John Mark Hicks

I have recently created some pages where I can offer some previously published and unpublished materials for download.  I will occasionally comment on these to alert readers of their availability.

At the moment there are several documents available on the Academic Materials page.

One article is a presentation I made at the Christian Scholar’s Conference on a Christian rehabilitation of the concept of Law as a guide for sanctification.

Two articles focus on the Lord’s Supper.  One attempts to understand the eschatological meaning of the Lord’s Supper and the other reflects on the meaning and practice of the Supper among Churches of Christ in the early and mid-20th century.

Two articles focus on Stone-Campbell theology.  One explains the meaning and significance of sacramental theology within the Stone-Campbell Movement (baptism, Lord’s Supper and Lord’s day assembly) and the other is the set of handouts I used in lecturing on James A. Harding at the Center for Spiritual Renewal (Lipscomb University) a few years ago.

Another article is the presentation I made at a meeting of representatives from Southern Baptists and Churches of Christ at Abilene Christian University several years ago on the subject of baptism.  I sought a kind of reproachment between the two fellowships on the design/function of baptism.

The final article is one that was presented at a sermon seminar at Rochester College on preaching community laments. I focused on Psalm 44 and 58 as my primary examples.

 I hope some find these helpful as I make them available in this form.  There will be more to come as I have time to post them.

Shalom

 John Mark

Though I have not yet seen it, I understand that the “Christian Affirmation” of last May 2006 has been republished as a printed advertisement in the Christian Chronicle of July 2007.

I hope it is not true though I fear it is. I am surprised–very surprised–to hear that the “affirmation” has been republished. I had no idea it would be published again, and if I had know it were to be, I would have removed my name from the signatories.

I thought it served a good purpose the first time around, and I gave my reasons for that on my blog (indeed, started my blog for the reason of contributing to the discussion–but have not done much with it since as some are wont to point out to me). You can read those reasons at May 13 and May 14 in 2005. I am quite disappointed that it has appeared again. Once was sufficient to make the point, but a continual reappearance that fosters disunity (it seems to me) is not the intent with which I signed the affirmation in the first place.

Kingdom Come: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of David Lipscomb and James A. Harding is the title of a new release by Leafwood Press, a division of ACU Press. It is due out in May 2006.

Bobby Valentine and John Mark Hicks are the authors.

“Many assume that Churches of Christ views 1930-1960 were those of the major forefathers such as James A. Harding and David Lipscomb. We must therefore read this book, for as the result of the authors’ detailed scrutiny of the writings of Lipscomb and Harding, we are soon disabused of our unwarranted illusions. These two forefathers were not simply polemicists. They were spiritual giants who heralded living in the face of the coming again of the Lord, trusting him for all of life’s needs, walking in the Spirit, prayer, Scripture reading, peace keeping and more. The authors do an excellent job of elaborating on how Scripture and contemporary scholarship sustain the commitments of Lipscomb and Harding and challenge our own life before God and in his church.”

Thomas H. Olbricht
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion, Pepperdine University.

Can we say anything good about 1906?

This book recovers a piece of forgotten history from 1906. Some of the finest examples of kingdom living to be found among Churches of Christ are found in the midst of that heartbreaking year of division. The “best” of Churches of Christ in 1906 is represented by the life, thought and practice of David Lipscomb (1831-1917) and James A. Harding (1848-1922), despite the fact that Lipscomb and Harding participated in the conditions which resulted in division.

Their kingdom theology and spirituality, we believe, provides the contemporary church with a way forward into the future. If Churches of Christ—and other parts of the Stone-Campbell Movement as well—would re-appropriate their kingdom themes and practices, we believe the church would more fully participate in the emerging kingdom of God which will one day fill the earth with divine righteousness.

Below is the Table of Contents.

Introduction

1. Introducing a Spiritual Legacy: Foreigners at Home

Part A. Kingdom Dynamics: Divine Action

2. Shadows of the Second Coming: “Thy Kingdom Come”

3. God Still Works: Trusting God’s Providence

4. Holy Spirit: God’s Redemptive Presence in the World

Part B. Kingdom Spirituality: Four Means of Grace

5. Listening to God: Reading Scripture

6. Releasing the Oppressed: Fellowship as a Means of Grace

7. Communing with God: The Lord’s Day and the Lord’s Table

8. Crying for the Kingdom: The Privilege of Prayer

Part C. Kingdom Life: Free to Serve

9. The Prince of Peace: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom

10. No Creed But Christ: Freedom to Think and Speak

11. No More Shadows: Towards Cosmic Liberation

Afterword

12. The Road Not Traveled: Where Do We Go From Here?

My apologies for posting this a second time, but I’m testing some problems with blogdigger.

Harding and Lipscomb — joint photograph of the co-founders of the Nashville Bible School 

Another essay I just submitted for publication that will appear in December concerns the various “theodices” that were prominent in the 19th century Stone-Campbell Movement. It was interesting to me that there is no “Theodicy” heading in the new Stone-Campbell Encyclopedia though there is some discussion of the idea under the article entitled “Providence.”

