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 1-10.

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 1-10:

Russell Moore Loses His Religion

It is important to remember that three months before his departure, a Southern Baptist task force determined that Moore’s organization was “a source of significant distraction from the Great Commission work of Southern Baptists.” The report cited things like participating in the partially Soros-funded Evangelical Immigration Table, filing an amicus brief to support a mosque, failing to support the religious liberty of California churches during Covid-19, and a general tone of condescension and unresponsiveness. Moore’s opposition to President Trump was only factor in determining mission drift. [2] This lack of self-awareness on Moore’s part can almost be considered the theme of his book.

A Philosopher’s Guide to the Overtures Presented to the PCA General Assembly

In what follows, I take a different approach. I give my frank assessment of the overtures in the hopes that, even if you disagree with me, you can better formulate reasons for why you do so. I also, at times, offer an analysis of different issues surrounding the overtures. This approach will, I hope, be helpful to anyone interested in current issues facing Christians everywhere.
8 PCA GA 50: Summary of 20 Key Events & Highlights
Overture 29: Passed Presbyteries 79-1. An Officer’s view of Indwelling Sin, Actual Sin, and Sanctification matter. This is the language that was approved to BCO 16.4: “Officers in the Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christlike in their character. While office bearers will see spiritual perfection only in glory, they will continue in this life to confess and to mortify remaining sins in light of God’s work of progressive sanctification. Therefore, to be qualified for office, they must affirm the sinfulness of fallen desires, the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, and be committed to the pursuit of Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions.”

Final Tally From PCA Presbyteries on Overture 15

O15 was one of three overtures presbyteries considered in 2022-23 on the topic of sexuality. Overture 29 (O29) and Overture 31 (O31) passed in a supermajority of presbyteries and will come to the floor of GA this summer, where a simple majority vote of commissioners will amend the BCO with their language. Two sexuality overtures—Overture 23 (O23) and Overture 37 (O37)—failed to reach the two-thirds threshold in 2021-22.

Tell the PCA’s Magazine to Issue a Retraction

As fallible humans we all sometimes succumb to haste, emotion, and the influence of others, especially the media, whose sole occupation lies in seeking to get us to believe its narratives and to think and act along its preferred lines. Add in the rigors and tedium of pastoral and publishing work and mistakes are apt to happen sometimes, even large ones. In such cases a little public or private contradiction that seeks to set one right is justified, provided it is moved by charity and expressed courteously.

My Complicated Feelings about Tim Keller

It was his focus on the eternal issues of life—of issues of meaning—that really hooked me. Nowhere else was anybody I knew talking about these things in the way that Tim was. He illustrated his points through philosophy, art, pop culture and yes, the Bible. But it was a Bible I had never been introduced to, despite attending church and Sunday school every weekend of my childhood. He brought it alive and showed how it was actually relevant to my life.

4. The PCA’s Denominational Magazine Goes Political: A Rejoinder to David Cassidy’s “Prayer and Work in the Face of Violence” at By Faith Online

This is the social justice gospel exposing itself openly, without modesty and without regard to how repulsive it is to the many other PCA members who believe in the spirituality of the church (Col. 3:1-3), the prudence of minding one’s own affairs rather than those of other communities (Prov. 26:17), and the propriety of an armed citizenry (Neh. 4:7-23). It has nothing to do with the duties of Cassidy’s office, not anything to do with our denomination or its faith: it is contemporary urban political preference presented as edifying Christian teaching, a coercion to agree masquerading as earnest Christian appeal.

Scott Sauls, Author and Nashville Pastor, Placed on Indefinite Leave of Absence

Sauls’ standing as a pastor will also be reviewed at an upcoming meeting of the Nashville Presbytery. According to the denomination’s rules, he is considered a “teaching elder” whose status as a minister is overseen by that local presbytery. That presbytery will have the final say over the length and conditions of Sauls’ leave. 

Actions of the 50th PCA General Assembly

In the report of the Review of Presbytery Records, the Assembly approved the recommendation that Metropolitan New York Presbytery appear before the Standing Judicial Commission to adjudicate several matters pertaining to proceedings on the Lord’s Day. The Assembly also approved the recommendation that Northwest Georgia Presbytery appear before the Standing Judicial Commission to adjudicate a matter pertaining to the approval of calls and installation of three candidates.
And the number one story on The Aquila Report for 2023:

COVID-19 Reflection

Actions of massive significance call for significant accountability. Self-reflection is a good spiritual discipline, also for church leaders. Did we engage in spiritual abuse when we turned away faithful worshipers? Were we condescending toward mask-wearers seeking to protect vulnerable family members? Did we demand submission to civil government on matters better left to individual conscience? I for one am still bothered by the restrictions we did place on our own congregation. Couldn’t we have simply let sincere Christians make up their own minds on timing and masks and everything else? Did we lord it over the flock? Did we succumb to fear?
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A primary cause of estrangement is something called “anxious parenting.” There are so many things for good parents to legitimately be concerned about in the lives of their child – drugs, sex, gender identity, kidnappings, terrorism, school shootings, pandemics, bullying, school quality, socialization, moral and character development – as well as challenges to faith in the context of secular culture. All of these concerns may result in parents being protective, intense and even controlling in the way they parent. Parents naturally try to closely orchestrate or micro-manage the experiences of their children, hence the term “helicopter parent”.

