John Mark Hicks

Is the hermeneutical move from Scripture to application a “Texas Two-Step” or something else? Two or Three? By “Texas Two-Step” I do not mean the country/western dance that moves in sync with 4/4 time.  🙂  I am referring to the basic hermeneutical practice of moving from Scripture to application in “two steps.” Step One:  The […]

Okay, maybe I’m not ready to go with the intensely practical as yet….my bad!  But I think the following methodological outline of a theological hermeneutic is a fairly simple one.   I will wait for the “rubber-meets-the-road” kind of ecclesiological discussions of the theological hermeneutic (which is, historically, what really interests the heirs of the Stone-Campbell […]

I offer this methodology for thinking theologically about any particular theme or communal practice in Scripture. What I offer, however, is neither comprehensive nor complete but a theological trajectory. I hope to get more practical with this in the next few posts. A Basic Methodology First, and foundationally, the Christ Event (incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection […]

After a “deserved” break (for you as well as me), I now return to my series on “theological hermeneutics.” (For the previous articles, see the heading “Hermeneutics” on my Serial Index page.) My last few posts in this series emphasized the redemptive-historical character of Scripture as a function of the narrative plot of God’s story. In […]

With this post, I will lay down my keyboard for a few weeks on this topic as I leave Friday or Saturday for a week vacation without electronics.  But I will continue this series again upon my return.  I envision six or seven more articles on “theological hermeneutics” and then a new series on “applied” theological […]

At this point I am tempted to reproduce an earlier post entitled An Increasingly Common Analogy.  Instead, I will simply ask those who are interested to read it. In summary, we are participating in a theodrama (to use Vanhoozer’s term in his Drama of Doctrine).  On the analogy of a five act (or six, depending […]

Scripture comes to us as human literature. It is written by humans for humans in human language. Whatever it communicates, then, it communicates through the medium of finite, limiting, bounded human language. In this context, I raise only three points in this post. Much more, of course, could be said, but these points are significant […]

This post begins a new series which will attempt to offer some of the bare outlines of a theological approach to the hermeneutical task. My first series “Created for Hermeneutics” laid some of the theological and philosophical foundations for thinking about hermeneutics. My second series “Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics” provided a historical/theological context for the appreciation and […]

One of the more interesting postmodern philosophers, in my opinion, is Merold Westphal. Below I have reproduced a selection from his article “Appropriating Postmodernism” in his Overcoming Onto-theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith (NY: Fordham, 2001), pp. 78-80. Originally a lecture to an evangelical college board, he attempts to illustrate how postmodernism, hermeneutics, theology and the […]

This is my last post under the heading of “Created for Hermeneutics.”  In the near future–after a little break this week–I will continue a discussion of hermeneutics.  My plan is to summarize and critique some aspects of traditional Stone-Campbell hermeneutics in one series and then initiate another series which offers an alternative (though not disconnected) vision for contemporary theological hermeneutics. […]