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 2023 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:

Queering Jesus: How It’s Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools

Queer theology is a mature, established theological subject of scholarship now in its third decade and armed with well-honed arguments that queerness is grounded in biblical texts and classic commentaries. Most newly minted ministers coming out of mainline divinity schools today have some exposure to queer theology, either through taking a queer course, reading queer authors in other courses, or through conversations with queer students and queer professors.

Actions of the PCA General Assembly

The AC continues to make progress with foreign language (Spanish and Portuguese) translations of our Book of Church Order (BCO) to help our church minister to all peoples and generations. The AC facilitates and supports the Standing Judicial Commission, which issues decisions according to how sworn testimony aligns with our Standards. The SJC is not separately funded. 

It Doesn’t Work: Presbyterian Church USA

Since the change of the definition of marriage, the PCUSA seems to have lost all counterbalance to contemporary progressive ideologies. Having lost its conservative contingent, the PCUSA appears to be in theological and moral freefall with few voices seeking to preserve any historic biblical understandings. On the first day of the 2016 General Assembly, the opening prayer was by a Muslim imam offered to Allah.

The Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Elite

It is obvious now, looking back at the post-9/11 and pre-Obergefell era, that the leftward drift of this movement was inevitable. The end of Renn’s “neutral world” and the beginning of a negative world hostile to Christianity began soon after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in 2015  and accelerated rapidly with Trump’s 2016 victory. Changed circumstances undermined the attractive witness model as previously practiced. The neutral-world ethos could not hold in the negative world; the era of open debate was gone.

Tim Keller Called Home to Glory

Some in Christendom resented Keller’s stumbled-upon celebrity. Others hailed him as the C.S. Lewis for a new generation. As for Keller, he stayed focused—there was a gospel to preach, cities to reach, souls to save. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer in June, 2020, he scarcely slowed, continuing to work, write, lead, and think—even amidst the chemo, right to the very end.

Deaconesses in the Presbyterian Church in America

We really don’t have generalizable data on how widespread (or not) the practice [of unordained women serving as deaconesses] is in the PCA. How many churches have deaconesses? How many deaconesses are there in the PCA? The purpose of this project is not to pick a fight, but to shed light, in the hopes that it will lead to more productive debate at PCA General Assembly.

Are There Trustworthy Protestant Universities?

Schools that aim for prestige and “excellence” as the current American regime defines it are most likely to accommodate our culture’s presuppositions. Fewer “prestige” schools embrace a conservative Protestant social teaching that emphasizes marriage, recommends different roles for men and women, and shuns same-sex sex and same-sex marriage. Students interested in becoming doctors or lawyers might choose Baylor, SMU, or Wheaton. On the other hand, schools without signs of American decadence are less descript, their chief virtue being that they fail to promote vice.

Lessons from “The Jonesboro Decision”

What God did in the midst of great suffering was remarkable. God used this situation to knit together a church family, to teach them to wait upon Him, and to show them His goodness even in the midst of great loss and strain. As I talked with one of the “Jonesboro 7” he testified to how God vindicated His word that those who suffer for the sake of righteousness are indeed blessed. The men and their families learned of the sufficiency and kindness of God even in affliction.

How Should We Then Repent? A Response to “COVID-19 Reflection”

One of the most obvious perversions of this ecclesiastical overreach was the “administration of virtual communion” by some sessions! In their rejection of first principles, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and issued declarations that bordered on idolatry. They tried to convince their flock that “virtual worship” was a viable substitute for corporate worship, and many have drunk the “Kool-Aid.”

5 Warning Signs That a Pastor has Not Been Truly Called by God

The greatest evidence of whether your pastor is called by God will be witnessed in his convictions about the doctrine of the church. Does he care enough to discipline wayward members? Is he more concerned about what the church looks like than its holiness and catholicity (the church universal)? Is he more concerned about being relational rather than theological, subjective rather than objective?
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His basic position is that he was born gay, there’s little chance of him ever changing from that orientation and so he somehow deserves to be in the pulpits of Jesus Christ’s Church, and that we actually need to have more men like himself in pulpits. He says he needs to be authentic to the way he was born, and anyone who commends him to Christ to change his sexual orientation is being abusive and unloving toward him.