God Understands Estrangement
A few years back, our friend’s daughter, a young woman who was raised in a conservative Christian homeschooling family, cut her parents out of her life. She stopped all communication with her mother and moved to another part of the country. Recently, her father told me with great sadness in his voice that his daughter decided she would also be stopping all communication with him. The rest has been silence.
It turns out that adult estrangement from parents is a current phenomenon. A common theme is children who have been raised in fairly typical households move away from home and find a relationship with their parents too stressful or troublesome to maintain. Most parents work hard to make their children’s lives successful and instill in them a sense of independence – and that independence apparently includes the freedom from ongoing communication with their parents. The research on this topic suggests that the adult estrangement typically begins when the adult children are in their mid- twenties. The average length of estrangement being five to seven years in length.
Joshua Coleman, writing in The Atlantic points out that the causes of estrangement are complex, but factors that may influence estrangement are divorce, lack of filial and community bonds that were common in past generations, and anxious parenting. Coleman also makes a strong case that parents of young adults simply underestimate and misunderstand the value their own children place on feelings and emotional capital.
The experience of my friends and recent clients with the same struggle caused me to reflect on whether the Bible had anything to say regarding estrangement. Typically, the story of prodigal son does not apply. The adult children I have encountered are not addicts and have not run off to spend the family fortune recklessly. The children who choose estrangement from parents are often doing relatively well which makes the cut off all the more painful for parents to comprehend. Again, unlike the parodical son story where the father waits for the child to “come to their senses,” waiting may not be the best message.
For Biblical metaphors we have to dig a little deeper into the Old Testament. Israel, often referred to as Ephraim, was God’s chosen people and clearly viewed by God collectively as a parent would a child. Ephraim had already willfully become estranged from God when Jeremiah makes this statement from God, “Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him;” (Jeremiah 31:20, ESV). Note the feelings of God as parent. He calls his son dear, darling and yearns for him. This is the heart of the estranged parent.
The depiction of God’s estrangement from His own children is heightened in the book of Hosea. Hosea makes this statement for God, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away;…Yet it was I who taught Ephraim how to walk, I took them up by their arms,…” (Hosea 11:1,2, ESV). This passage has all the markings of parental estrangement. The tender memories of raising the child and ultimately the rejection despite repeated attempts to connect.
God knows about estrangement. This new phenomenon is not new to Him. God personally relates to this heart sickness. Take it to Him. Pray for your children and talk honestly to God about your feelings, and dig a little deeper for insight into what is happening in your relationship with your adult children.
In order to dig deeper let’s look at one cause of estrangement and one hopeful solution. A primary cause of estrangement is something called “anxious parenting.” There are so many things for good parents to legitimately be concerned about in the lives of their child – drugs, sex, gender identity, kidnappings, terrorism, school shootings, pandemics, bullying, school quality, socialization, moral and character development – as well as challenges to faith in the context of secular culture. All of these concerns may result in parents being protective, intense and even controlling in the way they parent. Parents naturally try to closely orchestrate or micro-manage the experiences of their children, hence the term “helicopter parent”. Helicopter parenting has even given way to “lawn mower parenting” – where the parent “mows down” all the obstacles in their child’s life. In such a situation, the child feels no sense of control and empowerment for him or herself. If the parent directs everything there is a lack of self- sufficiency on the part of the child. The parent is always telling the child what to do and eventually the child just wants to get distance from the over intensity of the anxious parent.  Note that the intentions of the parent are completely loving and sincere; however, the child’s perception can be that the parents are being smothering. Kate Julian writing in The Atlantic states, “Despite more than a decade’s evidence that helicopter parenting is counterproductive, kids today are perhaps more overprotected, more leery of adulthood, more in need of therapy.” In summary, many children in this generation suffer from an epidemic of anxiety, and the anxious parent only makes children feel greater anxiety. That is why some therapists will advise adult children to distance themselves from their parents for the sake of their mental health.
Once again, God has been similarly mis-perceived. In the Book of Hosea, the prophet speaking for God says, “Though I were to write out for him ten thousand points of My instruction, they would be regarded as something strange” (Hosea 8:12, Holman Bible). Here we see God as parent trying to direct his children; the response is to regard that direction as “something strange”. Close parenting and the response of estrangement are not far from one another. Fortunately, the Bible also has a very practical solution.
Joshua Coleman, writing in his seminal book, Rules of Estrangement, says the solution to this problem is “Hard, Hard, Hard”. That is because the solution not only requires tremendous humility; in fact, humility IS the solution. Often the estranged adult child has not been in contact with their parents for months or years, yet the parent (with a therapist’s help) must extend the olive branch in an attempted reconciliation. This situation is indeed unusual and counter-intuitive. The parents are the jilted parties because the adult child has made it clear they want no contact with the parent. However, the reality is that the adult child does not want contact with the “parents as they have always perceived them” – but they may be interested in some gradual contact with parents who will not make them feel anxious, or with parents who will see things from and validate the adult child’s perspective. Usually, the adult child has expressed their concerns to the parents and those concerns have previously been dismissed. This is where humility becomes THE solution. If the parents want a relationship with their adult child, the parents will have to find some merit or understanding in their adult child’s narrative. This step is extremely difficult because from the parent’s perspective, the adult child is saying something completely or partially false. The adult child often has an accusatory and negative perception of childhood events that completely baffle the parents whose intentions have always in their mind been loving and caring.
