Tony Jones » The New Christians

The New Christians at Audible.com!

Tony Jones — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:50:11 +0000

My book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier is now available in audio form, read by me, at Audible.com.

Get it today for $7.49!

ABC Interview

Tony Jones — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:11:12 +0000

Yes, that ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Network. I was interviewed for their religious issues show, Sunday Nights, by Noel Debien. He was fantastic — thoughtful, knowledgable, curious. Everything you want in a long-form interview. Afterwards, he told me that I was “passionate” and “discursive.” Looking back, I probably could have been less discursive! But, oh well, I’ve always appreciated tangents.

Tony Jones on Sunday Nights, Australian Broadcasting Network

Day One in Australia

Tony Jones — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:52:09 +0000

It’s not a short flight from San Francisco to Sydney – about 14 hours. But I did get to watch Lawrence of Arabia, one of my all-time favorite films. Then I watched And When Did You Last See Your Father?. I wept at the end of that one, which is my wont on flights. In fact, I’ve cried more on airplanes than anywhere else.

It wasn’t that big of a deal on the Qantas flight to Sydney, since it was dark and no one was seated next to me. The flight from MSP to SFO was a different story. Bright as day and seated between two guys about my age reading business magazines, I read the last two chapters of Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul and wept like a baby. That is a beautiful book of faith found, lost, and refound, written by Tony Hendra (who played Ian Faith in This Is Spinal Tap). I highly recommend it.

I arrived in Sydney at 6am and was retrieved at the airport by a long-time friend, Fuzz Kitto. I’m staying with Fuzz and Carolyn in Sydney, and their house is a bustle of activity with several young women living there now. The vibe there reminds me of Tom and Christine Sine’s Mustard Seed House in Seattle. The Kittos, of course, know the Sines and just about everyone else I know around the globe.

Since I refuse to use neck pillows, I didn’t sleep much on the plane and got pretty tired as the day wore on. I spoke at a “book launch” for The New Christians at noon, then had a great time on a radio show for the Australian Broadcasting Network that will be aired on Sunday night. In between, Carolyn took me to Coogee Beach for a Chardonnay. That evening, we met with a dozen emergent church types for an incredible meal cooked by Fuzz that included the best pumpkin soup I’ve ever tasted.

I fell asleep in Carolyn’s car on the way back to the Kittos, and crashed hard when I saw the bed.

All in all, a great first day with many good connections. And Sydney is a breathtaking city.

Coming Back

Tony Jones — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:10:25 +0000

After a long summer, both blogging for the Church Basement Roadshow and then taking about a month off, today begins a new season of blogging for me. Soon, my blog will be moving to Beliefnet, but until then I plan to blog (almost) daily here.

Tomorrow really begins a new chapter for me. After two years of writing and about six months of promoting The New Christians, I am beginning to write my dissertation on September 2 (title: “The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement in Practical Theological Perspective”). That will be my main vocational focus in the coming months, and my plan is to complete the first draft by April 1. The truth is, I haven’t spent much time thinking about the dissertation since passing my comprehensive exams and having my dissertation proposal approved in 2006. But I’ve recently received a grant from the Louisville Institute which will allow me time to work steadfastly on the dissertation over the coming months. My plan, God willing, is to work exclusively on the dissertation every weekday until noon. Although it’s going to take an extraordinary amount of self-discipline, I will not check email in the morning (or RSS feeds!).

Of course, I’ve got some other irons in the fire, too. I still work part-time for Emergent Village, and we (the board) is guiding EV into a new chapter in the next few months. Doug and I are JoPa Productions, and after producing the Roadshow this summer, we’ve turned our attention to The Great Emergence National Event in Memphis, December 5-6. (We hope to produce 2-4 events per year that will bring authors and readers closer together.) I’ve got a limited speaking schedule which will only have me on the road 1-2 times per month (and my elite status on Northwest Airlines is falling from Platinum (75K miles/year) to Silver (25K miles/year)).

Plus, there’s the volunteer work: police chaplain, baseball coach, Cub Scout den leader.

