John Mark Hicks

One book advocates a soft complementarian reading of Scripture and the other an egalitarian reading of Scripture. The general editor of the former is Renèe Webb Sproles. It is entitled Male & Female: A Biblical Look at Gender (published by Renew.org). The author of the other is Philip B. Payne. It is entitled The Bible […]

Situation: the rise of trans people, especially among children (e.g., adolescent girls) In 2007, there was only one pediatric gender clinic in the US; now, there are 300+ gender clinics (plus some services, like Planned Parenthood, dispense testosterone, depending on state laws, to minors without parental permission or a therapist note). Britain has seen a […]

In January, 2021, Bammel Road Church of Christ in Houston, TX, asked me to share my understanding of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 with them. This is the ZOOM video for January 24, 2021. This presentation affirms the principle of “headship” (which needs definition) and the interdependency of women and men “in the Lord.” In the assembly, […]

One of the most striking features of Paul Young’s parable entitled The Shack is his depiction of the Father. This has occasioned criticism at several levels. [This post is chapter 15 in my book Meeting God at the Shack: A Journey into Spiritual Recovery.] Is it idolatry to portray the Father in such a manner? […]

[An audio version is available here (under January 8)] In this post I have no interest in advocating for any position, and my taxonomy is primarily applied to the historically controversial question about what function/role may women serve in the public assembly of the church gathered to communally praise/worship God. Rather than advocating a position, […]

This is my last post on the historical situation of women in the assemblies of Churches of Christ from 1897 to 1907.  You may access the whole series from my serial page. The Texas Tradition While the mid and deep South seemed united in the Tennessee perspective, Texas reflected some considerable diversity, even among conservatives who […]

The previous post stated the specific arguments for silence. This post presents the case for “privilege.” In January 1904 the Christian Leader and The Way merged. Though a friendly merger, it was the union of a strong Tennessee paper with a Northern paper whose roots were shared by Daniel Sommer. This entailed some substantial difference […]

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 […]

One of the forgotten debates from the first decade of the 20th century among Churches of Christ is whether audible participation in the assembly through prayer, singing, and exhortation was a woman’s privilege or a subversion of the created order. May a woman lead prayer in the assembly? May a woman lead singing in the […]