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 your host, also Director of Advancement and Admissions here at the school, and I have with me in the studio today Dr. Kevin Backus. Dr. Backus, thank you for joining me. I'm glad I was able to be in town to be here for it. We will be speaking today about the 84th General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church, which was held on August 5th through 9th, 2021 at Grace Bible Presbyterian Church in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Dr. Backus is a repeat guest here on the podcast, and he is my go-to source for all things BP. He's a senior minister at the Bible Presbyterian Church of Grand Island in picturesque upstate New York, just a stone's throw from Niagara Falls. In addition to his local church ministry there, he serves on the boards of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Western Reform Seminary. He's also a fellow with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, otherwise known as ACBC, and a senior chaplain for the largest sheriff's office in New York State. Kevin, in the past we've discussed some of the basics of the BPC and your synod, and so I don't know that we really have to do that spadework again this year. Our listeners can go back and listen to those interviews, but I do want to ask a couple basic questions very briefly. Who attends synod? Well, I think you know that for our Synod it's fairly open, but the Synod delegates, all ministers are supposed to be at Synod, and at least representative elders, depending on the size of the congregation, will be at Synod. So this year, once again, we had very good representation. Of course, I think every church in the United States was represented. We have a couple churches outside the United States. And I think we had elders from maybe half of the churches in the United States this year. And so I want to point out to our listeners, as we consider the different varieties of Presbyterianism extant in the United States today, you have the two-office variety, which puts forward a real parity between teaching elder and ruling elder, according to that parlance. But then you also have the three-office variety, which usually adopts the language of minister and elder. And that's obviously where the BPC is, but that's also where the ARP would be, and to a certain extent, the OPC, though they also do use the language Teaching and Ruling Elder. So anyway, it's just an interesting observation to make, and it's one that I wanted to just get out there as well. And having said that, that does still require for all of us, at least in the BPs, that there is a parity. When we talk about parity between the minister and the ruling elder, that's in the courts of the church, so in our sessions and Presbyteries and Synod. Yeah, very good, very good. And so you said it was pretty good representation this year. Was it more than in previous years? It was an interesting Senate that way. We had 31 ministers and 17 ruling elders. Twelve of those were voting delegates. So, pretty much, at least on the floor participating in discussion, it was all the ministers and half of the churches represented by elders. Having said that, I think it might have been down a little bit, but we had a number of visitors that were attending this year from other denominations. I can think of one in particular right now sitting in the room with me. And as a result, the attendance was much larger in one sense than it had been recently. The church was very full, and our meals were bustling with activity. I mean, it was notable to me, for some families anyway, particularly those in Florida, this was really a family gathering. I mean, there were children around, many wives around, and they had their specific activities. It was my pleasure to go, not so much as a representative of the PCA, but as a representative of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, as our relationship with you men in the BPC overall, but also with Western Reformed Seminary, with our brothers there, is that continues to develop. We wanted to make sure we had somebody there representing us. Maybe we can make a small announcement about something coming up regarding that. Let's hit that a little bit later on, because I want to get these preliminaries out of the way. So did you all meet in 2020, or did you, like many other churches, skip a year due to the pandemic? Yeah, we intended to meet, but we ended up having to postpone. Yes, that's right, because it was going to be at your church, correct? Yeah, and the restrictions relating to New York State were such that it was unworkable. But so back in 2019, which I guess would have been the 83rd General Synod, Len Pine, a minister out in the presbytery of the Great West, He was moderator, and so he was outgoing moderator this year, and that means that you all elected, if memory serves right, an elder to be a moderator in 2021, or was it a minister? It was a minister. He was a minister, and who was that? Keith Coleman. Keith Coleman, and where does he serve? He serves with the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Oh, okay, and that has a historical pedigree that goes all the way back to Dr. Machen. Correct. Very good. Well, in terms of statistics, about how many churches and ministers are part of the BPC total? You've given us a picture of who was there at Synod, but where does the BPC stand today? About 33 congregations, 33 churches both established, and some of those are church plants still. And for the ministers, I think we're running just over 35, 36 maybe ministers. So for most of these