In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 31-40.
In 2020 The Aquila Report (TAR) posted over 3,000 stories. At the end of each year we feature the top 50 stories that were read.
TAR posts 8 new stories each day, on a variety of subjects – all of which we trust are of interest to our readers. As a web magazine TAR is an aggregator of news and information that we believe will provide articles that will inform the church of current trends and movements within the church and culture.
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 31-40:
The logic of these two results—low heritability and high polygenicity—clearly demonstrate that the dominant cultural narrative about sexual orientation—which sees homosexual persons as a distinctly bounded biological class of people who were “born that way”—simply cannot be true.
A small number of PCA churches have already departed to other denominations or are attempting to form a new denomination, largely precipitated by Revoice-related concerns. It seems likely that a year without an assembly, especially under the present circumstances, may help protect the health of presbyters, but may be harmful to the health of the denomination.
In thinking of the future of our children and grandchildren, we must ask if a political movement that integrates into its system without difficulty the wholesale slaughter of babies can be represented as a “biblically-shaped ethic.” Abortion is not an efficient solution to unwanted pregnancy. This ethic is shaped by the rejection of God the Creator. Whenever and wherever such policies have been systemically employed, those in power quickly rid society of the Bible, biblical Christians, and the Twoist worship of “the Creator who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:25) requiring, rather, that all bow in Oneist worship to nature and to the pagan god, Moloch whose heated bronze body was a furnace for the sacrificing of children.
For the last decades the RCA has been unable to clearly state its thinking on gay marriage, gay ordination and gender identity. The majority believes in a traditional and historic view on these matters while the smaller minority has embraced gay sexuality as a gospel good that should be celebrated. The tensions are high and everything is coming to a head. The denomination needs to be clear about what it believes. There can be no more waiting. If things are left unchanged, there will be a split.
For a Christian homosexual to announce a never changing sinful desire is to place himself outside the covenant of grace. The promises of the new covenant cannot be broken by God, and no person can belong to Christ without receiving the Holy Spirit. The minister must not be simply a communicator of this gospel but an embodiment of it, a public example of how God in the new covenant has transformed him from the sinful passions of “the old man.”
One day Jesus will return and remake creation, freed from all of the miseries and effects of sin, more glorious than ever. All those who believed in him will be bodily resurrected, and will share in this new creation (Romans 8:18-25). Ultimately there will be no death, no ruin, no disease—and no COVID-19.
My counsel to Pastor MacArthur is similar to my counsel to the pastor who thinks his church has to go to multiple service or sites: “why does that new congregation have to be called your church? You can plant, no?” Likewise, is there any biblical reason why your church or mine cannot split into several churches or take some other form?
A few years ago, I never thought that I would be coming out to the world through my school newspaper at my Christian university…But my legacy will invariably be different, because I am Calvin University’s first openly LGBTQ student body president. I’m bisexual. I’ve also questioned if I was a lesbian in the past. Usually, I use the term “queer” because it encompasses all of these identities.
32 Woman in Same-Sex Marriage Installed As Deacon
To Dykstra, what the congregational letter describes as “Neland’s journey toward LGBT+ inclusion” has been a move away from Scripture. “I don’t think that all of a sudden after 2,000+ years of scriptural interpretation that things have suddenly changed. I think that unfortunately our church is following cultural norms and listening to the ways of the world. What we are asked to be is counter cultural. How are we showing God’s love by condoning a sin?” Dykstra said.
Third, not just abortion but poverty, lack of health coverage, racism and climate change are also pro-life issues. The statement notes that the official public policy document of the National Association of Evangelicals (For the Health of the Nation) says: “Faithful evangelical civic engagement and witness must have a biblically balanced agenda”. Therefore the new Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden document says that “we must oppose ‘one issue’ political thinking because it lacks a biblical balance.”
