarding your taxes and housing allowances and the like. Shifting gears a little bit, the ARP has seen some transfer growth over the last couple of years with congregations and even individuals coming into the ARP as something of a safe haven against the rising tide of madness in our culture, and particularly as it's sadly affecting the broader Reformed Church. things like critical race theory, celibate gay Christianity, revoice theology, whatever you want to call it. These kinds of things don't seem to be given any quarter in the associate reform Presbyterian Church. What posture is the Synod taking or the denomination as a whole taking in light of the fact that more and more individuals and congregations are looking at the ARP as something of a safe haven and as an option for continuing a reformational witness here in the United States? One of the things that came out of this Senate too, we love setting up special committees. That's our thing. But this year we set up a special committee to look at restructuring our presbytery. One of the things about having a denomination where a lot of our churches are congregated in the Carolinas and Georgia, that means some of our outlying presidentaries are weak in some ways. And so a concern that we have is that with churches who may be interested in being AARP, and again, we would like for every presidential church in the United States to be AARP, Our goal is for there to be an established church in the United States, and it be AARP. And to work towards that goal, we would like to see our outlying presidentaries strengthen. We would like to see them build up. And how we're going to do that is an open question. You know, it's somewhat difficult to do when you're spread out like Mississippi Valley Presbytery or Northeast Presbytery and where you have churches in the Houston, Texas metro that are a part of my presbytery in eastern South Carolina. And so how do we minister rightly to all these churches while preparing for the possibility of churches who are interested in being AARP. So I'm looking forward to the report of that committee at Senate in 2022. But also one of the things we're doing as well on the question about the things that especially the PCA is dealing with, with revoice and the like, is in 2019, we put out a statement on human sexuality that you can find on aarpchurch.org that makes very clear our position that there is no such thing as a gay Christian. There is no such thing as side A or side B or anything of the like. There is a biblical position and there is a non-biblical position. And so we've been very clear on that. And I said, if you want to read that, I'm sure you can link that at the end of this. But those are little things that we're doing right now to prepare. And like I said, we'd love everybody to ARP. We'd love everybody to have a giant picture of Ebenezer Erskine up in their foyer. And we highly recommend that they go read Ebenezer and Ralph any chance they get. And not to mention my personal favorite, Alexander Moncrief, who was a true anti-Berger, and a man who sits right here above me in my study. That's great. We actually have Ebenezer Erskine in our hallway in our first floor. Here at the seminary, we have a bunch of portrait art around of different prominent figures in Reformed Church history. And on the first floor is mostly Presbyterians and then Martin Luther. And then on the second floor would be mostly Continental Reformed guys, and then a few other American Presbyterians. But we got Ebenezer Erskine right here outside of my office, along with Hodge and Thornwell next to each other, B.B. Warfield, I have Francis Skrimke, John Gloucester, and Lemuel Haynes right next to my office, and then have a bunch of other figures that I can name, James Bannerman, and John Gressam-Machen, and others as well. It's, I know who you're talking about. And more than being familiar with his likeness drawn for us in the portrait, I've read some of his work as well, and I can strongly recommend it to our listeners. Then, we've covered a lot of ground today, but I want to give you kind of an opportunity to sound off on the last call. It might be something you've already talked about, might be something else entirely, but what was the single most encouraging takeaway for you from Synod, and maybe what ought we to be concerned about or be praying for for the ARP? I'll do the concern first and then end on a positive note. One thing to be praying for the ARP as we go about doing the hard work of reorganizing and streamlining, and especially as we deal with financial questions, pray for wisdom. Pray that we handle it in the right way. That satisfies both our responsibilities in the Fifth Commandment as well as in the Eighth Commandment. And we also do it in a spirit of Christian love. Now, I say that to go into the positive part. One of the things I love about the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church is that even when stuff gets a little heated on the floor, You'll see those same men standing in line, getting ready to eat some good food at First Columbia, slapping each other on the back, giving hugs and talking about all kinds of things. And it's a real encouragement in the AARP to see the brotherly love, as somebody from Philadelphia, I know you enjoy that word, see the brotherly love in the AARP. Now we are, we're a bunch of good old boys and we love each other and we don't allow the things that church politics get in the way of that love. And that's probably my favorite thing about the AARP. Somebody asked me one time to describe the AARP in one sentence. And I told them, well, you know, we're reformed. We ain't mad about it. And so we love the AARP, and like I said, we want everybody to build the AARP. There's just like nothing better. Ben, thank you so much for your time. This has been a great interview and very enjoyable. You've helpfully laid out for us some of the issues facing the AARP as well as many of the encouragements about being a minister in the AARP. We are thankful for your ministry there at Bethany and Clover, and I look forward to talking to you soon. Well, I appreciate you having me. you