John Mark Hicks

One of the more common “gotcha questions” in the late 19th century discussion of rebaptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement was something like this: Is baptism administered to a person scripturally valid when he claims he is in Christ before he was baptized, and will contend that his sins were all forgiven him before he submitted […]

In the years prior to the Firm Foundation (begun in 1884) there was practical unanimity on the question of whether one who had been previously immersed to obey God but without the knowledge of its saving import should be rebaptized. The answer was an unequivocal “No.” The only significant part of the Stone-Campbell Movement that answered “Yes” […]

Benjamin Franklin (1812-1878) was the leader of northern conservatives in the mid-19th century within the Stone-Campbell Movement. His American Christian Review was the most widely read periodical of the movement after the Civil War. He led the fight, for example, against the introduction of instrumental music into worship assemblies and grounded the argument for an exclusive “five public […]

Be grateful–this post is under 2500 words. 🙂 I plan one more on Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics and I will move to thinking about a biblical-theologial hermeneutic for contemporary Churches of Christ. The Distinction between Moral and Positive Law The distinction between positive law and moral law in the modern era finds its roots in Thomas Hobbes’ […]