Well, now it’s time to go clean the garage so that we can actually park both cars in there. Happy Labor Day.

The Church Basement Roadshow Videos Are Multiplying!

Tony Jones — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:34:29 +0000

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy60yekBPUg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53mVFmdfbs]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNNXbm6Z6WA]

On the Road with Trucker Frank – Episode 6

Tony Jones — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:32:58 +0000

Here’s the final episode!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhiFKhRYBHQ]

Previous Episodes HERE

On the Road with Trucker Frank – Webisode 4

Tony Jones — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:11:25 +0000

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUZB-WL28DA]

Previously:

Webisode 3

Webisode 2

Webisode 1

“Jerry No Too Fat for Me”

Tony Jones — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:51:47 +0000

Here’s another portion of my book that didn’t make it into the final version. Remember, it’s rough and unedited, but it is a story that’s dear to my heart.

I’m a volunteer police chaplain, and when my pager starts buzzing, most likely, I’ll be gone for the next several hours.

Last December, the tell-tale vibration happened at about 9:30 p.m., just two days before Christmas. I called into the police dispatcher, and she told me, “We’ve got a DOA.”

“What more can you tell me?” I asked, after she gave me the address.

“Well, he was big. Really big. They couldn’t get him out to the ambulance.”

“Oh. Okay. Which officers are there?” I asked.

“Everyone’s there.”

I arrived around 10 p.m., just as the paramedics were leaving the scene. Several cops were still there, and they ushered me into the house. Jerry, the deceased, was in his mid-fifties, and he was, indeed, large. So large, in fact, that he hadn’t been able to get out of bed for two years.

I walked into his bedroom. The first thing I noticed, of course, was Jerry’s corpse on the floor. As I looked around, I took in other details: the muted television flickering on the far wall, newspapers and magazines strewn everywhere, and medical devices (syringes, prescription bottles, bed pans) scattered about. But most noteworthy were the shelves. Floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall were homemade shelves, and they were all holding food. Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Hormel Chili. Fritos. Food was everywhere.

So was the smell. The smell was overwhelming. It wasn’t just the smell of death—this odor had preceded the event of that evening.

In the middle of the room was a bed, the center of Jerry’s life for the last two years. “He hit the floor hard,” one of the officers told me. They had to get Jerry on a hard surface to administer chest compressions, so a couple of the cops had gotten on the bed and pushed him to the floor. A trail of shit on the top sheet marked Jerry’s path from bed to floor.

“He was dead when we got here,” one officer said, “But we tried to bring him back. I remember him from years ago,” he continued, “We used to break up huge parties that he had here in the 80s.”

“He’s got five roommates,” another cop told me, “And a wife. But she doesn’t speak much English.

“Oh yeah, she’s got two kids, too. They don’t speak any English.”

This was getting stranger by the moment.

I walked downstairs and introduced myself to a couple of Jerry’s roommates. Men in their 50s, they were both dressed in sweatpants and sweatshirts. The other three roommates walked in. They, too, were in sweats. I asked if they’d introduce me to Jerry’s wife, and they took me down another flight of stairs. Jana was sitting on a couch, crying. She might have been 30. Her two sons, aged 5 and 3, were running around and climbing on her lap, seemingly oblivious to her grief. All three of them were from Thailand.

For the next two hours, I sat with Jana and the guys and listened to stories of Jerry. He’d been married twice before; his first wife divorced him, and his second wife died of breast cancer. His mother and father had both died within a year of his wife. He was a traveling salesman, accumulating over three million miles on Northwest Airlines. “You know those snack boxes you see in some offices?” one roommate asked me, “You know, the ones where you drop money in the box on the honor system?”

I nodded.

“Well, Jerry was the leading salesman of those in the country. One year, he won so many sales awards that he flew to Hawaii twelve times in twelve months.”

“Back when Jerry could travel,” another one of the guys told me, “He’d only be around for a couple of days a month. He’d be on the road almost all the time.”

