John Mark Hicks

This lesson is based on Ephesians 4:1-16, delivered at the Northwest Christian Convention in Turner, OR, on July 30, 2023.

J. M. R. Tillard, Flesh of the Church, Flesh of Christ: At the Source the Ecclesiology of Communion, trans. Madeleine Beaumount (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001). I have now read the fourth of twelve books suggested by FB friends. This one was recommended by Reece LaBlanc. This is my summary; and this one is […]

The following is three paragraphs from a paper which I have just placed on my Academic page. The paper is entitled “The Unfinished Business of the Protestant Reformation: Alexander Campbell’s Relationship to Protestantism.”  It was delivered on April 8, 2017 at the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference held at Johnson University. You may read the full paper […]

Many have heard about the “five steps of salvation,” but here are  my “five steps” toward visibly embodying the unity the Spirit has already created. Confession – we confess Jesus is Lord by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). Transformation – we are sanctified by the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8). Liturgy – we worship in the […]

“I suggest that within the Farewell Discourse this ‘oneness’ is expressed in a Eucharistic love feast even where diversity continues. When believers gather together around the table with self-giving love, they experience in a concrete and sacramental way the common bond that unites them; that is, the perichoretic love of the Triune God. Unity, then, […]

The Nashville Tennessean, in an article entitled “ALL DELIGHTED,” described the proceedings of the General Christian Missionary Convention’s 1892 annual meeting (October 21, 1892, p. 8). This was a highwater mark in the tension within the Stone-Campbell Movement (or, American Restoration Movement). The missionary societies held their convention in the capital of its opposition. There […]

In 1866 Lipscomb called for a representative meeting of Baptists and Disciples–whom he characterized as “brethren”–to seek a way to foster unity between the two groups. He identified their common theology (including a common baptism), but also stressed their common heritage which, he claimed, stretched back through “eighteen centuries of persecution and martyrdom.” For Lipscomb, […]

The bloody stress of the Civil War strained relationships between northern and southern members of the Stone-Campbell Movement to a breaking point. While sectional attitudes created tension as well as the diverse response to participation in the war, the gut-wrenching reality–as Lipscomb saw it–was that northern brethren were more interested in high-salaried preachers, worldly buildings […]

September 11 means something to us. It raises questions about forgiveness, war and our future. I don’t think that date meant anything particular to David Lipscomb, but on that date in 1866 Lipscomb addressed the problem of war and forgiveness (Gospel Advocate 8 [11 September 1866] 579-583). How do we forgive those who sought our […]

I would say that it is wrong to encourage sectarianism in any way, if we can tell which are sectarians. But my observation is that it takes a sectarian to ferret out a sectarian, just as “it takes a rogue to catch a rogue.” Unfortunately, all the sectarians are not in sectarian churches; and I […]