churches, they have one minister, but a couple congregations will have two or three ministers, and I know your congregation has two, and I think the... Cincinnati has... Cincinnati has two or three? Two or three, depending on the year. And Lakeland has two, right? Yes, I think they have a part-time. Yeah. Very good, very good. And how many missionaries are currently serving in the foreign mission field under the auspices of the BPC? Well, one in Brazil right now. We were six or so before. A few fields like China and other places had to be ratcheted back. Cambodia matured. And the same thing happened in Myanmar, which is our most active field. So we've got one particularized congregation there and five church plants going on there. Those plants are taking place under the auspices of the local church and the ruling elders from that church that are serving in them. and so they don't actually count on our list of missionaries. But we give them some small support, and I'll tend to go over, we're helping through WRS, we're helping to train the ruling elders who want to pursue the ministry. That's great, that's great. So when you say a field has matured, such as in Cambodia, what you mean is that you can't count them as missionaries anymore because now they are particular churches. That's wonderful. Now I find it interesting, When I go around to different synods and assemblies and presbytery meetings, how different denominations handle business at the national level. In particular, there seems to be slight differences in how presbyteries will bring motions for consideration by their national counterparts. So, in the PCA and OPC, we have what we call overtures, and then the ARP has what is called memorials. In the BPC, I noticed you had this battery of things or motions called resolutions, but they were pretty targeted on particular concerns. What do these resolutions generally deal with? And what were some of the particular issues you dealt with this year? Sure. So basically, just to make sure there's a good picture, we have overtures. And the overtures, there were several that will talk about the things we dealt with this year. And that's asking the General Synod to take action on some area, just like in the PCA or the OPC. Resolutions were originally statements, they're non-binding statements, often they're to our churches or just to the general world to say this is the Bible posturing position on a particular topic. Those are more like in-thecy deliverances that come up through your presbyteries. Right. There's either from someone in the presbytery, or there's a continuing throughout the year committee that's known as the Resolutions Committee. They're supposed to gather from whatever sources they want, even themselves, the material for resolutions that they're going to present, and that's given to all the delegates a month or so before Senate to consider. Now, when I looked over my notes, because I always just take notes for my own benefit when I attend these kinds of meetings, I noticed that some of the resolutions were handling business that in other denominations would come up through overtures, such as resolutions memorializing departed saints, men who had had a particular contribution to the church at the national level, either elders or ministers. And so, how do you then break down the distribution between business handled through overtures and then business handled through resolutions? Well, I suppose the memorials are the one area that could be considered, you might handle by an overture. But the end of the overture is to recognize the individual, and so essentially that comes through as the finished recognition that's going to be adopted by the synod. And that comes through resolutions. Fascinating, fascinating. So, all right, let's break this down into two parts, and if you have to defer, that's fine. So, what business did you all handle through overtures this year? Well, the two that actually sort of made it to be approved by the Senate, sometimes things get referred back, etc. That's fine. Yeah, the two most significant. Two most significant ones would have related to, oh, let's see. I guess the first one would have been to deal with the gender identity, and the other one dealt with the declaratory statement. So gender identity was an issue that was presented, and it's not that we're debating where we stand on the issue, but what we are debating, what we are working on is to make a better, more definitive statement for use by our churches on addressing the issues today. And so that was, we erected a committee to do that, and that committee's supposed to report back to our next synod, and that's not unusual. And if, like good Presbyterian tradition, we'll probably ask for another year to continue the study. The budget for this is like really high. We don't give any money towards it, so we'll just kind of work on this together. So, now, this is not to issue a statement that would then come up as a resolution. This is to take a particular action. And so, what is the action regarding? Well, it's to produce a statement on the present and historic positions of the Bible Presbyterian Church on gender identity, and to recommend to the 85th General Synod the best method to adopt it, because resolutions are completely non-binding. So we're not looking to adopt the Constitution. We're not looking to amend the Constitution. We're really not looking to just write a single statement that's here this year and means nothing. So, we have to figure out what we're going to do to put this in a more binding fashion without amending the Constitution. It