John Mark Hicks

Patternism does not entail division as long as it does not subvert grace and it graciously treats another believer with mercy. Rather, it is the attitudes, agendas and acidity of the people involved that generate division. Patternism itself is not to blame and neither is “restorationism’s” search for a pattern. When people are treated with gracious humility, patternism can be […]

In an earlier post I quoted a piece from G. C. Brewer’s autobiography where he objected to the emphasis that some placed on the plan of salvation rather than on a personal savior. His comment came in the context of discussing the role of confession in the five-step (or is it four-step or three-step?) plan […]

In my next post I will turn my attention to “privilege,” but in this one I dig deeper into the argument for silence. The Tennessee Tradition regarded public silence as godly submission on the part of faithful women. Given the Tennessee understanding that women were inferior to men in terms of leadership capacity and excluded from […]

My previous post provided the common ground upon which Churches of Christ distinguished themselves from the “digressives” in the first decade of the 20th century regarding “women’s work in the church.” The editors of the major journals among Churches of Christ were agreed that (1) women are not permitted to preach the word publicly (as evangelists in […]