The Rt Rev James Jones
James Jones became Bishop of Liverpool in 1998 having been Bishop of Hull since 1994. Over the last twelve years he has been deeply involved in Urban Regeneration. For four years he chaired the New Deal for Communities programme in Liverpool (Kensington Regeneration) and has championed community-led regeneration in lectures, newspaper articles and broadcasts. 45% of the parishes in the Diocese of Liverpool are Urban Priority Areas.
He also chairs the Governing Body of the faith-based St Francis of Assisi City Academy jointly sponsored by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Dioceses. It is the first Academy to take the Environment as its specialism. It opened to its first pupils in September 2005. This date also marks the beginning of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.
He lectures widely and broadcasts regularly on ‘Thought for the Day’. He has written a number of books, the latest looking at the relationship between Christianity and the environment: “Jesus and the Earth” (SPCK 2003).
Working in partnership with a number of agencies including the RDA for the North West he has set up Operation EDEN which is an organisation working across the faith communities engaging local people in the holistic transformation of their local environment. Quoting the African proverb “We have borrowed the present from our children” he believes that young people are much more alert to the need to create cleaner, safer and greener communities.
He believes that there is a real tension between community-led regeneration and programmes that are centrally driven. He feels that these tensions are often revealed in the language that is used. People living in local communities tend to use organic language such as “seeds, planting and renewal”; those who control the money tend to use mechanical language such as “triggers, buttons, levers and targets”. He is convinced that you cannot have mechanical solutions to organic problems and that those with the money and the power need to understand more fully how communities die and live again.
He is a member of the House of Lords, Chair of the Council of Wycliffe Hall in the University of Oxford, Co-President of Liverpool Hope University, Adjunct Professor of Liverpool Hope University teaching an MA on theology and the environment, the Bishop for Prisons, a Vice President of Tear Fund, WWF Ambassador and a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts Manufactures and Commerce).
Publications
Author of books including:
‘People of the Blessing’ (1998, BRF)
‘The Moral Leader’ (2002, IVP)
‘Jesus and the Earth’ (2003, SPCK)
‘Why do people suffer?’ (2007, Lion)
2007