sounds to me that one possibility would be for the BPC to produce something or even adopt and borrow something akin to what the RPC&A has produced. book or pamphlet length kind of treatment of the issue that's pastorally sensitive, but also makes it very clear where the church stands on these things, and then can be referred to by congregations that are seeking to navigate discrete issues that come up in their context. I think that's essentially where we like to see something like this head. We've really not done that before. Yeah, that's fascinating. And then the other overture that you mentioned had to do with the declaratory statement. I know that this is a complex issue dating back to the early years of the BPC, but if you would, explain to us what that language is referring to and why this is significant for your church. Well, it dates back to the antecedent. Actually, it was part of the PCUSA. And in the PCUSA, a group that was no longer part of the PCUSA was Cumberland Presbytery with a number of theological problems. At a certain point in time, the PCUSA was hoping to draw back, in the early 1900s, hoping to draw the Cumberland Presbyterians back into the fold. That never happened. There was a declaratory statement that was issued that really basically said, here's some things that we want to be clear when we're saying these things in the confession, that we're not implying this or we're saying that. It was of concern because the full declaratory statement, as it was originally there, had some elements in it that seemed to have issues that would not be harmonious with the rest of the confession. or the Scripture. And when the Bible Presbyterian Church came out of the PCUSA and the OPC, one of the things the BPs had always sought to be was that continuing Northern Presbyterian Church. And so some of the founders were in favor of including a modified version of that declaratory statement. It doesn't have the worst elements in it. But as a non-binding part, it was put in the middle of the Constitution. It does not have confessional authority at all. But because it was bound in the Constitution, the BPs decided that it did have constitutional authority. In other words, it couldn't just be voted out by a general Senate, so it has to be removed by the amendment process. In the past, it's been brought up and challenged, but it's been brought up and challenged on the floor, de novo, and that's not the appropriate way to remove it. So the encouraging part to me is that we've erected a committee to take a look at this this year and to do a full study, not to try and take it out in one fell swoop. The other thing is, yeah, I know some people who are doing some advanced work and, for example, in the life of B.B. Warfield, who wrote against the declaratory statement. Yes. Yeah. But others have said he wrote some things that were in favor of the declaratory statement. So, we want to have some clarity on that and find out why they did put it in, why they want to take it, why we want to take it out. I think most of us want to take it out and then be able to effectuate that. You know, in the business world, it's a common refrain. It's much easier to hire someone than to fire someone. And though it is frequently difficult to add things into our Constitution, it is much more difficult to remove them. And so I think you're seeing that here in this process, but it is a fascinating debate, especially since it's something unique that the BPs have to wrestle with that others of us in the American Presbyterian tradition haven't had incorporated into our Constitution. And so it'll be interesting to see how this goes through. Now, as far as the resolutions are concerned then, those were really the two most significant things that you dealt with in terms of business, aside from the reports, in terms of business at your synod, were those two overtures and the matters attending them. But as far as the resolutions are concerned, you had a host of them that were pretty interesting. One was the standard resolution of thanks to the host church, to Grace BP of Cape Canaveral. you had a memorial resolution expressing gratitude to God for the life of one of your elders, but then you had some other issues as well. And, you know, on the OPC debrief with Peter Van Deuterward, I gave him an opportunity to speak a little bit about two of the men who recently have passed away in his church that were memorialized to a degree at his assembly. So I don't know if you want to comment on this elder and the resolution of thanks about his life, but I'm interested in hearing about some of these other resolutions addressing hot-button issues facing the culture today. Well, Tim Hart was someone that I got to know early on. He was looking to have a He was looking to have a confessional biblical Presbyterian church in the Columbia, Oregon area. And I got to know him through our friends in the Christian Observer and some work I was doing there and made contact with him for PMU, hooked him up with some of the folks at the seminary. And the Great Western Presbytery has been great in terms of traveling, using their men to help churches get started. in a way that's, for us, is unique. And so I knew they would do that, and they did. And so that church plant meeting in a community center just outside of Portland began. But Tim Hart was the man that I dealt with originally. Tim Hart was the man that really helped pull that core group together. And then he was with it faithfully through his life. And those are the things that we remember. So the seminary helped them get going. Len Pine, who you