Jerry had met Jana a couple years ago, back when he could still travel, on a trip to Bangkok. They’d been married just a year ago—a justice of the peace came to the house, and they got married in Jerry’s bed.

Jerry was a non-observant Jew. “I never talk with Jerry religion,” Jana said.

The middle-aged roommates were all divorced. They had various odd jobs and a couple of them had lived with Jerry for twenty-plus years. Jerry’s place had become a flop house of sorts for these guys who were down on their luck. But the funny thing was, they didn’t see much of Jerry. In fact, I got the impression that a couple of them hadn’t been in Jerry’s room to see him in a long, long time.

I asked how Jerry had gotten so big that he couldn’t walk. They told me that he’d always been big, but then he fell and broke his kneecap three or four years ago. “The doctor wouldn’t operate, due to Jerry’s size,” one roommate told me, “It was really unfair. I mean, how’s he supposed to get better if they won’t operate? Then his knee got infected, and he was in the hospital and rehab for almost a year. When he finally came home, he just never got out of bed again.”

At the scene, I experienced a range of emotions, from morbid curiosity (I’ve seen guys like this on Jerry Springer!) to deep sorrow. This was, quite bluntly, the most pathetic scene I’ve encountered in a decade as a police chaplain. And I mean pathetic in the sense that the scene dripped with human pathos: a 500-pound man had eaten himself to death, surrounded by five ne’er-do-well roommates, a Thai wife and her two sons. The lot of them lived in near squalor, surrounded by a stench that was causing veteran cops to dry-heave.

And if that’s not enough, just a block away sits the biggest church in our town. Every Sunday morning and Sunday evening, good Christian folk park in front of Jerry’s house, since there was no room for them in the parking lots. Jerry was dying within arm’s reach of the most powerful church in the community.

Oh, and there was one more element. From 11 p.m. until midnight, the TV in Jerry’s room, which no one had thought to turn off, was showing a familiar face. Larry King was hosting a perfunctory pre-Christmas show, and his guest was Joel Osteen. Over Jerry’s dead body and his shit-smeared sheets, I kept seeing Joel’s unremitting smile and reading captions at the bottom of the screen: “Osteen Has the Biggest Church in America.” “Pastor Osteen Says You Can Have It All.” “Joel Preaches Before 30,000 Every Week.”

Like I said, both irony and pathos were palpable.

Back downstairs, I sat with Jana and the guys, helping them to make decisions regarding Jerry’s burial. Then, out of the blue, Jana started crying again, and, through her tears, sobbed, “Jerry no too fat for me. Jerry no too fat for me.”

Suddenly, in the midst of pathos, a glimmer of light dawned for me. Jana hadn’t come over from Thailand to be Jerry’s concubine—I can’t imagine that their marriage was ever consummated. No, instead, he worked like crazy to help her emigrate to the U.S. And then, according to the guys, he had to work even harder to get her sons over. In return, she got to scrub out his bed pans, to care for his bedsores, to wipe him. Did she do it for the citizenship? That wasn’t the tale of her tears. What they said was that Jana loved Jerry. Albeit, not in a way that I understand, but there’s lots of love in the world that I don’t understand. Jerry was not too fat for Jana.

And the same went for the guys. They all expressed real affection for Jerry. It’s as if Jerry collected people who were at the margins of society, the orphans and the widows of the 21^st century, and gave them a place to live. Even as he was slowly committing suicide.

We often look for the best that God has to offer in the sparkliest places. Like in the 1,000 seat sanctuary down the road from Jerry’s house. Or in the uncommonly bright smile of Joel Osteen.

But instead, the real beauty often resides with the marginalized, the ostracized, the outcast. That’s where Jesus dwells: in Jana’s love for Jerry; in Jerry’s hospitality for the his misfit roommates.

Canadians Rule!

Tony Jones — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:48:53 +0000

At least Drew Marshall does. I was on his radio show last week. Listen HERE.

Letters, We Get Letters

Tony Jones — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:50:45 +0000

Dear Tony,

I’m currently reading through your book “The New Christians.” It is my first real introduction to the emerging movement from the perspective of an emergent.