Listening and trying to find understanding and a level of agreement with a perceived false narrative is certainly humbling, but how is this Biblical? Being misperceived is part of living in this fallen world.
Attempting to live a life of unity despite misperceptions is a key indicator of the existence of Biblical faith. The Bible teaches, perhaps surprisingly, that we should “keep no record of wrongs” (I Corinthians 13:5, NIV), that “in humility” we consider others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3, NIV), and sometimes it is preferable to be wronged (I Corinthians 6:7, NIV). The adult child will make claims and have a narrative that may be very difficult to hear. However, parents can listen in all patience and humility as they don’t need to keep a record of wrongs, parents can consider the child’s version better than their own, and finally parents may even agree to suffer wrong (not the first Christians to do so). In past encounters, the parents tried to correct or manage the narrative and even responded defensively. In the new “humble mode” – the parents listen patiently and humbly and respond not with correction but with expressions of love.
Josh Coleman says this is HARD and for Christians it IS difficult; nonetheless, it should also be familiar territory in our Christian walk. The Bible presents multiple examples of His children deliberately seeking to jettison the heavenly father from their lives and the Bible even expresses God’s own anguish at rejection. Speaking of Jesus, the apostle John says “He came to his own people, and even they rejected him” (John 1:11, NLT). Estrangement is familiar territory for both God many Christians. Now, I would like to provide some suggestions for parents to avoid getting into this situation in the first place.
My first thought as a psychologist is to develop some insight into your own anxiety. Christian parents often mask irrational or even sinful anxiety as a good thing. Pious Christians really believe they need to worry about their kids. In reality, they don’t need to worry: What they need to do is trust that our loving Heavenly Father cares for all His children (including yours) more than they ever could. Anxiety itself is not the sin, but the misplaced trust is the problem. We say we have faith and trust in God but then we try to control everything that happens to our children. We are driven by anxiety. The anxiety is passed on to our children consciously and unconsciously and eventually becomes a worse fate than expected.
We keep our children safe and protected right into successful adulthood by controlling everything in their lives. They grow up into decent human beings, but our anxiety coupled with their inherited anxiety propels them to stay away from us. This is why I say we must develop insight into our anxiety. It is not okay. Anxiety teaches our children to not actually trust God.  So often, the adult child rejects not only the parent, but the faith in which they were raised. And why wouldn’t they? That faith did not seem to conquer the anxiety! Anxiety is not piety.
A dad came to see me because his son, the apple of his eye, was dropping out his private college to live with his girlfriend. This was painful on many levels. The dad had lived vicariously through his son’s athletics. The son was on a sports scholarship which he no longer had any interest in maintaining. The son was living with his girlfriend which was against the dad’s values. Finally, from several objective indicators, the girlfriend suffered from emotional issues and appeared to be unhealthily manipulating the son. Of course, the parents sprang into action and tried to control the situation. What else could the parents do? This resulted in the son and the girlfriend moving to a distant state far from his parents and their direction. Eventually, the son came to realize on his own accord that the relationship with the girlfriend was not healthy and they split up, but the son still resented how his dad handled the situation and they became estranged. Although the dad felt he was doing everything for the son, the son perceived the same behavior as lack of personal support when he needed his dad the most.
Longtime homeschool convention speaker, Reb Bradley, wrote on the blind spots of homeschool parents: mistakes he observed in his own parenting and in other homeschool parents. The list he identified is pretty much a list of the pathway to estrangement. Here are six items on that list: (1) Having self-centered dreams (or making your kids’ life trajectory all about you); (2) Making your family your idol (this item often creates the anxiety addressed above); (3) Focusing on outward appearances; (4) Tending to judge (parents end up being judged and found wanting by the expert judges they created); (5) Over-depending on authority and control (which adult children just want to escape from); (6) Over-relying on sheltering (which does not prepare for dealing with the “real” world and also creates a desire for that from that which was withheld). The six items on this list are often the very approaches taken by conservative Christians. These items have played a significant role in the development of estrangement; hence they need to be confessed and avoided in the future.
So, what’s a parent to do? What if you are presently dealing with adult child estrangement? Then some Bible verses in the old school language of the King James Version may provide some direction. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). It should be noted that our (all Christians) ministry is one of reconciliation. We need to try to make it right with our adult children, despite the hurt and pain they may have caused through their actions. The next step is stated by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matthew 5:23,24) Agree with thy adversary quickly…(Matthew 5:25). Here we see something God naturally anticipated. In this life there will be estrangement, but quick, carefree, and even careless agreement with our adult children IS the first step.
Dr. Don McCulloch a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, is a member of Truth Point PCA in West Palm Beach, FL, and a licensed psychologist. He is the head of the Department of Psychology at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