mentioned earlier, was, I think, their organizing minister. And our stated clerk, Steve Reniger, was also a minister there for a time. And now Tim Prusek is there. So that congregation's been going now probably since the early 90s. And Tim Hart was a tremendous impact on the lives of the people in that church. What were some of the issues that the other resolutions were tackling? We did some discussion about critical race theory. They had something on critical race theory. I think it was critical theory was actually more to the point. And I think when you take a look at the cancel culture, critical theory, and what's going on in government schools, that those really could all be connected under critical theory. So there were some separate resolutions. Most of them dealt with, you know, here's what's happening, here's the danger that we see, we're warning against. And they were coming from different churches. Yeah, they were, yeah. And then in line with that, the host church asked the professors from the seminary all to do a Sunday school for the synod on critical theory and how it affected, for example, Old Testament studies and New Testament studies and just a general overview. And I dealt with how does it affect us in pastoral theology in particular. Yeah, and biblical counseling. Yeah. And then another couple issues that are really in the headlines today in terms of American politics is the issue of abortion, which our Supreme Court is taking up again, but then also a resolution that I think was affirming the importance and necessity of First Amendment rights that citizens of the United States possess. You know, that brought up to my mind, and I don't know that we've really discussed it before, but it brought to my mind some of the historical distinctives of the BPC in terms of relating to the civil magistrate and engaging with American politics. Now, of course, you worked for Dr. Carl McIntyre a long time ago. And Dr. McIntyre did, unfortunately, remove himself from the BPC, what was that, in the 1980s? 84. In 84, before, you know, before he passed away. But he's still a big part of BP history and his engagement with with American politics really was a hallmark of his ministry, if we can call it that, as kind of an activistic impulse. So open up for us a little bit. Today, where would you say the BPC stands in terms of relating to this church-state issue or just political engagement as a church? See, that's where the resolutions, what they really grew out of. In my first days, I was either the assistant state of clerk or the state of clerk for like 11 years. That was the denomination or the synod, yeah. Yeah. And so when these things would come up, the resolutions would be mailed to every congressman and senator and the president and vice president and everyone else. So they were an opportunity for the church to take seriously its responsibility to teach the Word of God to the civil magistrate. Also sounds like an opportunity for a ton of work for the stated clerk. Which is why we stopped doing it. So you stopped doing these for a few years, but obviously- No, no, we didn't stop the resolutions. Oh, okay. Got it. I just printed them out and said, there's plenty here, come up and take them. And if you would like to pay the postage to mail them to the representatives with a personal letter, it would be great. Go ahead. So that's- It's probably more meaningful too. It is. If you're a congressman and you're getting something from a constituent, you're going to pay more attention to it than you would if you got something from somebody who's outside of your district. But, I mean, I don't know how much attention they're going to pay to it anyway. That's always a cost-benefit analysis when you want to engage in these kinds of things. But I like how you put that, taking seriously the church's responsibility to instruct the civil magistrate in his divinely mandated obligations. It's an interesting approach to it. That's the origin of our resolutions. Yeah, fascinating. And if you ask where the BPs are today, while we don't send those resolutions to everyone, I think you'd find that if you go to the state of Washington, one of the chaplains for the capital is a Bible Presbyterian minister. If you come up into my area, I'm heavily involved in interacting with both county and state legislators. And you could repeat that across the denomination. Yeah, and that's not unique to the BPC either, but it is fascinating because as a small denomination it would be easy to consign that task to a different group and to focus on other things, but that is obviously an important part of the BP identity and shape of ministry. Well, thank you for opening up all that for us. I think that's going to be helpful for some of our listeners. Now, as is the case in all denominations, the BP received a host of reports from friendly denominations and different independent agencies that serve the Church. I got to sit in on a number of those. The one from Western Reform Seminary stuck out to me. The one from the OPC stuck out for me as well. But were there any reports which you would like to highlight or comment on? Well, I think probably for me a highlight was the report from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I think it was a part of why we have fraternal relations. We've been observers at NAPARC for years, and so I deal with the guys from quite a few Reformed denominations. We're investigating one now with the RCUS, and we're moving up to another level, I think, with the heritage congregations. Hanover we have a relationship with. The OPs are probably our