Research and Projects

Here’s what I’m currently working on:

1) I’ve gotten a fair amount of positive feedback over the past several months from the paper I wrote and delivered last summer as part of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society’s Ketcherside Scholars program, under the working title: “Churches of Christ in East Nashville: Their Rise and Decline in the Twentieth Century.”

Here’s the conference draft: East Nashville CofCs (MS Word format).  Now that classes are over for the summer I am resuming research in hopes, in particular, of expanding the section that deals with the institutional controversy as it played out “on the ground” in East Nashville.  I am especially interested in how the controversy played out inside of specific congregations, especially those that eventually came down on the non-institutional side of the argument.  As I have said in the past, there are theological implications in this material that I was unable to draw out in the paper.  This summer, I hope to develop some of these on the blog.

On a related note, I recently spent some time looking at materials related to specific NI preachers in East Nashville and their theological influences.  This has taken me south to a group of NI preachers in North Alabama — Irven Lee, Bennie Lee Fudge, John T. Lewis and others.  I am interested in tracing their influence on men like Howard See backward through Lewis to David Lipscomb and James A. Harding — especially with regard to issues such as pacifism, participation in government, the female headcovering, prayer posture, and church support of institutions (under the assumption, justified I think, that there is a direct connection between Lipscomb’s apocalyptic ecclesiology and the non-institutional ecclesiology of Lewis [a 1906 Nashville Bible School graduate] and those he influenced in North Alabama).

Hopefully, there is more to come on this.  I’ll try to keep you posted on interviews and contacts made as time passes.

2) The conversion of the second chapter of my M.A. thesis — an examination of Ambrose of Milan’s De obitu Theodosii — into a journal article.  This has been at a standstill for quite a while.

Archives

An Exegesis of 1 Cor 11.2-16 (MS Word format).  I wrote this paper for my Corinthians class during the summer of 2007.  My argument is two-pronged: Paul commands the wearing of the veil for women not as a matter of local custom or culture, but based upon the tradition he has received from the apostles and upon the universal practice of all the churches.  Therefore it is not a matter that can be flippantly dispensed with in our own day.  Secondly, it is precisely the head covering (according to 1 Cor 11.10) that gives women the authority or privilege (exousia) to pray and prophesy in the assembly.

Sermons

Sermon for Epiphany 3 (MS Word format).  Delivered at the Acklen Avenue Church of Christ, 27 January 2008.

Sermon for Proper 4 (MS Word format).  Delivered at the Acklen Avenue Church of Christ, 1 June 2008.

Sermon for Easter 5 (MS Word format).  Delivered at the South Newnan Church of Christ, April 2006.