John Mark Hicks

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is–of course–quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.] The Holy Spirit, as the personal presence […]

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is–of course–quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.] The divine ontology is Being-in-Relation—the Christian narrative […]

 “Theodicy in Early Stone-Campbell Perspectives,” in Restoring the First-Century Church in the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Warren Lewis and Hans Rollmann (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005), 287-310. In honor of Don Haymes, I penned an article concerning the various “theodices” that were prominent in the 19th century Stone-Campbell Movement. It was interesting to […]

Yes, it is true. I wrote articles for Contending for the Faith, edited by Ira Y. Rice, Jr., in the late 1970s. Ira Y. Rice, Jr. was a good friend of my father Mark N. Hicks. Ira would stay in our home, it seemed, at least once a year. He would either hold a meeting […]

One of the more significant differences between the Tennessee and Texas Traditions is eschatology. I use “eschatology” in the broad sense of the term. It is not simply about millennialism (though the Tennessee Tradition was generally premillennial). Rather, it involves how one understands the kingdom of God, how the kingdom relates to “worldly kingdoms” (civil […]

Alexander Campbell’s relationship with the Baptists is rather complicated.  His Brush Run congregation petitioned for membership Redstone Baptist Association in 1815 and then was admitted in 1816.  In 1823 Alexander Campbell, along with thirty members from the Brush Run church, planted a new congregation in Wellsburg, Virginia. That congregation joined the Mahoning Baptist Association in 1824.  […]

Tennesee and Texas:  Mac Ice has provided another illustration of the tension between Tennessee and Texas on his blog. While looking into the writings of C. E. W. Dorris, a founding elder of Nashville’s Central Church of Christ in 1925 as well as a student of both Lipscomb and Harding at the Nashville Bible School, […]

Foy E. Wallace, Jr. dubbed Harding College “an incubus of error” and “unsound” in the May 1941 issue of The Bible Banner.  Wallace’s assault against George Benson, J. N. Armstrong and Harding College is a good illustration of the tension between the Texas and Tennessee theological traditions within Churches of Christ. The emphases below are […]

“It ain’t that complicated.” My recent series on “theological hermeneutics” may seem complicated. I may have made it look complicated. But I don’t think it is complicated at all. The method for which I argued does call for inductive Bible study, reflection, contemplation, holistic thinking, attention to the plot (metanarrative) in the theodrama, prayer, communal dialogue, […]

When I think of the dramatic story of Scripture in terms of divine presence (as I did in my previous post on theological hermeneutics), my mind always turns toward the absence of those whom I have loved and lost. This may seem a strange twist, but it is a natural flow for me because divine presence […]