Christian Personality Tony Jones Uses Lame, Unbiblical Excuse to Rationalize His Adultery – He Calls His Mistress His Spiritual Wife, According to Various Online Blogs and Sites
Sometime in the last few weeks especially, a story broke out on various liberal or Christian or ex Christian type groups and blogs about a guy in the emerging church by the name of Tony Jones.
I am uncertain if Jones works as a pastor or is simply an author or blogger. I’m not terribly interested in the myriad, minute details of this situation for the purposes of this post. His bio which popped up in a search on Google returns this:
- Tony Jones is an American theologian, author, blogger, and speaker who is a leading figure in the emerging church movement and postmodern Christianity.
As you should be aware, if you’ve bothered to so much as glance over other content at my blog, I often discuss issues pertaining to singleness and marriage, and how Christians do a terrible job teaching about these things, or in supporting celibacy.
From the Christian blog The Wartburg Watch, (link to TWW Home Page), which usually specializes in reporting about spiritual abuse by Christians in churches, here is an excerpt from a post they did in January 19, 2015:
- Tony Jones divorced his wife in 2009. Julie discovered the affair in 2008
- His BFF, Doug Pagitt, knew Tony was having an affair and came up with a theological argument to justify Jones’ actions. Jones allegedly told Julie that he had a spiritual™ wife which took precedence over their marriage because their marriage was simply a legal matter. (2009- one month before official divorce).
- Julie claims she was assaulted by Jones.
- Rumors circulated amongst their Emergent group that Julie was mentally ill. She claims that the leaders tried to get her committed to a mental institution.
- Julie was awarded custody of the children and Jones was given visitation rights.
- Tony Jones sacramentally (his term) married his new wife in 2011 and legally married her in 2013. They refused to get legally married until gays could get married.
The ex wife, Julie, claims that Tony physically abused her, including throwing her up against a wall, which dislocated her shoulder.
There is much bickering about this whole thing on other sites as to who to believe, Tony (who claims his ex wife is a trouble- making, crack- pot), or Julie (for the record, based on what I’ve seen so far, I tend to believe Julie’s side of things, and she says that Jones was diagnosed as having NPD – link about NPD on health site).
There are other aspects about this I don’t want to get into in my post, such as a conference involving Christian blogger Rachel Held Evans, and how, when, or if Christians in positions of authority use that influence to silence victims, etc etc.
You can go google the rest of the story if you’d like to read more about all this. There are other blogs, Facebook groups, and forums who are discussing this story from multiple angles.
The point most all accounts I’ve seen agree upon is that this Tony guy had an affair, and Tony refers to his mistress (who I believe he is now legally wed to?) as his “spiritual wife.”
This “spiritual wife” line was used to justify or rationalize his extra-marital affair and divorce.
The Bible teaches no such thing as a “spiritual wife.”
Jones is a piss-poor “theologian” if he thinks the Bible teaches the concept of spiritual wives.
That this Jones guy still gets speaking engagements or book deals, in spite of being widely known as an adulterer, speaks quite poorly to the state of affairs or discernment among Christians today.
I was reading a post on another blog months ago, on a topic not pertaining to Tony Jones, and someone in the comments mentioned that Mormons play a game with marriage to rationalize polygamy and to scam the government.
A side note:
- MORMONISM.
- Mormonism is not biblical, nor is it Christian – Mormons deny central tenets of the Christian faith and add a lot of un-biblical things to their belief set. Ergo, anyone claiming the name of “Christian,” or who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, should not be defending, promoting, or using Mormon beliefs and teachings in regards to marriage or any other subject.
What these particular Mormons do, said this poster, is legally marry wife number one (get a marriage license from their state), then take on additional wives, and the additional wives are referred to as being “spiritual wives.”
The husband then gets the “spiritual wives” to each go on welfare or food stamps.
Isn’t it interesting that ONCE AGAIN some Christians are sounding remarkably like Non-Christian religions? I have blogged before how some of the doctrines or excuses Christians use sound just like those of Mormons or Muslims.
I don’t have much new to say about all this that I have not said on this blog before, but here we go again:
1. EQUALLY YOKED AS IT PERTAINS TO MARRIAGE IS UNTRUE AND SHOULD BE ABANDONED BY ADULT CHRISTIAN SINGLES WHO WANT TO MARRY
Christian single women who desire marriage need to get away from the “Be Equally Yoked” teaching.
Far too many men who profess Christ, even ones who work as preachers or who are, like Tony Jones, well-known in some facets of the Christian community for blogging or book authoring, are not wise choices to marry.
Whether such men are truly Christian or not is irrelevant: they claim the name of Christ but behave like dirt balls to their wives.