Prior to this I have not spoken publicly about the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) internal debate over same-sex attraction and Pastor Greg Johnson’s efforts to see to it that more same sex-attracted men end up in the pulpits of the PCA. I have not spoken publicly because I did not believe it appropriate to publicly air this matter in front of the secular world.
Well, recently Greg Johnson published a book and has begun a series of interviews with secular TV networks and News/journalism Internet outlets promoting the idea that same-sex attraction is permissible in the church so long as the gay person does not act and consummate his / her desire with a sexual act.
As such now I can no longer stay silent, and I must publicly repudiate and refute Greg Johnson’s theological error and abominable sinful attitudes.
His basic position is that he was born gay, there’s little chance of him ever changing from that orientation, and so he somehow deserves to be in the pulpits of Jesus Christ’s Church, and that we actually need to have more men like himself in pulpits. He says he needs to be authentic to the way he was born, and anyone who commends him to Christ to change his sexual orientation is being abusive and unloving toward him.
However, Matthew 5:28 makes it clear that the mere desire for any sexual sin is itself sexual sin. The Bible teaches that looking and lusting, that desiring what God has forbidden, without acting or committing a sexual act satiating the desire is itself sin. This would necessarily include both lustfully looking at a woman by a man and any homosexual/lesbian sexual desire. Mr. Johnson is wrong. His teaching is theological error. He himself is showing himself to be a false prophet.
And in a most recent interview he has sinfully and publicly demeaned, insulted, belittled, and smeared other PCA ministers who we’re trying to have a private discussion internal to the PCA with him; instead, his desire was to go to the secular media to employ their sympathies to arm twist, shame, and silence the stand of these fellow elders for Scripture and godliness.
So permit me to publicly speak straightforwardly about this issue:
My every impulse to sin is just me wanting to be me… to be “authentic” … to NOT deny the way I was born—a sinner.
And every commandment of God regarding my sexuality and everything else is just God wanting me to be like Jesus and not be like me.
Regarding Greg Johnson let me say:
This is why I say Greg Johnson and the Revoice crowd don’t understand the most basic aspects of Christianity or the Gospel, and in no way are qualified to be anywhere near the pulpit…. other than kneeling in front of it and repenting.
Mark Kozak is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Providence Reformed PCA in Lavalette, WV.

Left dormant for too long, left to the buffeting effects of wind and rain, waiting out the scorching summers and unattended winters, my faith begins to stink. I had foolishly thought that time would be the vehicle of sanctification, that being an older Christian would automatically make me a more Christ-like Christian. But it hasn’t. The veneer on my faith looked uncomfortably like the veneer on our shack.

The excitement ebbed away with my first breath. Now, to be honest, I’m not an overly excitable guy; I’m fairly reserved in my displays of emotion, but I had been undeniably excited, that much was clear. But not any more.
A week or two earlier, my wife and I had purchased on old van, circa late 70’s, that had been permanently parked on a slab of concrete, wrapped in old corrugated iron, and had numerous little extensions tacked onto it over the last 30 years or so. Our intention was to make some small renovations, tidy it up, and use it as a beach house retreat for family holidays, and as a place for others in need of some Sabbath rest to have an inexpensive break away. The location is stunning. Nestled among the Australian bush landscape, overlooking a quiet stretch of water that winds its way out into the Pacific Ocean, sits our little shack. In my mind, the primary vision was wrapped in all the potential, the finished product, the place where I and others could rest. Of course, somewhere in the back of my consciousness was the annoying voice of the realist the dwells within, “You got a fair bit of work here, mate. It’s not going to be easy.”
I’d say that my sense of expectation was most akin to the hopes and dreams of my youth—full of visions for how thing will be, without giving much thought for the journey required to get there. I recall the zeal of my early 20’s, the vision I’d constructed of my victorious Christian life, the ministries I’d have transformed, and maybe even built. I remember thinking about how much easier my Christian life would be when I was older, when I’d conquered youthful lusts, had overcame the temptations that assailed me, and looked more like Jesus than I did then. I guess I must have thought that with enough time, things would get better, as though the passing of years would, in and of themselves, achieve something that I longed for.
But now, here I am looking at my Beach House—the passing of time had not been kind. Of course, there was a kind of rustic charm, a weathered patina that told a story of the years that etched themselves into it—yet there was no mistaking it, more time was not the cure for what ails my crumbling little shack.
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