Jim Wallis Appearance Stirs Wisconsin Controversy

June 30, 2010 By Tony Jones

Jim Wallis

Here’s some breaking news from the Sheybogan Press. It seems that Q90-FM, a Christian music station in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has pulled its sponsorship from Lifefest, a Christian music festival in the area. Why? Because Jim Wallis is one of the speakers at the event.

The Q90 board explains,

In their statement, the Q90 board of directors, leadership and staff said they became concerned with the beliefs and teachings of Wallis. Specifically, they said they believe the social justice message and agenda Wallis promotes is “a seed of secular humanism, seeking an unholy alliance between the church and government.”

Damn that Wallis, sowing seeds of justice! (So, I guess this means that Q90-FM won’t sponsor the Wild Goose Festival next year?)

A local pastor puts it more pointedly,

“It’s easy to say we don’t have to agree with his politics or his theology, except that by promoting him as a speaker, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” [Pastor Kathi] Rose said. “We’re giving him credibility in all other areas of his politics and his theology, which in many ways is very, very antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the essentials.”

Hasn’t anyone told Pastor Kathi that Kathi’s aren’t allowed to be pastors?!? Ken Silva, you’d better call this Pastrix out on your blog immediately!

(Many thanks to my aunt and uncle, fully sane, reasonable, and loving people who live near Sheboygan, for sending me the article.)

Where Are My Critics Now?

December 14, 2009 By Tony Jones

If only my critics were as honest as Waldorf and Statler

In his contribution to the Didache blog tour, Mike King wrote something that piqued my interest,

Those who have tried to “label” and “dismiss” Tony Jones will have a hard time believing that Tony would be so interested in a text that starts out, “There are two ways, one of life and one of death! and there is a great difference between the two ways.” But, he is, and so we reap the benefit.

As anyone should who’s in the public eye (including most pastors), I have a couple “vanity” searches set up in Google to automatically search my name along with a couple keywords. This allows me to keep an ear to the ground about what’s being said about me in the blogosphere.

And here’s something that hasn’t surprised me at all: There’s been nary a word by any critics about my new book, The Teaching of the Twelve.

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What, Exactly, Is an Evangelical?

October 5, 2009 By Tony Jones

Scot asked a good question last week: How come people who are clearly not evangelical keep getting upset about what evangelicals do? He asks this in response to the semi-furor around Rob Bell’s (seemingly off-handed) remark to a newspaper reporter about why he abjures the “Evangelical” label.

Like many others, Rob has felt disenfranchised from the term “evangelical” because of the political activity in that name, as well as the general cultural distrust of that word, detailed in the book, unChristian (and others).

What’s interesting right now is watching younger Christians alternatively embrace and shun the label “evangelical,” which has been happening a lot longer than people have been wrangling over “emergent/-ing.” In fact, there might be some parallels between the two.

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Listen Up

July 15, 2007 By Tony Jones

A couple links:

Shane Hipps, whose “Third Way Faith” podcast is subscription only (though I highly recommend it) on Wired Parish, you can now read his blog and hear clips of the podcast here. He’s got a few interviews with me there…

And you can now listen to the archived audio of my time on the Albert Mohler Radio Show here. (So, Ken Silva, how did I do?)