John Mark Hicks

Continuing my reading of Lipscomb in the first decades of the 20th century, I have lifted a few more what I regard as illuminating comments by the 80 year old editor of the Gospel Advocate. Publish Both Sides for Free Discussion. Lipscomb believed that fair, thorough and open discussion of a biblical issue was the […]

As I continue to study and think about the Texas, Tennessee and Indiana Traditions within Churches of Christ in the first decades of the 20th century, I have  been reading through the Gospel Advocate in those early years of the last century.  I thought I would provide a sampling of what has interested me in […]

 “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 […]

James A. Harding was nothing if not passionate. His rhetoric in print could rattle chains and in homilies evoke tears, especially in his own eyes. Below is a good example as Harding lowers a firm and severe judgment against the growing position of rebaptism among Churches of Christ. I have highlighted a few lines which stress […]

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 […]

In an earlier post I quoted a piece from G. C. Brewer’s autobiography where he objected to the emphasis that some placed on the plan of salvation rather than on a personal savior. His comment came in the context of discussing the role of confession in the five-step (or is it four-step or three-step?) plan […]

In 1946 Roy Key of Juneau, Alaska, caused a small stir with his article “The Righteousness of God” in the January 24 issue of the Gospel Advocate. It promoted “some ideas,” one reader wrote, that he “not been accustomed to hearing.” As a result, G. C. Brewer took up his pen to commend the article […]

A classic example of the divide between the Texas Tradition and the Tennessee Tradition is the “rebaptism” issue.  I reproduce a particular “for instance” here without comment. In my next post, I will offer a few observations.  Of course, this is but one example of many exchanges which actually began in the 1883 Gospel Advocate when […]

 Patternism and a healthy theology of grace are not mutually exclusive.  A previous post noted that Alexander Campbell did not make his particular understanding of the apostolic pattern a test of fellowship. The “ancient order” was not a soteriological category for him. Rather, it was a  matter of communal sanctification, a matter of growth, development and […]

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, […]