References:
Coleman, Joshua (January 10, 2020). A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement. https://www.theatlantic.com
Coleman, Joshua (2020). Rules of Estrangement. Harmony Books.
Julian, Kate (May 15, 2020).  What happened to the American childhood? https://www.theatlantic.com
https://springsofgrace.church/2011/09/exposing-major-blind-spots-of-homeschoolers-by-reb-bradley/

It is Jesus who enables us to approach the Father even in the first place. It is purely through the grace of God in Christ that we find ourselves placed before the Father, but it is not as if the Lord saves us by grace and then changes the rules of engagement. When we sin and are tempted to return to our old ways, that is precisely the time we ought to come to God, for in Christ, we have our perfect Representative who stands in our stead.

While the book of Hebrews is often subjected to rigorous theological debate on some of its contents, the book is one filled with a profound sense of hope. Nestled amidst the several warnings of apostasy one finds several passages intended to encourage the weary, lift up the faint-hearted, and ultimately, direct our affections and intellect back to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The overarching message of the book of Hebrews is the superiority of the Son of God, but its contents are never divorced from strict application to this core teaching. In three words, you could perhaps summarize that application in the command: don’t go back. The temptation, of course, was this very thing.

The weight of pressure and persecution had come upon the church in full and the cost of following Christ was high. Some would be imprisoned, some would lose all of their assets, some would succumb to the lure of sin—yet the pressure would be lifted if they merely turned back to their old ways as Jews and rejected Christ. Yet time and again, the author of Hebrews lifts up this simple reality: Christ is supreme. In fact, as he shows throughout the course of the letter, every aspect of religious life as an Israelite testified to the reality of Christ’s supremacy. Whereas the Old Covenant put forth shadows of this hope to come, the New Covenant would put forth the Son as the pure expression of God’s final Word to us in these last days.

It is in light of this, therefore, that he says the old way brings nothing but death and a fearsome judgment, whereas following Christ brings eternal life. The cost of following Christ might be high, but the cost of turning back was all the higher, as those who apostatized would never come to enter into His rest. The mindset begging to be cultivated then is one of heavenly perspective, meaning that the warnings and encouragements given in this letter are intended to bring the people of God to persevere to the final day. Though temptation should seize them and persecution should buffet them, the call remains: don’t go back.

In much the same way, the temptation to Christ followers today is to return to the former paths we once walked in darkness. Perhaps it comes through a functional denial of taking the hard road of suffering, or, perhaps it that Leviathan we call sin that lures us to its mirey depths. No matter how we stretch it, the call to persevere in our faith is what we must abide in, lest we find ourselves disqualified, having forfeited our heavenly reward by making a shipwreck of our faith. It is for this reason that we are called to hold fast to the confession of our faith—and here the author of Hebrews does not have in mind our own personal, subjective faith, but rather that body of doctrine called the faith. The reason we are called to endure in Hebrews 4:14-16? We have a great High Priest.

While sin bars us from the presence of the Father, it is this great High Priest who brings us into His very throne room. This is a far more glorious reality than most realize. Whereas the former high priests could enter into the holy of holies but once a year to make atonement, Christ is the High Priest par excellence. The Israelites might see the high priest pass from their presence into the tabernacle, but it is Christ Himself who passed through the heavens (Heb. 4:14). The God-man, Christ Jesus, came before the Father to make intercession on behalf of the Christian, and yet He needn’t do so on a yearly to make atonement, or even daily basis to make sacrifices and offerings as the high priests of old. Once was sufficient, and ever will remain sufficient (Heb. 7:27). The ministry of the former high priests, even on that great Day of Atonement, pales in comparison to the efficiency of the great High Priest, who rectifies our plight once and for all.

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