August 19, 2026

Today the church is wrestling with authority — who has it, where it comes from, and what it demands. Christianity Today ran an excerpt from Ryan Lokkesmoe arguing that Christians have quietly imported a pagan picture of God — a deity who rules by raw force rather than through the grain of creation. The Aquila Report pushes back in the other direction, insisting Christ's supremacy isn't decorative. It's total. It commands everything. These two pieces aren't quite disagreeing — but they're pulling on different ends of the same rope. Lokkesmoe worries we've made God too coercive. Aquila worries we've made Christ too optional. Neither worry is unfounded. Al Mohler, in a long interview with American Reformer, frames the whole thing institutionally: the question isn't just what we believe about Christ's lordship, but whether Protestant structures can actually hold that confession together under pressure.

Gary Habermas spent fifty years studying the resurrection and says the historical case has only gotten stronger. That sits in interesting tension with what Christianity Today published this week on attachment theory — the idea that how you related to your parents shapes whether you can receive a sovereign, loving God at all. Habermas is asking whether the evidence holds. CT is asking whether we're even psychologically capable of trusting it. The Gospel Coalition takes a different angle entirely, watching longevity influencers promise biological escape from death while the resurrection goes unmentioned. Same enemy, different battlefield. On the formation side, 9Marks has a blunt piece about parents who wound their children's relationship to the church through their own bitterness — a quieter crisis, but a real one. Earlier this week we were watching desire and formation surface as the central question. It hasn't resolved. It's just gotten more specific.