Oral History of Churches of Christ: James Gorman Interviews John Mark Hicks

November 17, 2022

James Gorman, an historian of the Restoration Movement (Stone-Campbell Movement) and Professor at Johnson University near Knoxville, Tennessee, is conducting a series of oral histories about the churches of Christ in the 21st century. These oral histories are available on the ACU website. Jamey asked me a series of questions about my biography and life […]


Book Review: Visions of Restoration by John Young

September 20, 2019

John Young, an adjunct instructor at Amridge University and a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Alabama, has written a brief history of Churches of Christ entitled Visions of Restoration (Cypress Publications, 2019; 111 pages).  Brevity sacrifices detail and nuance, but that is acceptable when the purpose is to offer something easily digestible […]


Nashville Cherry Street Christian Church Burned (1857)

July 4, 2014

This is the report in Nashville’s Republican Banner (April 9, 1857), page 3. Destructive Fire!  CHURCH BURNED!–LOSS $25,000 The cry of fire was raised yesterday morning between 5 and 6 o’clock, by the discovery of flames issuing from a small Carpenter Shop in South Field, near the Depot of the Tenn. & Ala. R. R., […]


Alexander Campbell, Gratuitous Evil and Meticulous Providence

June 11, 2013

Yesterday I received my copy of J. Caleb Clanton’s new book entitled The Philosophy of Religion of Alexander Campbell (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013). I had previously read the manuscript in early 2012 and am pleased to see it in print. Caleb taught philosophy at Pepperdine for several years but now teaches at Lipscomb.  I am […]


Alexander Campbell on Trinity and Christology

March 18, 2013

Nancy Koester’s The History of Christianity in the United States (Fortress, 2007) is my current supplementary text in my undergraudate Stone-Campbell Movement course at Lipscomb University. I use it to provide the American context for Stone-Campbell history. I was surprised to read this sentence in the book (p. 61):  “[Alexander Campbell] also rejected the doctrine of Trinity […]


G. C. Brewer on the New Heavens and New Earth

March 16, 2013

I’m seeking some help regarding G. C. Brewer’s (1884-1956) undertstanding of the earth. Concerning Isaiah 65, 66, 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21, Brewer wrote (Gospel Advocate [4 April 1946], 314): “The New Testament references describe a condition that will come after the destruction of the present heaven and earth. That this earth—this existing order of […]


J. D. Tant on the Firm Foundation and Rebaptism

March 11, 2013

While reading parts of the Firm Foundation for a research project, I rediscovered the following article by J. D. Tant (“Looking Back Fifty Years,” Firm Foundation 50.3 [17 January 1933] 2). In this article he highlights how the Firm Foundation had served the church over the past fifty years. In his view, the periodical saved the church from extremes–the extreme […]


Benjamin Franklin: On Rebaptism…Again

March 1, 2013

One of the more common “gotcha questions” in the late 19th century discussion of rebaptism in the Stone-Campbell Movement was something like this: Is baptism administered to a person scripturally valid when he claims he is in Christ before he was baptized, and will contend that his sins were all forgiven him before he submitted […]


Another Example: Texas and Tennessee Clash

January 15, 2009

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 […]


Controversies over Hands–Forgotten Debates

January 4, 2009

David Lipscomb (1831-1917) and James A. Harding (1848-1922) belonged to the same theological orbit. They started the Nashville Bible School (now Lipscomb University) together in 1891. Harding, for a time, was an associate editor of the Gospel Advocate in the 1880s. They agreed on a host of theological issues, including opposition to rebaptism, renewed earth eschatology, […]