A Lover’s Quarrel: A Theologian and His Beloved Church

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 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).