An action I alluded to above, concerning Freemasonry, is a good example of that. We as a Synod passed some recommendations about Secret Societies, which include a set of questions that a local church session can use to help their members and other members of the local church think through whether or not being a member of the Lodge is in keeping with their Christian commitments, and make certain that the local church knew the Synod’s feelings on it the Synod passed this statement, “That the 220th General Synod explicitly and forthrightly declare that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity.”

What a week. The 220th General Synod will be remembered for a lot of things: good preaching, spending a whole day on one recommendation (we’re not the OPC), lots of good stuff on the inter-church front, condemning Masonic orders, kicking the can down the road on women deacons/deaconnesses (however you say that), and erecting a study committee to deal with ESS (I’ll explain what this is in a minute) in a twenty-year old paper online. However, for those present at Bonclarken from June 11-13 there is one phrase none of us wants to ever hear again. This needs to go to the Committee On Revisions first. I’ve decided that if one of my kids is playing the fool I am going to start threatening with sending them to the Revisions committee if they don’t get themselves together.
Let me start this review by saying being ARP is the best. I love the spirit, the comradery, and the genuine seriousness mixed with a lack of arrogance which makes us unique in the modern confessional world. As I say all the time, in the ARP we are Reformed, but not mad about it. No place was this more evident than our ability to laugh at ourselves. As I was acting reading clerk I completely skipped a recommendation in a report, and no one went to a mic to scold, or passive aggressively point out my mistake. I noticed it, the Synod had a big laugh about it, and we moved on. That’s not to say things didn’t get heated, they did. You can’t dissolve a whole presbytery, especially for the reasons the Synod decided to do it, and not have the temperature rise in the room. We got intemperate at times, even our Canadians showed some emotion. But, at the end of it the ARP moved to do what it needed to do, not just for recent events, though they were the primary motivation, as it should be, but for a being a place where the basics of Christian life could not be held without controversy. Dissolving a Presbytery is never a light action, it needs gravitas, Biblical mercy and grace, and the hard love of a brother for a brother.
I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of the because at the heart of how we got there are some very sensitive issues. You can probably find them online elsewhere but for the sake of the victims I’ll let them tell their own story. Suffice to say that sin must be strangled in its crib, if not, it will destroy everything around it. A 224-year-old presbytery will cease to exist on September 1, 2024 because of the misguided, and gaslighted Presbyterian shenanigans of men under the sway of an individual who did not have the church of Christ in his heart. Presbyterianism is the Scripturally commanded form of government, and when it is used as a parlor game to abuse trust it is as ugly as anything man ever made. Yet, when followed it is the best way to help.
One of the things you learn as you get older is that it is a lot easier and simpler just to do the right thing than to try and stop something from happening that you may not like. There is also a lesson to be learned from Numbers 32:23 as well.
One of the things some learned this week is that in the ARP the Synod is an appellate court, not a court of top-down commands. This makes us more Scottish than some of our American Presbyterian compatriots and points to some of the differences concerning being a Synod versus a General Assembly. I lost count how many times the Parliamentarian had to get up and remind the body that the Synod cannot tell you to do something. Only the Presbyteries, or the local Session, can do that. It can encourage, it can condemn, or even bless, but only the lower courts have teeth, excepting certain judicial cases. An action I alluded to above, concerning Freemasonry, is a good example of that. We as a Synod passed some recommendations about Secret Societies, which include a set of questions that a local church session can use to help their members and other members of the local church think through whether or not being a member of the Lodge is in keeping with their Christian commitments, and make certain that the local church knew the Synod’s feelings on it the Synod passed this statement, “That the 220th General Synod explicitly and forthrightly declare that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity.” While the Synod left it up to the personal conscience of each individual man, the wording of the above motion has little room for nuance. This is a sensitive issue that demands pastoral counsel and care, regardless of what your personal opinion may be on the matter.
A couple other matters worth noting from Synod this week is that while we dissolved one presbytery, we also began the work of dismissing another, in this case for sad, yet good reasons. There were even motions brought forward to stop our Canadian brothers from absconding north of the border. Yet, in good Christian love the ARP Synod (which I guess is of the South again since we are in that direction from Canada) voted to allow the Canadian Presbytery of the ARP to begin the process of establishing their own, national ARP denomination to begin September 1, 2025. I can’t express in words how much I am going to miss our Canadian brothers. Many of us look up to those men with gratitude at their humble strength, quick wit, and the times where their erudition teaches us backwoods folks some new words. The ARP in one Synod went from Ten Presbyteries, to soon-to-be Eight. It’s an interesting time to be ARP, but the Lord continues to bless us in many ways and I want to end with a few examples.