Essentially, they were all theologically Arminian with an Augustinian understanding of the Fall. What I mean is this, they all located the origin of moral evil in the free agency of creatures (whether human or angelic). That is the Arminian part. At the same time, they all located natural evil in the “Fall” of humanity–either a punishment or consquence of sin within the cosmos. That is the Augustinian part. One can see both of these in Alexander Campbell and Robert Richardson early on and both affirmed a kind of “meticulous providence” over the world.

However, the North/South conflict and the cultural/theological developments of the late 19th century shaped theodicy in different ways within the movement.

On the one hand, the North embraced a more rational, scientific approach to theodicy. Emphasizing the embedded order within the cosmos, natural law regulated natural evil. Nature functioned independently–by divine design–of God’s specific will or intent. God did not and does not intervene within the cosmos except for redemptive-historical purposes (e.g., Exodus, Incarnation, Resurrection). This created a kind of Deism within northern thinking that denied any kind of “special” or “meticulous” providence (though all did not deny it and continued the tradition of Campbell and Richardson).

On the other hand, the South (particularly in the deep south of TN, MS and AL, etc.) the cosmos was engaged in a radical spiritual conflict. It was the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan (e.g., Lipscomb and Harding). God was involved in his world directing nations and individuals toward his ends, including the idea that God punished the South because of slavery. God is meticulously involved in his world and engaged in this cosmic conflict. Humanity is free to choose which side it will serve, but God will win in the end and even now sovereignly conducts the world according to his goals and interests. Lipscomb’s response to the overwhelming experience of evil in the Civil War was to acknowledge God’s sovereignty. Lipscomb does not “defend” or “justify” God. Rather, he submits and trusts.

Some in the South rebelled against this construal, particularly in Texas. They embraced a Newtonian natural law understanding of natural evil and advocated a practical Deism. This is evidenced, in particular, in the “word only” theory of the Holy Spirit. God is self-constrained by natural law and Scripture for his own action in the world. This response to life is to protect God from involvement in the specific events of the world. God does not get his hands dirty in the daily functions of life, but regulates the world through laws (laws of nature and laws in Scripture).

In the context of opposing a deistic understanding of prayer, Harding asked: “Does the Holy Spirit do anything now except what the Word does? Do we get any help, of any kind or in any way, from God except what we get by studying the Bible?… Does God answer our prayers by saying, ‘Study the Bible…’?” (“Questions and Answers,” The Way 4/16 [17 July 1902]: 123.)

Theodicy is too often encumbered by metaphysical assumptions, too driven by hermeneutical harmonization, and too distant from the affirmations and particularities of the text. Theodicy must arise out of the story we have been given, and perhaps it is not so much “theodicy” as “kergyma” that is our task. I find myself much more in line with Lipscomb/Harding than the Northern Disciples and the Southern Texans.

While doing some reading in Stone-Campbell literature for a paper I’m preparing, I ran into this comment from Carl Ketcherside.

“The Lord’s Supper is a feast, not a sacrifice; it is observed at a table, not an altar; it is eaten, not offered up; it is a communion of a congregation of priests, not an oblation of priests for a congregation. Jesus did not tell the apostles when he ordained the feast “I appoint unto you an altar at which you may officiate,” but he did say at that time “As my Father hath appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:30). The apostle Paul in connection with the teaching about the Lord’s Supper, declares, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21). We conclude then that the expression “Do this in remembrance of me” does not refer to official authority to sacrifice at an altar, but to the partaking at a festal board of those emblems of our Lord’s sacrifice once for all.”

Ketcherside, Royal Priesthood, chapter 14

Sounds something like a major thesis in a book a few years back.

Permit me a few more perspectives on the “Affirmation”and then I will let it go unless asked to comment further…..

I may be politically naive — and there may good reason to think that of me — but I did not see affirming the statement as somehow a negative statement about the 2006 healing initiatives with the Christian Church/Churches of Christ. It is rather discouraging to me to hear it set in that framework or read in that way. I am a supporter of the initiatives, and have a long history of support. I offer the following list, not to display my ego, but to signal that I pursue such initiatives in both word and deed.

a. I have long participated in the Stone-Campbell session of the Evangelical Theological Society along with my Christian Church brothers, and this fall will present a paper on the theology of the Lord’s Supper.

b. I have published with College Press (e.g., Yet Will I Trust Him), and have written the commentary on Chronicles in the College Press Commentary Series.

c. I have participated in unity meetings from the Restoration Forums to local gatherings of ministers across the country. Indeed, this summer I will speak at some unity fellowship gatherings in Hawaii (I know, its a tough gig, but for the sake of unity…).

d. I support STADIA’s efforts to plant churches across the country, have participated in some of their seminars, and help recruit church planters for them.

e. I have spoken and will speak in 2006 at the North American Convention.

f. I am on the editorial board of the Stone-Campbell Journal.

I don’t think to affirm some ancient practices as viable ways to the future is necessarily antagonistic to those efforts of healing. The context of the affirmation was “The Christian Chronicle” not the “Christian Standard”, that is, directed at Churches of Christ, not Baptists, Christian Church, etc. I signed it as an affirmation of our historic practices without seeking to deny or discourage more basic fellowship among Christians.