closest. Which makes sense, historically. Historically. Though it wasn't without a lot of work. Without a lot of work, yeah. I mean, while it makes sense, it also means that there was a lot that was in there in between that mistrust that had to be dealt with. But one of the common elements that I'll hear from people is, you know, we don't have fraternal relations just to say we have fraternal relations. Some people do. It's sort of like, let's chalk up how many of these committee meetings we can have. But you want to have them have some real meaning. And probably without getting into all the details, I think if you were there, you'd notice that we weren't just talking fluff or statistics. We were talking about things that were said or done at the General Assembly level that we had concerns about. They know. We discussed them back and forth. We subsequently met. I'll be at their General Assembly this year. And we'll probably continue the conversation. So that's not new, that's happened a number of times. And so I'm thankful that it really is functioning as a fraternal relationship as it should. Are there any other issues or updates you'd like to mention to our listeners? And this would be a great opportunity to talk about the scholarship program here at the seminary, but before we get to that, more just looking at updates about the denomination, its growth, other trends that you might want to comment on. I'm just encouraged. The Bible Presbyterian Church is in a direction of growth. We had a new minister and a new church. You know, when you're only 33 churches having a new church and then another new minister come in, that's very encouraging. We are dealing with probably helping to enfold new people into the church at the level of ministry every year, and I'm thankful for that opportunity. So yeah, it's generally, we're watching where it's going to go, and they're not all coming from the same source, so we're happy about that. And then the thing I would mention, I guess, is the scholarship fund. So here at, we have a seminary, Western Reformed Seminary. We're happy to have our students go there. That's the denominationally approved seminary. But we're also happy to have students coming here and been served well. And so some sources have worked together to promote a scholarship fund for Bible Presbyterians who would like to come to Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And from what I checked, that ongoing scholarship will be fully subscribed and oversubscribed by the end of this month. And so we'll be able to start granting those scholarships here at Greenville. We are very excited about that. A little bit of the backstory behind it, and I think it's appropriate to talk about this. As the Advancement Director, I had a hand in making these arrangements simply by suggesting an idea. So, somebody came to me and said, I'd like to sponsor a Bible Presbyterian student. I looked at the three or four guys we had in the student body at the time, and I said, you know, all of these guys, to be completely honest, are taken care of. They don't really need it, but at the level you want to support for the next few years, you could create a lasting endowment, which then will serve BP students for many years to come. And that individual was very excited about that prospect. We were able to set it up. That person was the anchor. And then we gathered a number of other sources. And I mean, I was thrilled to see just how enthusiastic, it wasn't a huge number of people, but a very committed and devoted group of people that were excited to see the relationship between Greenville Seminary and the BPC strengthened. And, you know, we have strong relationships with the RCUS, whom you mentioned, with the OPC, and, of course, with the ARP and the PCA and other denominations around the world. And this is why Greenville Seminary exists, to serve confessional Presbyterians and Reformed churches wherever they may be found. And so, it's a blessing as much to us as it sounds like it is to you to see this materialize. Well, Dr. Backus, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your morning today. I know this was a briefer interview, but it's always a joy to be with you. And just a word, I was very well taken care of down in Cape Canaveral. I mean, the hospitality I received just as a guest and an observer, and a representative of Greenville Seminary was really par excellence. And I got to stay with Dr. Ian Wright, the OPC fraternal delegate, who is also very close with this seminary. He has a degree from here, and we got some sweet fellowship together as well. out on the Atlantic coast in Cape Canaveral. It was a lot of fun. And so, just really appreciate you men and the hospitality you extended to me and this time that you've given me this morning. Well, next year the hospitality will be provided by our church up in Grand Island, New York. So, if you would like to visit, our synod will be held the first Thursday in August through the following Tuesday. And it will be on Grand Island at the Bible Presbyterian Church. We'd love to welcome you there. Well, I can't think of very many places that would be nicer to visit in the first week of August than upstate New York, so I might take you up on that. Good. That would be a delight. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. To help ensure that we can continue to produce content from a Reformed and Confessional Presbyterian perspective, please consider making a gift of support in any amount at gpts.edu. For more information about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, please visit gpts.edu.