In some ways the most underrated, yet important thing to happen at Synod this week was the bringing in of our IPAR (Iglesia Presbiteriana Asociada Reformada de Mexico) brothers as fraternal fellows. What this means practically is that it opens up opportunities for peer-to-peer ministry works, especially around education and missions. We are hopeful that as much as we can be of help to our brothers in Mexico, that this is actually much more of a blessing to us in the States as we can learn from them for ministry to the growing Hispanic population in the U.S.A. The first fruits of that are already being seen in conversations happening with Erskine Seminary and Comunidad Reformada de Estudio Superiores (CRES), the denominational seminaries of the ARP and IPAR respectively. Likewise, World Witness’s SEED Ministry are looking into ways to help the Huasteca people learn more of Christ in concert with IPAR’s existing churches and presbyteries in the region.
As we begin this renewing of a relationship began in the 19th century we also got to hear from a dear friend of the ARP, Rev. Zeeshan Saddiq, of the ARP Church of Pakistan. We look forward to the future when we can become even closer, and there is a chance of that as the ARP Inter-Church committee looks to travel to Pakistan in the near future. Likewise, brothers from the OPC, RPCNA, Canadian Reformed Churches, and the United Reformed Churches gave fraternal greetings. It’s always a great help to hear how the Lord is working in our sister denominations as we work together for God’s glory. We have a lot to learn, if we listen.
I mentioned above that I would say a little bit about the study committee we made to study the issue of Eternal Subordination of the Son (the second person of the Trinity). To try and summarize it the issue is over the unity of the Godhead, and whether or not God as the Bible reveals Jesus Christ to us in His divinity and humanity has one will or two wills, one human and one divine, and how that plays out in the relationship between the Father and the Son. If you would like more here is a good place to start.
In closing, it was a great week, as it always is. My good friend Jeff Temple likes to say that the ARP Synod is like a family picnic. Sometimes at family events things can get heated, no one hates like family, and no one loves like family, yet at the end-of-the-day we all still family. That’s the way it is in the ARP. We don’t feel like we need to be anyone other than we are. No need to be pretentious, because we ain’t, and we are fine with that. If you need to peacock to feel special, well there is another place you can be. We just are who we are, in Christ, to the ends of the earth, together.
Rev. Benjamin GlaserPastor, Bethany ARP Church
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She fully embraced the Reformed and Presbyterian faith as described in the Westminster standards. She would never burden others that they must because she did – but that she did isn’t really a question. She was of the old, rugged faith. She never felt the need to pressure anyone in regard to matters of faith but she also didn’t have a great deal of patience for cute or pop cultural theological moods. This was part of her strength.

As to Raquel Welch, thank you for your many condolences.
She was a wonderful lady and a fine Christian. The children have taken it a bit hard as they have many fond memories. I’ll tell you a few things the usual sources won’t tell you.
First, she was a serious Christian and church member. Many people (maybe most people) do things when they’re young or make decisions they think better of later in life. Because she did also she had great grace and understanding for every person. This is a great testimony of her hope in Christ.
She had no reason for games or play at the faith and she took her religion seriously. We had deep talks about theology historical and theoretical and she embraced both with care and study.
As with many, her faith grew more serious and practical with age. It’s often true that the most important things become the most important to us as we’ve matured personally. That’s just to say that spiritual and personal maturity are often coincident age and life experience.
Second, she fully embraced the Reformed and Presbyterian faith as described in the Westminster standards. She would never burden others that they must because she did – but that she did isn’t really a question. She was of the old, rugged faith. She never felt the need to pressure anyone in regard to matters of faith but she also didn’t have a great deal of patience for cute or pop cultural theological moods. This was part of her strength.
Third, she was just another lady of the church. She didn’t put on airs or expect special attention (although she could hardly avoid even with the best of intentions being the most glamorous person in the room). And she often advised churches and ministries on practical and business matters because she was brilliant in those things. You didn’t think she survived and thrived 60+ years in the public eye by just being a pretty face?
Fourth, she often attributed the revitalization of her faith to others with whom she had to do including other conservative Presbyterians Jimmy Stewart, Ron Reagan and Chuck Heston.
Fifth, she thought of the Reformed faith as the faith of her family, parents and ancestors and the one that was deep enough and strong enough to carry a person through a difficult and painful life.
Because of her peculiar life and the experiences that come with that she didn’t trust many people. When everyone wants to be your friend it’s hard to have any.
Still she was our friend and a delightful lady full of grace, wisdom and good humor. She loved our children and there’s no greater testimony of care and true concern than that.
We will miss her.
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God has chosen to build His Kingdom slowly and gradually through families, so we need to lift our eyes above our current circumstances to perceive both the global and multigenerational scope of God’s work.  This will not only redirect our focus to the Gospel and its application to our families but also greatly encourage us as we look past our own dire circumstances to what God has been working on since giving Adam and Eve the Cultural Mandate.  God is building His Church, and He will be successful, so let’s throw ourselves into that work that He has invites us into.

