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 11-20.
In 2024 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 11-20:
Jesus came preaching the centrality of the kingdom, and not the centrality of worship, not the centrality of the sacraments, not the centrality of prayer, and not even the centrality of justification by faith alone. All these are critical parts but they must never become a substitute for the kingdom itself.
We failed to care sufficiently for her soul, and to exercise authority within our delineated jurisdiction for the preservation and promulgation of the true gospel and true religion. It cannot be underlined too boldly: criticism of Sarah Young or commiseration because of her actual aims and intentions– all of it bundled together pales to the guilt of the PCA. We are 45 million copies in, and the math adds up against our vows, our fidelity and our titular orthodoxy.
“In order to uphold our ordination vows, before God, our Father, the Lord Jesus, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth, and to adhere to the Holy Scripture with utmost honesty and integrity and therefore obey God over the ungodly whims of hierarchal human manipulations, this new presbytery is being constituted on this day, Monday, 19 August, in the year of our Lord Christ Jesus 2024.”
Some critics seem intent on taking down Basham’s book at all costs. Whether the book is truly inaccurate seems a secondary matter for them. They just want to stop others from reading it…It is hard to ignore the feeling that much of the brouhaha raised against Basham’s book reflects insecurity and even fear.
As Christendom has collapsed in the West, Wilson has offered a vision that plays on the fears and emotions of those who are panicking. This is precisely why the mission of the church, all of the sudden, takes a drastic turn in its elevating of cultural transformation while “saving people from their sins” becomes only a means to this greater end. While we might look at the psalm-singing, the community, the safe space, the building of schools and churches in Moscow as good things (and I do indeed admire much of it) we can’t miss what has drawn such an attraction.
Begg ignores the scriptural counsel regarding stumbling others, in addition to ignoring scriptural counsel against being present at an event at which God forbids attendance. The Christian attending the “gay” or “trans” so-called wedding would need to notify publicly all present at the gathering, not just the family member getting married, that he or she regards the wedding as an unholy alliance abhorrent to God. This fits Paul’s description at the end of 1 Cor 10 of what to do when a believer is at the home of an unbeliever and the host announces that the meat being served is “sacred sacrificial meat” coming from the temple. One must stop eating, for the sake both of Gentile unbelievers who might construe from your eating that you honor the god, and for the sake of any “weak” Christians or non-Christian Jews at the table whose conscience indicates that the eating of idol meat constitutes idol worship.
You don’t get to launch a critique like this one, designed to make a lot of good-hearted people think twice about their attraction to the Moscow Mood, and then with a flourish refuse to take questions, or to be too busy for replies. You can’t launch an attack and then call for a cease fire. This is particularly the case when your critique failed as a knock-out blow. If there were no possible answers, and we defenders of the Moscow Mood were all just sitting around shamefacedly, you could easily afford to take questions, because there wouldn’t be any. But if turns out that this was a swing and a miss, and there are consequently a host of questions, many of which would be very awkward for Kevin to try to answer, you cannot just say that this would “take a lot of time.”
As B.B. Warfield put it, Reformed theology is “Christianity come into its own”, and the EPC should happily and clearly communicate that along confessional lines. There are important things that distinguish the EPC from the PCA, but our doctrine is not one. If we are going to contrast ourselves with other Christians, we should do so by emphasizing our confessional system over and against broad evangelicalism. The EPC is no minimalistic collection of congregations, but possess a rich doctrinal treasury that will pay off in post-Christian America. This change in language and emphasis from the stage will help shift our culture, and signal what our denominational expectations and values are, particularly for Ruling Elders who drive pastoral search committees.
12 Second Presbytery and the ARP Constitution: A Response to Reverend Seth Yi
I do not believe that the current situation in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church should be characterized as an ongoing constitutional crisis. My belief is based on my reading of our ARP Standards, which are, of course, subordinate to the Holy Scriptures. Since reading is the art of noticing details and understanding them in context, all good biblical exegetes resist the temptation to extrapolate endlessly from one or two clauses.
She begins her book with the Anderson family. Moving from California back to Georgia and to their seeker sensitive megachurch in “the Bible Belt,” they thought they had left behind churches in which Leftist politics were pushed. They found the hard way that was not so, particularly after James Anderson was asked to join a “racial reconciliation” study, “Be the Bridge,” in which white participants were not allowed to speak for the first six months. They stuck it out for a while, but then moved to a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America, an orthodox denomination) church, only to find Critical Race Theory pushed from that pulpit and a service turned into something akin to a “struggle session.” The Andersons found out through difficult experience that “this is a bigger problem . . . not just California craziness.” Basham tells such stories well, letting readers know that more than politics are at stake but also the spiritual health of churches and people.
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