Tony has appeared in…

TonyJNet_Appeared_Media.png

Minnesota Bound
KARE11

The Flush
The Outdoor Channel

Morning Joe
MSNBC

Mid-Morning
WCCO

Some of Tony’s appearances in media:

July 9, 2024 - WTVM: Tony appeared on Midday with Dee to talk about finding peace in nature.
Watch here.

July 1, 2024 - NTD News: Tony appeared on the morning news show to discuss getting outside this summer.
Watch here.

May 2, 2024 - StarTribune: Columnist Laura Yuen profiled Tony and his book, “This Minnesota-based preacher left the church and found God in the woods.”
Read here.

April 2, 2024 - WCCO TV: Tony appeared on Mid-Morning to discuss his new book, The God of Wild Places.
Watch here.

March 30, 2024 - FAN Outdoors: Tony appeared on KFAN radio across the Upper Midwest to discuss his new book, The God of Wild Places.
Listen here.

March 24, 2024 - WCCO Outdoors: Tony appeared on clear channel WCCO-AM to chat about The God of Wild Places.
Listen here.

March 17, 2024 - The Four Outdoorsmen: Tony appeared on Total Bob Country FM to discuss The God of Wild Places.
Listen here.

November 5, 2016 – Quad-City Times: “St. Paul’s pastor, the Rev. Peter Marty, came in contact with Jones as Marty published his magazine, Christian Century. The minister admires Jones, who he calls ‘adventurous’ and ‘clear-thinking.’ The discussion: If God is violent, how did the bloody execution on the cross happen and be characterized as an example of parental love? ‘It’s a good, tough subject,’ Marty said. ‘What good parent would do that to their child?’”
Read More: Hunt-and-preach author to speak in Davenport

October 19, 2016 – Minneapolis StarTribune: “The journey that brought me to east-central North Dakota began on a whim. I posted on my blog a somewhat tongue-in-cheek offer that I assumed was in vain: I would preach at any church in exchange for hunting. I received an e-mail a couple of days later from the Rev. Jean Mornard, the priest at Grace Episcopal Church in Huron, S.D. I didn’t know much about Huron, but I knew they had a statue of a giant pheasant. A good sign.”
Read more: Offer goes out to hunt and preach; North Dakota town comes calling

August 14, 2016 – Idaho Statesman: “Tony Jones is a minister and theologian who teaches at the United Theology Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton, Minn., about 11 miles north of Minneapolis. He’s read Oord’s works and heard him speak. ‘He is not a screamer,’ said Jones ‘He is not an ideologue, not a flame-thrower. (He says,) “You know what? Let’s consider the options here.”’”
Read more: Northwest Nazarene professor shares views on God, loses academic freedom

July 25, 2016 – Publishers Weekly: “Tony Jones, senior acquisitions editor for Fortress’s two-year-old Theology for the People line, called Bipolar Faith a ‘theological memoir,’ one that ponders the nature of God through life story.”
Read more: To Be Bipolar and a Believer: PW Talks to Monica Coleman

July 28, 2015 – Religion News Service: “Tony Jones, a theologian, author and blogger, said Bell is at the leading edge of a cultural move toward mysticism. ‘People are getting frustrated with the pure, cold rationality of science,’ said Jones. ‘Rob holds science in high esteem, but Rob is really a lot about mystery. You can be a thinking person who appreciates reason and science, but there are things we can’t explain.’”
Read more: Rob Bell’s ‘Everything Is Spiritual’ tour explores the evolution of the universe

July 2, 2015 – Chicago Tribune: “This social change happened a lot faster than anybody predicted,” said Jones, who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. “When I declared that I would no longer sign marriage licenses and encouraged other clergy to do the same, it was an attempt to actually buy the church some freedom to say we can sacralize a same-sex union and we don’t need the state to legalize it.
Read more: Chicago priest protests same-sex marriage, won’t sign civil marriage licenses

May 15, 2015 – Morning Joe (MSNBC)“Why Was Christ Killed?”, new book asks. (video)

April 29, 2015 – Religion News Service: “If we’ve gotten something wrong about the cross in the modern church, it’s that we’ve thought there’s only one way to explain how Jesus’ death saves us. There have been many versions of the doctrine we call the ‘atonement’: Payment, Victory, Magnet, Divinity, and Mirror.”
Read more: Are Christians Dead Wrong about the execution of Jesus Christ?

