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 2016 The Aquila Report (TAR) posted over 3,000 stories. At the end of each year we feature the top 50 stories that were read. The top story this year had over 26,900 hits.
TAR posts about 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.
Tullian has clearly begun to think of himself as someone who can teach in an Elder capacity. I commented recently that his post on was likely intended to be a sneak peak of his rumored forthcoming book. Similarly, I would be utterly unsurprised if we saw a formal call to pastoral ministry come from Spring Hills. Furthermore, Tullian’s public person Facebook page has an updated profile picture (probably from his preaching engagement), and the cover image is a quote from his sermon at Spring Hills. It appears that Tullian (or his publicity firm) has begun to rebuild and rebrand him.
Perhaps no evangelical leader has been more outspoken in opposition to Trump than Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. In a single weekend last month, Moore penned an op-ed in The New York Times and made an appearance on “Face the Nation,” in which he called Trump’s campaign “reality television moral sewage.”
We, the Session of First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi, being cognizant of our duty to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God,” acknowledge and confess the sin of racism. In particular, we repudiate the 1954 actions of our Session affirming segregation of the races and upholding an unbiblical tradition of worship that was divided according to race.
Joshua Harris has been reflecting a lot on the impact of his book. He’s heard from people who felt his writing taught them to be ashamed of their bodies and to feel guilty for having any sexual desires. The criticism came out recently on Twitter. One woman reached out and said the book was used against her like a weapon. Joshua Harris apologized.
We would also like to state in the clearest possible terms that we do not believe that Mr. Tchividjian should be in any form of public or vocational ministry. Rather, inasmuch as he is truly repentant and in accordance with his membership vows, we would urge him to immediately return to his church of membership, submit to its leadership, and pursue healing and renewal through repentance in the context of his local church….
As I see it, the tragic choice facing conscientious Christians is a sign. It is a sign that the wider culture, which in the primaries freely gave us these two unqualified nominees, is so far sunken into sin and spiritual forgetfulness, that God, both in justice and mercy, is now giving the nation the leaders it deserves, and along with that, the consequences it deserves.
Friend, we simply disagree. We are so very pleased to associate with Stephen, a faithful Jesus-man, a Master of Divinity student in our church’s seminary, and a future pastor in Jesus’ church…our church. Stephen, who is saying “No” to his flesh, and for the sake of Jesus — how courageous! How bold! How faithful! How much Jesus must smile at Stephen, yes? For he is following Jesus in the cruciform way — at a cost that many of us, I daresay most of us, will never quite understand. Yes, Stephen’s Christianity costs him something. What does following Jesus cost us? It’s a question worth asking ourselves, yes?
Augustine, our great North African father, said that each Psalm had a ‘single body of feeling that vibrates in every syllable’. As Peter Brown has noted, Augustine believed that each Psalm could be presented as a microcosm of the whole Bible — the clear essence of Christianity refracted through in the exotic spectrum of Hebrew poetry. In Augustine’s sermons on the Psalms ‘we begin to hear the songs of Africa’ — the ‘sweet melody of a Psalm sung in the streets.’
Stanley went on to explain, he said, “There were thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians before there was a Bible.” He then went on to say, “I would start with the resurrection of Jesus.” Why is it that Andy Stanley seems to distance himself from the Bible? Is it possible to present the resurrection of Jesus without the Bible? Could it be that some other historic account of Jesus’ resurrection carries more authority than the Bible? How would Andy Stanley pull from the evidence of eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection without using the Bible?
Westminster is a biblical, robust, and clear confession of the Reformed faith. Sadly, I fear that the PCA’s toleration of diverse practices which are not necessarily Reformed has now degenerated into a toleration of diverse doctrines which are in no way Reformed. The Federal Vision (FV) controversy has served to directly test the PCA’s confessional fidelity. Is the PCA confessional in a meaningful way – or not?
[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]
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