Reformed theology is learned in the church and lived over time.
Online outrage and “Reformed Twitter” tribalism can reduce confessional theology to a badge or platform identity.
I recently sat down with Camden Bucey to discuss covenant theology, confessional maturity, and faithfulness in the digital age.
Camden is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and founder of Reformed Forum. Through Reformed Forum and Reformed Academy, he and his team have produced more than thirty courses, seminary-level lectures, podcasts, and booklets, much of it offered freely to churches around the world, including isolated pastors in Eastern and Central Europe who may be the only confessional Reformed minister in their country.
We spoke by video from Camden’s library office. He was measured and direct as I pressed record.
Raised in Covenant Soil
Camden’s testimony does not hinge on a dramatic altar call moment.
“I was raised in a Christian home. I grew up in a Presbyterian church. So I practically don’t recall the day that I did not know the Lord. I recall several moments throughout my life where I came to greater conviction of my sin and awareness of my need for a Savior.”
He later clarified that he “grew up in a mainline church,” though it was “a more conservative local congregation than the denomination was.”
He can’t pinpoint a precise moment of regeneration.
“I can’t pinpoint a time at which I was saved…whether that happened when I was very young or when I was older, I don’t know.”
He added:
“I wasn’t catechized in the traditional sense…”
But Presbyterian instincts were quietly forming. Even before he was self-consciously Reformed, the soil had been laid. There was, however, a season of drift.
“When I went to college, I joined a fraternity and kind of lived a wayward life for a while. The Lord really permitted me to…not walk with Him for a while and to my detriment.”
Camden described what followed in the language of grace:
“By God’s grace…he called me back to obedience and to fellowship with his church and to faithful worship.”
Notice the order: obedience, fellowship, worship. That order would later define his understanding of what it means to be Reformed.
From Peoria to Van Til: A Providential Mentorship
In college at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, Camden became involved with Campus Crusade for Christ. One of the most influential figures during that time was Bill Ackwright, a member of Bethany Baptist Church.
That church was heavily influenced by John MacArthur and Dallas Theological Seminary. Several of the pastors were Master’s Seminary graduates. The preaching treated the biblical text seriously.
“Once I started attending there regularly, I really started to become more aware of Lectio Continua preaching and Calvinism…a real seriousness of treating the text as the text and preaching the Bible.”
It was dispensational, and though Camden didn’t yet grasp all the hermeneutical distinctions, something did not sit right.
“Even though I wasn’t a self-conscious, serious Presbyterian as a young person, those were my instincts.”
“I was never taught that Israel and the church were separate.”
The instincts were covenantal, and providence soon supplied a mentor. One of the pastors at Bethany Baptist Church, Chris Jenkins, was pursuing a PhD at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he was busy.
“He basically didn’t have time to meet, except if we were going to talk about stuff he had to read anyway.”
So they struck a deal. The pastor needed to read about Cornelius Van Til for a class. If Camden wanted time, they would read Greg Bahnsen’s Van Til’s Apologetic together.
“We started doing that. And we did that for a couple months.”
The “we” was Camden and Pastor Jenkins, mentor and student reading line by line.
Then: “Then he got busy and had to drop out.” But Camden did not. “And I just kept at it and kept reading it on my own. And I loved it. A seed was planted.”
“I started to learn the Westminster Confession of Faith backwards…I also started to learn Western philosophy backwards by reading Van Til first and then saying, well, who is this Hume guy he’s talking about?”
Van Til led him backward through Western philosophy and Reformed theology. Learning that Van Til had taught at Westminster, Camden found the seminary’s pre-seminary reading list online in 2002.
“I downloaded and printed out…and over time bought all those books and just read pretty much nonstop for three years…Calvin’s Institutes…Geerhardus Vos, Cornelius Van Til, Richard Gaffin…”
For three years, he studied Calvinism through its primary sources.
Testing the Call
But he didn’t rush to seminary. He said:
“I didn’t want to go off without seriously thinking about it…am I really called to the ministry or am I just nerding out about these kinds of things and it’ll pass?”
