Lover's Quarrel

Joe Jones, a retired and well-known systematic theologian, confesses he has a lover's quarrel with the church. In wide-ranging writings mostly dating since 2006, he forthrightly argues for a theologically sound understanding of the church. And he pursues a multi-faceted critique of the feckless ways in which actual churches--ministers and laity--balk and betray their rightful calling to witness in word and deed to God. He is especially critical of the practical ways in which congregations become no more than mirror images of their sociopolitical milieu, whether to the right or to the left. Hence the quarrel, trenchantly pursued in major essays, blogs, and spiritual reflections on his own past. But it remains crystal clear to Jones in his learned and profound confession that it is his beloved church with which he quarrels and about which he still has extravagant hopes. A Lover's Quarrel is a book appropriate for ministers and laity, students and professors, and learned skeptics. ""Joe Jones writes as he speaks, with passion and light. Addressing issues in church and society, along with probing reflections upon our lives as individuals and members of families, he invites his reader, often with arresting poignancy, to freshly and deeply consider the meaning of God's action in Jesus Christ."" --D. Newell Williams, President and Professor of Modern and American Church History, Brite Divinity School ""Intellectual piety, moral and social passion, and pastoral concern--all informed by a profound sense of the grace of God and conveyed in arresting language--animate these essays, personal memoirs, and sermons. When Jones writes that under the preaching and teaching of his late beloved pastor one gained 'an inescapable sense that we had been lovingly unmasked and forgiven and challenged to live differently,' those words could also be taken to describe the cumulative effect of this book on the reader."" --J. Gerald Janzen, MacAllister-Petticrew emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Christian Theological Seminary ""A Lover's Quarrel is much more than a memoir and summation of Jones' thought; it is a book of theology. Jones' clear description of the discourses and practices that are 'church' is rigorously applied to the American church as a call to faithfulness in all areas of life, including the political arena. Most importantly, this is a book filled with hope--that the church will rediscover its center, its witness, and its very identity."" --Chip Kooi, Professor of Theology, Oklahoma Christian University Joe R. Jones is Professor Emeritus of Theology and Ethics at Christian Theological Seminary, in Indianapolis, and now living in retirement in his hometown of Oklahoma City. He is the author of the still widely used A Grammar of Christian Faith: Systematic Explorations in Christian Life and Doctrine (2002) and On Being the Church of Jesus Christ in Tumultuous Times (2005).