Wow! It’s great!

A little of my background. I’m a Presbyterian raised lad, taught the ways of Calvin and co. My father is a Prezzy pastor a straight down the line conservative, though with a twist. I’ve completed an undergrad degree in philosophy and since changed to the Vineyard Church.

I’ll get straight to the point: what you’ve written about has put into words a lot of the stuff I’ve been thinking about over the past few years. So I guess I owe you a thanks.

Being the philosophy undergrad and all, I wanted to share with you an argument that I think buttresses your hermeneutic of humility (which I whole-heartedly agree with, having once been an arrogant young know-it-all type).

First, to your reasoning. You state in your book (I’m too lazy to reference it ) that many people in the theological landscape have changed their minds about theological issues such as slavery, so how, really, can we know that what we think about now is, in fact, God’s super-truth. True truth.  This is, I think, a powerful argument. Here’s mine.

I don’t think we even have to reference changes in theological beliefs over time to prove your point. I think we can simply look at the vast plethora of differing interpretations that exists now and stand in awe of the complexity of theology.

I compiled a list of “views” books, you know, like those Zondervan books that have four views on blah blah blah. My argument for a hermeneutic of humility would be:

If there are so many views argued so well, by godly, intelligent men, who all think they have the correct interpretation, doesn’t that imply a humility of sorts? And boy, do these guys argue well for their views! How the bleep, then, can one claim so dogmatically and with such over-arching certainty, that their view is the one! Here’s my list:

As of 19 Jan, 2006

Zondervan

http://www.zondervan.com/books/search.asp?Criteria=counterpoints

Who Runs the Church? 4 Views on Church Government

How Jewish Is Christianity? 2 Views on the Messianic Movement

Remarriage after Divorce in Today’s Church. 3 Views

Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? 4 Views

Evaluating the Church Growth Movement. 5 Views

Exploring the Worship Spectrum. 6 Views

Five Views on Apologetics.

Five Views on Law and Gospel.

Five Views on Sanctification.

Four Views on Eternal Security.

Four Views on Hell.

Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World.

Four Views on the Book of Revelation.

Show Them No Mercy. 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide

Three Views on Creation and Evolution.

Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism.

Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond.

Three Views on the Rapture.

Two Views on Women in Ministry

Sub Total: 19 topics, 77 views (Incl. extra views by different publishers on same topics, below)

IVP

Four Views: Psychology and Christianity

* (4V Zondervan) Two Views Of Hell

In Search Of The Soul: Four Views Of The Mind-Body Problem

Four Views: God and Time

Four Views: Meaning Of The Millennium, The

Four Views: Science and Christianity

* (3V Zondervan) Four Views: Divorce And Remarriage

* (2V Zondervan) Four Views: Women In Ministry

Four Views: Divine Foreknowledge

Sub Total: 25 topics, 101 views

Kregel

Three Views On The Origins Of The Synoptic Gospels (Kregel)

Sub Total: 26 topics, 104 views

Thomas Nelson

* (4V Zondervan) Four Views: Revelation

Youth Specialities

Four Views Of Youth Ministry And The Church

Sub Total: 27 topics, 108 views

Paternoster Press

* (See IVP above) Four Views: Divine Foreknowledge

* (See IVP above) Four Views: God and Time

Broadman and Holman

* (4V Zondervan) Perspectives On Church Government: Five Views Of Church Polity

Perspectives On Spirit Baptism: Five Views

Sub Total: 28 topics, 113 views

Brazos Press

Christianity And The Postmodern Turn: Six Views

Sub Total: 29 topics, 119 views

That’s an incredible 119 views on just 29 topics! What’s a layman like me to do? Throw some dice, choose a view, and loudly proclaim it as the only interpretation, and my detractors be damned to hell?  I think you get my gist.

Anyway, I’m still trying to digest all the new thoughts in the emergent stuff, but I’ve already come to a few of your conclusions, even before I knew that emergent views existed.

Thanks for your book,

Jonathan