John Mark Hicks

“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 […]

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 […]

Kenney Carl Moser (1893-1976) was one of the most significant players in the theological arena of Churches of Christ in the twentieth century. My friend Bobby Valentine has recently demonstrated in a paper delivered at the 2007 Christian Scholar’s Conference at Rochester College (entitled “In with Wallace, Out with Brewer: K. C. Moser in the 1920s”) that K. C. […]

As part of a pre-conference gathering entitled “Theology in the Service of the Church” in conjunction with the 1996 Christian Scholars Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, I presented a paper entitled “The Doctrine of God.”  The presentations at this pre-conference were published in Leaven 8.3 (2000). Some of these themes (providence, pneumatology, etc.) are pursued in my Kingdom […]

I have uploaded some published and unpublished material on the Christology and the Atonement to a couple of my pages. While this is older material–most of which was written in the 1990s–the historical perspective is still, I hope, helpful and some of the theology might be as well. 🙂 On the Academic page….. In 1994 […]

Now available on my Academic Materials page is the lead article of the then new academic periodical the Stone Campbell Journal entitled “God’s Sensible Pledge: The Witness of the Spirit in the Early Baptismal Theology of Alexander Campbell”. The article suggests that Campbell regarded baptism as God’s sensible (empirical) pledge of assurance. It is an […]

Jesus shared water with us–he was baptized with sinners. He followed us into the water, but by so doing enabled something new to break into the world. He was filled with the Spirit, baptized in the Spirit. And declared to be the Son of God. But this Son of God was no docetic theophany. This […]

Yesterday I reflected on how we might think Christologically about our suffering. Jesus united with our suffering and we unite with his. We become one and together endure the suffering. We share the fellowship of his suffering just as he shared ours. Thus, through suffering we are one with Christ. It is journey through suffering […]