John Mark Hicks

Eschatology. Millennialism. Second Advent. Judgment. New Heaven and Earth. Nineteenth century Restorationists, from Alexander Campbell to David Lipscomb, spoke and wrote about these subjects. They often disagreed, however. Alexander Campbell was a postmillennialist. James A. Harding was a premillennialist. Walter Scott changed his mind several times. David Lipscomb was uncertain. However, these all agreed that […]

The Nashville Bible School, founded on October 9, 1891 with nine students, steadily grew throughout the first years of its existence. At the end of October 1891, it would have nineteen students, and twenty-six by Feburary and conclude the year with thirty-two students In succeeding years it would have forty-two, fifty-three, eighty-eight, and then one […]

R. C. Bell (1877-1964) attended the Nashville Bible School from 1896-1901. James A. Harding took Bell with him as a faculty member at the newly founded Potter Bible College in 1901. Later Bell would teach at several different colleges among Churches of Christ and eventually ended up at Abilene Christian College as a beloved teacher. In 1959, […]

Samuel Parker Pitmann (1876-1965), a graduate who joined the faculty of the Nashville Bible School (now Lipscomb University) in 1897, enjoyed a unique position to assess the values and interests of its founding fathers. He called James A. Harding his “father in the gospel” who taught him “the true philosophy of life” based on Matthew […]

R. C. Bell (1877-1964) attended the Nashville Bible School from 1896-1901. James A. Harding took Bell with him as a faculty member at the newly founded Potter Bible College in 1901. Later Bell would teach at several different colleges among Churches of Christ and eventually ended up at Abilene Christian College as a beloved teacher. In 1959, […]

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 […]

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. […]

During July 2007 I presented three lessons in the summer series at Brentwood Hills Church of Christ near Nashville, Tennessee. They asked me to present some material from Kingdom Come: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of David Lipscomb and James Harding which I co-authored with my good friend Bobby Valentine. Bobby and I presented the material […]

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 […]