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 21-30.
In 2025 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 21-30:
The Church today is weak because it refuses to thunder where God thunders. Our age doesn’t need clever talks or therapeutic advice—it needs sermons with scars.
“I brought unwarranted disrepute upon persons identified in the screenshot. For this wrongdoing I repent to my Lord and I apologize to the individuals, their families, and the church I serve. I have begun, and will continue, personally to ask forgiveness from those I harmed. I also confess the seriousness of these errors and sin.”
‘Stockholm Syndrome Christianity’ is an accessible yet rich read that diagnoses a pathology coming from within modern Christianity. Especially troublesome is that many leading and previously venerable Christian figures show clear symptoms of the pathology. In a firm yet kind way, West’s book provides ample evidence that the diagnosis is correct, and that Christians must address this pathology before it gets worse and spreads further.
The dissolution of New City Presbyterian Church was not an isolated mishap, it was the result of systemic failure within the PCA, facilitated by a culture that prioritizes institutional self-protection over shepherding the vulnerable. The Book of Church Order (BCO) and the Presbyterian model of governance are, on paper, structured to guard against abuse and uphold justice. But documents and procedures mean little when wielded by those more interested in shielding fellow officers than protecting Christ’s sheep. In the hands of a tight-knit, self-reinforcing network, even the most robust polity can be manipulated to obscure truth and deflect accountability.
The so-called Christian Nationalist view invites skepticism as to its proponents’ understanding of history. Ball says that “under the United States Constitution and a pietistic church, America has spiraled down into debauchery and degeneracy,” forgetting that Britain has fallen much farther with its own constitution and established churches. Or again, James Baird quotes early American Presbyterians on faith and national wellbeing, such things as “when a nation has abandoned religion, the firmest basis of civil government is dissolved” or “the magistrate (or ruling part of any society) ought to encourage piety by his own example, and by endeavoring to make it an object of public esteem.” Fair enough, but much of what he quotes could have been said by a Unitarian, Deist, heretic, Romanist, opportunistic infidel, or Baptist.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk is not about politics, democracy, free speech, a constitutional republic, communication skills, or the lack of love or respect for one another. It’s even greater than Charlie Kirk. It’s about the law of God which reflects the nature of God. God hates abortion, homosexuality, homosexual marriage, sex outside of binary marriage, and cross-dressing. God hates what America has become, and the lawless hate God back because He condemns their practices. They hate God and his law so much that they want to kill Him. Charlie Kirk was a messenger of God. Therefore, Charlie Kirk had to die!
We need to stand against the winds of culture and speak clearly to issues of the day. But we cannot let how something “looks” to those inside or outside the church dictate our faith or practice. Who cares how a moderator’s ruling “looks?” Was it according to Scripture, the BCO, and Robert’s Rules? Those are the only questions we need to ask when evaluating a ruling of the chair.
A large number of overtures deal with judicial procedure. Overture 1 seeks to ensure that church courts can determine whether there is enough evidence (etc.) to move forward to charges in a discipline case. Overture 7, which makes it easier for groups of presbyteries or the General Assembly to intervene in cases brought against a Teaching Elder when it is thought that the original presbytery is not acting faithfully, strikes me as written out of a lack of confidence in Presbyterian church government.
Francis dedicated his entire life to laboring within the world’s largest heretical denomination—one that has more than a billion adherents. He was Supreme Pontiff of it for his final 12. He spent 67 of his years in the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), an order created for the specific purpose of countering and eradicating the teachings of Protestantism.
The group ordination ceremony—the first of its kind—is one of the more public signs of an ongoing split in the Christian Reformed Church on the part of churches no longer willing to abide the CRC’s increasingly rigid stance on sexuality. Most of the disaffiliated churches have declared themselves open and affirming of LGBTQ+ members.
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