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 2021 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:

Thoughts on the Present State of the PCA: A Series of Theses Presented by a Concerned Member—Part One

That the foremost sufferers of our present deeds are those that are tempted with homosexual lust. For they need to be encouraged diligently with the assurance that their sin belongs to the old man that was crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), and that they are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) who have been cleansed of their sin and who can and will finally overcome it (Rom. 6:12-14). And yet we set before them as leaders and models men who proudly claim their sin as an essential part of their identity, and who name themselves by it.

The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up (Part 1-Creation)

Though the Creation Study Report is from 2000, Framework proponents are more numerous in the PCA than ever today. Which helps explain many of the PCA’s current problems. Men who are willing to bend scripture to accommodate secularists on creation–God’s foundational act that revealed Him to us as Creator–are more likely to bend scripture to appease the proponents of the latest secular fad.

Revoice Gay-Straight Friends Planning a Life Together

A “deep-dive” Revoice webinar entitled, “Better Together”: In this webinar we discover this gay-straight duo. It is there we discover why couple may be more descriptive than duo. Who are these men? The gay man is Art Pereira, a Student Ministry Director at Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA). His straight-friend is Nick Galluccio, a youth pastor at Stonecrest Community Church. Art describes his friendship with Nick as a family and a household. Those are his words. Why did he use the word household? Because they moved in together.

The Salt That Has Lost Its Savor: The Woke Church and the Undoing of America

This doctrinal malpractice has given us a generation of men, Christian and otherwise, who are what Lewis called “men without chests.”….They are the sort who will, upon reading this article, take great offense at what I have written here and waste no time in letting me know it, but are not particularly offended by the sixty-one million children murdered in the holocaust of abortion since 1973, by universities that are incubators of radicalism, by Democrats who are compiling a “hit list” of Trump supporters, or by the godlessness of the Marxism they openly advocate, which has killed no less than 125 million people in the twentieth century alone.

The Biblical View of Gender and Sexuality

Our denomination itself is experiencing a rise of those who would call themselves “progressives.”  But whatever their intentions are, their “progress” is nothing less than regress—for what they are espousing is far removed from and even blatantly contrary to Scripture and sound doctrine. Much of this error will be proposed or debated by these individuals at the PCA’s General Assembly in another week.

What’s Wrong with Our Church Praise Music?

True praise that God loves comes out of a whole heart, in the gathered assembly, as all the voices of the people together are raised, because the marvelous works of the Lord have been sought out, comprehended, and believed. People who have delighted themselves in Christ and his steadfast love shown to them in his wondrous work won’t have to ask about how to achieve true praise.

A Response to Missouri Presbytery’s BCO 31–2 Investigation of TE Greg Johnson

Note: The Session of Covenant Church, Fayetteville, AR, responded privately to Missouri Presbytery’s distribution of its report concerning our BCO 31–2 request, in an effort to encourage them to clarify their positions and to turn away from their theological errors.

Freidrich Schleiermacher, the PCA, and Side B Christianity

If religious feeling makes confessional truth subservient to the changing aspect of our communities, then it should be no real surprise that what we are seeing happen in the “current” sexual revolution is redefining of what is means to be confessional based on the religious experience of the moment. This is what the PCA is up against and, well, all of us together as believers in Christ.

The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up: Part 3-David Frenchism

But let’s get to the offences of white Christians themselves. Christians who voted for Trump because of their concerns about abortion, gay marriage, assaults on free speech, oppressive taxation, etc., are condemned for failing to “lay down their political arms.” We must understand, though, that this is only an offence for Trump voters. Those who, like French, took up their political arms to loudly support and vote for Joe Biden are guilty of nothing.

Johnson To The PCA: “Merry Christmas. Here Is A Lump Of Coal For Your Stocking”

There are several serious problems with Pastor Johnson’s reasoning here. First, his speech was highly biographical, emotive, and even prejudicial. He implied that anyone who disagrees with his position “hates” homosexuals. It equates traditional Christian sexual ethics with anti-gay bigotry. Second, he assumes that, except for his commitment to Christ, he might have taken a same-sex husband and had a family and that by not violating God’s natural and moral law thus he has made a great sacrifice for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.

Perry can see the problems and where our cherished “freedom” has led us. The powerful abuse their privileges. The weak and the poor are exploited. Many of our desires are damaging or outright evil. Perry can see and feel the damage these things do, and her common sense—under the sway of common grace—helps her to trace the outlines of a better way. But she cannot bring herself to acknowledge the One who created sex; who declares that women are made in his image and must be treated with respect; who says that there is a right way to live after all.