He stayed, worked, and paid off loans. For three years he labored at Caterpillar, testing his call in the local church as he served and waited. Camden also began building a website with a friend: solagratia.org, an early WordPress theology blog.
Looking back, he said:
“I had no idea what I was doing. I had no right writing anything.”
In time, that deliberate testing of his calling led him to Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where the theological instincts first awakened through Van Til would be sharpened in formal study.
Covenant Theology: The Breakthrough
The decisive turning point was covenant theology.
“Once I started to realize that there was a difference between covenant theology and dispensationalism that kind of blew the doors off for me.”
He wrestled through the passages himself.
“When I started to look into the passages…I didn’t find out that I was wrong. I found out…the more I study and the more I exegete…the more I think that the Reformed tradition is certainly more accurate and correct.”
Then came Kim Riddlebarger’s A Case for Amillennialism:
“That was huge in my life as well.”
He remains:
“An unashamed, unabashed Amillennialist. I love it.”
But more significant than the eschatology was the Reformed hermeneutic:
“I think obviously we need to have a typological and Christological interpretation of things rather than a woodenly literalistic one, because the Bible, I think, presents itself that way.”
It was not spiritualizing away prophecy; it was allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture.
Join a Church Before You Join an Argument
When I asked him about newly Reformed believers (especially those experiencing family turmoil and tension), he did not begin with debate tactics.
He began with the church, noting, “When you become Reformed, everyone speaks about the cage stage. And that’s a real thing.” Then he described what happens at Reformed Forum when listeners contact them with theological questions they are wrestling through.
Before engaging, they ask: Are you a member of a church?
Often the answer is no.
“We find out…they’re not members of a church anywhere. And then we say, look, we’re not even going to talk any further about this until you join a church and get in the local church. You can’t be an Internet warrior. That’s just terrible.”
“You need to grow in love for the church. You need to submit to faithful elders. You need to be involved in a local church.”
Camden’s advice for those newly Reformed was simple:
“Generally avoid online polemics.”
He also recommended Danny Hyde’s book Welcome to a Reformed Church as a helpful guide for those newly discovering the Reformed faith. Rather than beginning with online arguments or abstract system-building, Hyde’s work orients readers to the ordinary life of a Reformed confessional congregation: Word, Sacrament, oversight, worship, and covenant community.
Then Camden quoted Van Til’s approach: “Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.”
He even explained it: suaviter, smooth and gentle in manner; fortiter, strong in the thing.
“You always want to be winsome, kind, compassionate, loving in how we speak…but…uncompromising according to his truth.”
He acknowledged his own failure here:
“I have not always heeded that advice…as a young man.”
He summarized the cost of harsh polemics:
“You win the argument, but you lose the man or the woman because, frankly, you were a jerk.”
He did not say it flippantly. He said it as a pastor.
A Global Vision of Maturity
Reformed Forum’s mission is rooted in Colossians 1:28: “Present every person mature in Christ.”
He spoke of pastors in Moldova, Croatia, Belarus, Germany, the UK, and Hungary. He described the annual Reformed colloquium in Budapest (organized by Westminster Seminary UK), where confessional pastors gather, many of them isolated.
“Some of these guys might be the only Reformed pastor, maybe in their whole country…Their worship services are very small. They’re very poor. They don’t have the support.”
Reformed Forum exists to serve them.
“We want to step in as a servant.”
Faithfulness Over Platform
As we closed, the conversation turned to the slow, often unseen nature of confessional ministry.
In an age obsessed with metrics and momentum, he returned to something simpler.
“Just keep at it. Don’t become discouraged. Just stay faithful.”
He closed with, “The right people will find you.”
Those words speak to Christians and pastors who labor with little visible fruit.
Faithfulness precedes fruit. The kingdom grows covenantally, often slowly and unseen.
A Confessional Conclusion
Camden’s story joins confessional theology to the ordinary life of the church. His work at Reformed Forum serves the aim Paul gives in Colossians 1:28: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”
