John Mark Hicks

This piece from David Lipscomb in 1866 speaks for itself. “The spirit of the church must be changed–radically changed in this respect,” he writes, “before it can be truly the Church of Christ.” “The crowning characteristic of the Christian religion in the esteem of its founder, is that the “poor have the gospel preached to […]

In the late 1870s several noticed a decline in church attendance among the urban poor. David Lipscomb offers his own opinion as to why there is such a decline which, he thinks, is primarily a northern phenomenon (though he does think New Orleans may fit). The urban poor do not participate in urban church life because […]

When the Central Christian Church in Cincinnaiti, Ohio, completed its $140,000, 2000-seat French Gothic building in 1872, many–especially Benjamin Franklin and David Lipscomb–thought it was an outrage.  By 1892 there were rumors that the church needed to sell the building since many of its members had moved to the suburbs. The downtown, urban church could not […]