A cappella music, of course, is the weakest part of the document, and it should not (and cannot) stand on the same explicit theological grounds that baptism and the Lord’s Supper do. I wish the document were more explicit about that, but again the context of the document is historic practices among Churches of Christ. And as our historic practices go, a cappella is one of them. I think most, if not all, the signers recognize this. Whether you agree with Jeff Peterson’s theological/biblical rationale or not for a cappella music, you cannot miss that he does not put that rationale on the same level as other theological concerns. I wish, however, that had been clear in the Affirmation itself.

I am appreciative of Leroy Garrett’s critique of the Affirmation. I am appreciative of his years of ministry and service to Churches of Christ for the cause of unity. But I think he misreads the Affirmation as drawing lines of fellowship rather than an affirmation of historic practices that are part of the dialogue toward the visible unity that is already spiritually present in and through Christ. It think he is also a bit too charitable with Campbell, for example. Campbell himself had as a standard of visible fellowship within the body of Christ, that is, his call for faith in one fact, baptism as one act, and the communal fellowship of the church on one day–“one fact, one act, one day”. But I agree with Leroy that the confession of the one story of God in Christ and submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is the core affirmation of the Christian faith. I don’t read the Affirmation as a substitute for that. See also Jeff Peterson’s response to Garrett’s critique.

I will close with this. I affirm the practices of which the Affirmation speaks. I affirm them as means of grace for the people of God. They are practices which form us spiritually as a community. But I do not affirm them in ways that would hinder discussion or dialogue with people who also seek Jesus through the story we have been given.

Thanks for reading. Shalom,

John Mark

“A Christian Affirmation” is an occasional rather than comprehensive statement that affirms some traditional distinctives of Churches of Christ. I wish it contained more –and even more basic – affirmations (theology, Christology, pneumatology, discipleship, eschatology), but its limited scope (at least as I read it) is to affirm some traditional ecclesiological distinctives within the historic tradition of Churches of Christ.

While I do not understand all the possible contexts for the occasion of this document, the occasion I perceived was the potential loss of theological meaning attached to some of the historic practices of baptism, Lord’s Supper and a cappella music among Churches of Christ.

If the document is read as giving equal weight to baptism, Lord’s Supper and a cappella music in terms of fellowship or soteriology, I think this would be a misreading of my intent in signing it. It is an understandable reading given that the document does not articulate any such distinctions. But I read the “Affirmation” in terms of our historic tradition rather than a flattening of theological values to the same level. The three are part of our history, but they do not have the same significance or importance theologically.

It concerns me greatly if the document is read as a litmus test of fellowship or if it is read as the “essence” of Christianity. It is neither in my estimation. Rather, it expresses conviction about three ecclesiological practices in terms of their importance to Churches of Christ and their rootage in early Christianity. Immersion for the remission of sins, weekly communion in the Lord’s Supper and a cappella music are historic practices not only of Churches of Christ, but of the ancient church as well.

I signed it because of what it affirms. I did not sign it as a document that sets the parameters of Christian fellowship or to hinder some of the healing initiatives with the Christian Church/Churches of Christ. Nor did I sign it as a document that affirms what is most important within the Christian faith or equalizes what it affirms. I am supportive of the “Affirmation” only to the degree that it encourages our historic practices of immersion as a means of grace, the centrality of weekly table, and the theological meaningfulness of a cappella music.

One further comment in the light of the many bloggers that have commented on the “Affirmation” (see, for example, Jimmy Shaw’s blog). On the one hand, I embrace the move toward missional orientation, encourage the deepening of pietistic spiritual formation, move theologically in the circles of postmodern Evangelicalism (Grenz, Olsen, Francke, for example), and appreciate much of the concerns of the Emergent Church movement. On the other hand, I also appreciate the “Ancient-Future” dimension of Webber’s work, and I see this statement as moving in that orbit for Churches of Christ. I don’t think the statement is necessarily antagonistic to the first, but is expressive of the second. Can a signer live in both worlds? I think so, and I do.

I would see myself as affirming something of what Webber affirms–that is, the way to the Future is through the Ancient. But in affirming the Ancient, it does not discount the Future. Indeed, even the elements affirmed in this statement are affirmed at a basic level that leaves much for the Future to build on. How we experience Lord’s Supper, for example, is subject to wide practices–small groups to assemblies, tables to prayer groups, etc. It simply affirms some continuities with the Ancient that are important or significant for the Future–they give connection to the heritage of the faith, and specifically Churches of Christ as well (though I would emphasize Ancient as well as Churches of Christ [who are definitively more modern in their practice of the Ancient faith]).

I believe the Future is open to diverse thinking and practices, but the Future should also convey the Ancient in continuity with the faith of all ages.

I don’t think “original design” or “norm” are inconsistent with translating into “modern terms.” There can be modern expressions and postmodern (emergent) expressions of “original design” and “norm.” I would locate those in theological values more than any kind of “Command, Example, Inference” hermeneutic. But Scripture, nevertheless, functions a as a “norm that norms” (as Grenz and Franke are in the habit of reminding us). This is the “Ancient” dimension that the “Affirmation” affirms and is worth consideration.