April 2, 2015 – Huffington PostAll Together Podcast – Who Killed Jesus?

December 10, 2014 – Christian Century: “Tony Jones, one of the most interesting of the ECM theologians, refers to the Bible as a helpful ‘member of the community’ rather than an authoritative text to which we ought to submit. Jones puts down traditional preaching as “speeching” and instead favors what he calls ‘implicatory dialogue.’ Jones’s book The Church Is Flat is a manifesto for the nonhierarchial leadership style of the ECM. I like that Jones is willing to define what he is doing; some emerging Christians’ unwillingness to designate and define what they’re doing seems like a possible evasion of intellectual responsibility.”
Read more: The Deconstructed Church

July 18, 2014 – Christian Century: “Readers may be surprised to learn that the definition of marriage as being for heterosexuals only is a core belief of trinitarian faith. The issue is never mentioned in a creed and was never discussed at an ecumenical council. Nevertheless, gay marriage continues to be a shibboleth in the evangelical world. Make that the shibboleth.”
Read more: Evangelical and Gay

October 8, 2014 – Publishers Weekly: “Senior acquisitions editor Tony Jones is acquiring books for a new line (as yet unnamed) that will publish trade books by scholars who can write accessibly for intelligent general readers. Jones says that by 2016 plans are to publish 15-20 such books per year.”
Read more: Surprising Range: Religion Publishing in Minnesota

March 28, 2014 – TIME.com: “More liberal Christians, like Patheos blogger Tony Jones say that though conservatives won this battle, they will lose the war against complete acceptance of gay and lesbian couples. ‘Twenty years from now,’ he wrote Thursday, ‘WV will be hiring married gay employees in Seattle.’”
Read more: Christian Group that Flip-Flopped on Gay Marriage Loses Donors

February 14, 2014 – New York Times: “‘In all my travels around the church in America, I rarely hear of people applying the teachings of Jesus or Paul to put church members on trial,’ Mr. Jones said. ‘But when I do, it’s inevitably in a very conservative and controlling church. They’re the modern-day Pharisees.'”
Read More: An Argument To Turn To Jesus Before the Bar

August 27, 2013 – Religion News Service: “‘When I first saw this, I thought it was a headline from The Onion,’ Jones said. ‘Some people say the Emerging Church is dead, other people say the Emerging Church has spread so far it’s just been absorbed into the fabric of the American church, so maybe that’s what frightens these guys.'”
Read more: Top Three Adversaries of Christian Conservatives: Communism, Islam … and the Emergent Church?

April 12, 2013 – Odyssey Network
Interview about Christian leaders supporting gay marriage (video)
Interview about steps to reduce poverty (video)

February 25, 2013 – The Harvest Show
Interview about the emergent church movement (video)
Interview about the atonement (video)
Interview on the Bible (video)
Interview on the resurrection (video)
Interview on prayer (video)

November 13, 2012
Interview at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology (audio)

August 27, 2012 – MinnPost: “‘This place isn’t a sanctuary,’ Tony Jones says to a group of pastors who have gathered in what was most certainly, back when Solomon’s Porch was a United Methodist Church, a sanctuary. ‘There is no wall between the church and the culture.'”
Read more: Theologian Tony Jones helps churches reach their young, restless, and wired flocks

August 27, 2012 – MinnPost: “For consultant Kathleen Allen, Tony Jones’ work as a social-media expert, writer and emerging church activist calls to mind a contemporary phrase in leadership circles: ‘thought leader.'”
Read more: Jones is a thought-leader for the times

July 17, 2012 – CNN: “Ever wondered what it would be like to become ordained as a priest, rabbi or imam? If you have an iPhone, you could be just a few screen swipes away from finding out. That’s because Tony Jones, theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has developed an application, or ‘app,’ that allows iPhone users to experience mock ordinations in more than two dozen faiths.”
Read more: Ordination on the Go? There’s an App for That