You would be better off marrying a
a) non-abusive atheist man, than a
b) man who professes Christ, one who writes Christian blog posts or books, who reads the Bible daily, goes on about his devotion and admiration of Jesus, and one who also maybe even works in a church, …but who has affairs on you, abuses you physically or verbally, or who financially exploits you.
I have even more examples of Christian men who abuse their wives, admit to porn use, who get arrested for soliciting prostitution or sex with dogs, or who are pedophiles, and who are into all sorts of other such things (Link): here.
You need to judge a person based upon his character.
You need to judge potential suitors by what he DOES (his actions), not what label he CLAIMS for himself.
Look at how a man lives his life and treats you, not what he claims theologically.
And so what if a man you are interested in or dating attends church every week, that proves nothing – the B.T.K. serial killer attended church every week, too.
A man can claim six ways from Sunday that he loves Jesus lots and lots, but all that matters is how he is treating you.
2. CHRISTIAN MARRIED SEX IS NOT MIND BLOWING, CHRISTIANS NEEDS TO STOP SAYING THAT IT IS
Christians often try to entice youth to stay virgins until marriage because marital sex will be, they insist, “mind blowing.”
But based on the frequent stories I see of married Christian men who sleep around on their wives, I guess not…. or regular, so-so marital sex is not enough for them, so they take up a mistress on the side.
Being married is not enough to keep a person from sexual sin.
Refraining from sexual sin comes down to personal self control, not one’s marital status.
3. MANY CHRISTIANS ARE HYPOCRITES
Christians themselves do not take marriage, sex, or commitment to Christ or Christ’s teachings seriously at all.
Oh, they say they do, but the proof is in how they live their lives, and no, I don’t demand or expect total perfection at all times, but many Christians fail to live out Christ’s teachings at even the most basic of life situations.
To move along to other observations:
I realize that being legally married to one women did not halt this Jones guy from diddling another woman on the side, but you have to admit when the government is cut out of the marriage-recognizing business, as blogger John Morgan feels they ought to do (see this post on his blog, ((Link): The Euphemism Of Marriage by J. Morgan – see also the Related Posts at the bottom of this post), it makes it easier for manipulative men to take advantage of women and do this sort of thing easier or more often.
Since, in the USA, men are limited by law to only one woman (concerning marriage, they can’t be legally married to more than one woman at a time), they are not legally permitted to form a harem, and if they divorce, the wife will be left with some legal recourse on some matters, like getting child support if they had children together.
Good luck getting an American court to recognize a situation using John Morgan’s wacko assertion that people are married based on having sexual intercourse alone, if you have been hosed by an ex-boyfriend you were having sex with and need legal help.
I found one or two other blogs or forums discussing some of these topics (I am not necessarily in full agreement with all off site material I link to):
(Link): Tony Jones’ false distinction about marriage
Excerpt from that page (I really encourage you to click the link above and read the entire page):
- Thankfully, we live in a society where the church and state are separated, which means the church can’t go to that level of enforcement. In the same way, if the marriage dissolves, the church is not given authority to set alimony, or child support, or property separation, all things divorcing parents, such as Dr. Jones, have to deal with. Since he is in a sacramental-only union, if he and his second wife separate, there is no recourse for alimony or property separation.
These links below show that yes, Jones himself writes and teaches some wacko views about marriage – some sources have been saying that he’s been denying that he believes his mistress (now his second wife) is his “spiritual wife,” but you can read these for yourself – by Jones:
(Link): There Are Two Marriages – blog post by Tony Jones on Patheos
(Link): There Are Two Marriages: A Manifesto on Marriage (Kindle Edition) by Tony Jones
By the way, this is the same dude who thinks Christians should celebrate fornication. I blogged about it here – he is a flaming heretic ten times over:
(Link): Emergent Christian Guy Tony Jones Says Christians Need to “Celebrate Pre Marital Sex” (Fornication)
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Related posts on this blog:
(Link): Forget About Being ‘Equally Yoked’ – Article: ‘My Abusive ‘Christian’ Marriage’
(Link): Mormons and Christians Make Family, Marriage, Having Children Into Idols
(Link): Being Unequally Yoked
(Link): Married Preacher, Father of Eight Kids, Used Nanny as Sex Object – update on Phillips story
(Link): Married NC Preacher sexually abused a mentally-challenged person who was in his care
(Link): Man Who Worked as Preacher Allegedly Drowned His Pregnant Wife To Be With His Mistress
(Link): Ex-Church Usher Found Guilty of Hiring Hitman to Kill His Wife So He Can Pursue Kinky Sexual Lifestyle With His Mistress (the guy in this story is married AND is a parent)
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