This is the book that every Christian pastor should read if they’re dealing with anyone under the age of 75. And yet, it is probably the book that no Christian pastor would want to read. Louise Perry exposes some very dark aspects of the sexual revolution. It’s not titillating in any way, but it certainly describes some nasty things that people do to each other. Unfortunately, pastors should probably have some awareness of them. 
She begins with a brief account of her personal story,
As a younger woman, I held the same political opinions as most other millennial urban graduates in the West—In other words, I conformed to the beliefs of my class, including the liberal feminist ideas about porn, BDSM, hookup culture, evolutionary psychology, and the sex trade, which will all be addressed in this book. I let go of these beliefs because of my own life experiences, including a period immediately after university spent working at a rape crisis centre. If the old quip tells us that a “conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged by reality,” then I suppose, at least in my case, that a post-liberal feminist is just a liberal feminist who has witnessed the reality of male violence up close.

A History of Violence

Perry then walks us through the last 50 or so years of the sexual revolution. She tallies up the damage done to women—especially young, or poor, or uneducated women—and shows how feminism has failed to help. Neither liberal feminism, striving for freedom, nor radical feminism, dreaming of utopia, can help.
Perry’s own concerns are much more sober:
How can we best promote the well-being of both men and women, given that these two groups have different sets of interests, which are sometimes in tension? (10).
To explain these differences and tensions, Perry provides a chapter on the physical differences between men and women—particularly the overwhelming imbalance of strength between the sexes. She reminds us that 98 to 99% of convicted sexual offenders are male (37) and urges women to consider what this might mean for their decisions about dress and intoxicants:
If you wanted to design the perfect environment for the would-be rapist, then you couldn’t do much better than a party or nightclub filled with young women who are wearing high heels (limited mobility) and drinking or taking drugs (limited awareness)… So my advice to young women has to be this: avoid putting yourself in a situation where you are alone with a man you don’t know or a man who gives you a bad feeling in your gut. He is almost certainly stronger and faster than you, which means that the only thing standing between you and rape is that man’s self-control. (43)
Perry has a disturbing chapter where she argues that “some sexual desires are bad” (the fact that she has to argue this is in itself troubling). Responding to those who say that there is no such thing as sexual morality, she argues that sexual codes do not necessarily “progress” and that some things are simply wrong. She gives the example of Jimmy Savile (the UK television presenter who died in 2011), who was posthumously discovered to have raped or sexually assaulted up to a thousand girls and boys. Sexual desires like those need to be repressed.
Conversely, she argues, some traditional behaviours need to be recovered.
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We should remember the steadfast love of the Lord every day, but we need reminders most when we feel it least. When we’re tempted to lose heart, when our souls are cast down, we need to remember what God is really like. Join the author of Lamentations. Recall the mercies of God throughout history and in your own life. 

Perhaps you’ve heard that God’s mercies are new every morning. You’ve been told that his steadfast love never ceases, and you’ve sung “Great is Your Faithfulness.”
Perhaps your reminder about God’s mercies was splashed on an inspirational calendar above the perfect dew-brushed meadow. Or maybe you heard a perky Christian radio disc jockey quote this enthusiastically in an effort to motivate listeners to get out of bed.
I’ve heard this sentiment about God’s mercies on retreats, during good times, when the group I’m part of wants to extend its current momentum. We’re experiencing God’s blessings—both in ministry and life—and from this verse we’re told we should have confidence these blessings will continue. But does this use Lam 3:22–23 in the correct context?
When we learn to read the Bible as an actual book and not as a professionally-bound collection of pull-quotes, we’ll find that some of our favorite passages take on deeper and more sobering meanings.
The Book of Lamentations
The book of Lamentations is not cheerful. The author was not writing from a mountain top, riding the spiritual high of God’s favor.
In fact, picture the exact opposite of that setting. That’s the background for this book of laments.
(A quick note: Many people assume the prophet Jeremiah wrote Lamentations. There is wide disagreement about this, however, and I don’t think any interpretation changes if we drop this assumption.)
In 589 BC, Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Babylon and endured a long siege. The city fell in 587 BC and Babylon crashed in with fire and fury. The temple was desecrated and destroyed. The city was burned. Many Israelites died, and most of the rest were led away by the enemy forces. A scattered few people remained, and they were starving.
The author of Lamentations wrote in the midst of this terrible landscape. In five heart-wrenching prayers, he cried out to the Lord. He knew God’s hand was behind Babylon and that the Jewish people deserved this judgment for their idolatry. His laments were raw acknowledgments of their terrible, warranted state.
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