June 21, 2012 – Minneapolis StarTribune: “Tony Jones, a Christian theologian who’s written about Piper’s ministry, said Anderson and Piper’s more neutral approach may lead evangelical pastors to give similar sermons against homosexuality but not explicitly advocate that their flocks vote for the amendment. Or congregations might refrain from addressing the amendment altogether. ‘I think Piper is probably speaking for a lot of evangelical pastors when he says let’s stay out of politics for a while,’ Jones said.”
Read more: Key Minnesota Pastors Opt Out of Marriage Fight

June 8, 2012 – Christianity Today
When Are We Going to Grow Up? The Juvenilization of American Christianity

May 22, 2012 – Minneapolis StarTribune: “Ever wonder what it would be like to be a man or woman of God? Well, now’s your chance, thanks to a new iPhone app developed by Edina pastor and author Tony Jones.”
Read more: Edina Pastor Develops New App to “Ordain Thyself”

April 6, 2012 – Minneapolis StarTribune: “Edina pastor and author Tony Jones, a theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch church in Minneapolis, plans to attend a Seder with his family at the home of Rabbi Joseph Edelheit on Saturday. Jones met Edelheit in the Nashville airport, struck up a conversation and became ‘fast friends,’ he said.”
Read more: A Shared Seder that Nourishes Connections

December 5, 2011 – Minneapolis StarTribune: “Tony Jones is not timid on Twitter. He recently tweeted that prominent evangelical pastor Rick Warren’s tweets are ‘too often sanctimonious. I’d love some sarcasm or snark on occasion. Bless you, too.'”
Read more: Twitter Seminars for Clergy Are a Hit

December 14, 2009 – Publishers Weekly: “Calling the Didache ‘the most important book you’ve never heard of,’ Emergent leader Jones (The New Christians) briefly unpacks the theological and practical lessons to be gleaned from one of early Christianity’s most overlooked texts. Less than half the length of the shortest New Testament gospel, the Didache (‘teaching’) informed new Christians about spiritual practices like baptism, prayer, hospitality, fasting, Eucharist, generosity, and basic morality.”
Read more: The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing and Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community

April 8, 2009 – KERA
THINK with Krys Boyd (audio)

September 25, 2008 – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
“Sunday Nights” with Noel Debien (audio)

September 1, 2008 – Publishers Weekly
Emergent and Beyond: Books for the Broader Conversation of Faith

July 12, 2008 – Austin American-Statesman: “I have a confession. I have never witnessed an old-fashioned, Gospel revival. That seems like a downright shame for a religion writer and something I hope to remedy one day because I’ve always imagined that revivals provide a glimpse of faith laid bare: a gathering of people longing for spiritual nourishment and unafraid to shed their inhibitions to get closer to God.”
Read more: Gospel Revival Show Delivers

June 21, 2008 – San Diego Union-Tribune: “Three guys – Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette – play six characters in their 90-minute show, which is a provocative way to sell their books and reach an audience hungry for more. The show opens with them as 1908 revivalists – Preacher A.L. Withee (Scandrette), Big Brother Duke (Pagitt) and Professor A.W. Hawthorne (Jones).”
Read more: The Spirit Moves Them

March 21, 2008 – KERA
The Changing Face of Christianity (video)

January 14, 2008 – Publishers Weekly: “Jones (The Sacred Way ) provides the single best introduction to the Emergent Church movement, of which he is a prominent leader.”
Read more: The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

October 2, 2007 – Relevant Magazine: “Emergent has no formal doctrine, and, thus, the group is quite mixed. ‘We have Texas Baptists who don’t let women preach, and we have lesbian mainline pastors in New England,’ says Tony Jones, Emergent’s national coordinator.”
Read more: Missing the Point

January 19, 2007 – Christianity Today
Five Streams of the Emerging Church

July 12, 2005 – Christian Century
“Loose” Emergent Church to Add More Structure

July 8, 2005 – Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
The Emerging Church (video)

June 1, 2004 – Christian Century
Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens