Scott J. Jones

Scott Jameson Jones (born 23 May 1954) is an American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 2004. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee and raised in Illinois, Indiana and Colorado.

Bishop Jones preaching at Suncreek United Methodist Church (Allen, TX) in Feb. 2007

Family

He met his wife, Mary Lou Reece, while a student at the University of Kansas, and they were married 18 August 1979. She is the president of Reece Construction Company, with offices in Salina, Kansas and Prosper, Texas. The couple has three children and five grandchildren.

Jones' younger brother, L. Gregory Jones, is the Williams Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, Senior Fellow of the Fuqua-Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, and Senior Fellow of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.[1]

Education

Jones earned a B.A. degree in philosophy at the University of Kansas (1977 with highest honors). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He earned an M.Th. degree at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University (1981 with high honors). Jones's Ph.D. is also from Southern Methodist University, which he earned in 1992 in religious studies.

Episcopal ministry

Jones was endorsed for election to the Episcopacy by the North Texas Conference Delegation to the South Central Jurisdictional Conference and was elected in July 2004. He was assigned to the Kansas Episcopal Area, with offices in Wichita, Kansas. He was initially very popular, particularly with younger members of the Kansas East and Kansas West Annual Conferences.

Jones took over the new Great Plains Conference, which was formed in 2014 by combining the former Kansas East, Kansas West and Nebraska United Methodist conferences. By this time, the United Methodist Church was becoming more divided over issues pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity, particularly same-sex marriage. Jones' conservative position on this issue led to dissatisfaction by many of his previous supporters.

In 2016 he was assigned to the Texas Annual Conference (Houston Area) where he currently serves.

Selected writings
  • John Wesley's Conception and Use of Scripture, Nashville, Kingswood Books/Abingdon, 1995.
  • Wesley and the Quadrilateral: Renewing the Conversation (with S. Gunter, T. Campbell, R. Miles and R. Maddox), Nashville, Abingdon, 1997.
  • United Methodist Doctrine: The Extreme Center, Nashville, Abingdon, 2002.
  • The Evangelistic Love of God and Neighbor: A Theology of Witness and Discipleship, Nashville, Abingdon, 2003. ISBN 0-687-04614-9
  • The Wesleyan Way, Nashville, Abingdon, 2013.
  • Ask: Faith Questions in a Skeptical Age (with Arthur D. Jones), Nashville, Abingdon, 2015.
  • Scripture and the Wesleyan Way (soon to be released).

See also

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-04-21. Retrieved 2014-04-20.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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