The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
-Genesis 13:14-17, ESV
When I visited Prague years ago, I was struck by the abundance of beautiful old churches throughout the city—beautiful and empty.  At the time I visited, 80% of Czechs were atheist or agnostic.  It was sadly ironic that a place so central to the pre-Reformation would now be so devoid of the truth of the Gospel, that the church flanking a large statue of Jan Hus and the cathedral entombing the devout King Wenceslas had essentially been reduced to museums.  I couldn’t help but think of a line from Nietzsche’s “The Parable of the Madman”: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”.[1]  That problem is not exclusive to Europe.  During my commute, I drive by some lovely old New England churches, each marked as a tomb by such headstones as a Pride flag, Black Lives Matter banner, or some other indicator if inclusivity.  Churches in America and Europe are dying, particularly the mainline denominations.  Despite this (and in some ways because of it), we should not lose hope but should follow God’s direction to Abram in Genesis 13 and lift up our eyes.  In doing so, we can avoid discouragement by looking above our own circumstances to see how God works both globally and generationally as well as how that applies to our lives today.
Look Up Across the Land
We can draw parallels between our own context and Abraham’s.  In Genesis 12, God first made a promise to Abraham (Abram at the time) in the land of Haran.  From Genesis 11 and 12, we see that after his brother Haran died, Abraham looked after Haran’s son Lot, so when God first speaks to Abraham, Lot was essentially part of his family:
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
-Genesis 12:1-3, ESV
Here, God promises to give Abraham a heritage, land, descendants, and immense blessing.  So Abraham and his nephew Lot journey from Haran to Canaan, but by Genesis 13, this promise seems further away.  The limited land they occupied could not support them both, so they separated.  Lot chose what was appealing by earthly wisdom but detrimental spiritually: the fertile yet evil land of Sodom.  Thus, Abram’s family was getting smaller not larger.  It was in this context that God essentially repeated His promise.  In Genesis 13:14-17, God tells Abram to look all around him because He would give him all of the land he could see.  As Christendom seems to be failing in the West, it is tempting for us to conclude that the Kingdom of God is in retreat rather than advancing.  But if we lift up our eyes and look past the West, we would see that nothing could be further from the truth.  Far from retreat, Christianity is not only advancing but exploding in Africa and Asia.  F. Lionel Young III recently observed how the increasingly global and ethnically diverse nature of the Church today is so profound that it is making us rethink our paradigm of the “global north” as the spiritual haves and the “global south” as the spiritual have nots.  In fact, Dr. Gina A. Zurlo observed that in 2020: “A typical Christian today is a non-white woman living in the global South, with lower-than-average levels of societal safety and proper health care. This represents a vastly different typical Christian than that of 100 years ago, who was likely a white, affluent European”.  Two thousand years ago, Jesus gave His disciples a mission to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19-20).  In that time, Christianity has expanded from 120 people in Jerusalem to the largest religion in the world.  While there have been ups and downs, the Church has been growing and advancing steadily since then, so we have no reason to believe that trend that has lasted two millennia will reverse now.
But even in the West there is reason for hope.  When we look at the decline of many churches, particularly in mainline denominations, it is right to observe like Nietzsche that the empty churches are tombs and sepulchers, but we must disagree that God is entombed there.  Instead, these empty churches are tombs of a dead religion, a false god that bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible.  By replacing the Gospel with a watered-down version that elevated social change and the values of society above Christ, they lost their first love, so as He did with Ephesus, God has removed their lampstand (Revelation 2:4-5).  Many evangelical churches have also replaced the true Gospel with a false one, emphasizing emotional experiences and watering down the Gospel to make it relevant and palatable for the culture.  The result is a fake man-centered gospel that portrays God as weak and harmless, completely neglecting His sovereignty, justice, and righteousness.  In conforming the church to the culture, they have given up their distinction and thus competitive advantage.
Businesses do the same thing when they abandon their competitive edge to chase the latest fad, as Blackberry did when faced with competition from the iPhone.  As a result, the phone that at one time ruled the business world is no more, replaced by an app on business and government iPhones.[2]  Any business must persistently focus on what sets them apart from their competition, which Jim Collins referred to as “the hedgehog principle” in Good to Great.[3]  Business failure comes when that distinction is abandoned to chase after “shiny objects”.  For the Church, the Gospel is what sets us apart, so sacrificing the Gospel to chase after fads can only be detrimental.  The World will always outdo the Church in concerts, motivational speeches, political action, and everything else but the Gospel just Blackberry could never make a better iPhone than the iPhone.  Only the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), so the Church must focus on the Gospel.
Fortunately, while churches that have abandoned the Gospel to go after the fads of culture are predictably failing, there is steady growth in churches that have maintained their focus on the Gospel.  I have noticed in my lifetime a significant increase in Reformed theology, hunger for depth of Scriptural understanding, and a seriousness to obey Scripture that I did not see in childhood.  This is very positive, verifying that what lies entombed in dying churches is not the true Gospel, which is alive and well, even in the West.  So when we lift up our eyes and look at the growth of true Christianity in the world around us, we have ample reason to hope as Abraham did.
Look Up to Future Generations
Along with the promise of land in Genesis 13:14-17, God also told Abram that He would give him enumerable descendants.  Like the promise of land, this too seemed fleeting.  It was something like two decades between the promise of Genesis 13 and the birth of Isaac in Genesis 21.
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