Academic Faculty

Dr. Jones has been celebrated as the “most significant living political theologian”. He is a highly sought after lecturer in both academic and ecclesial contexts. His work is primarily concerned with historical political theology and with the reconciliation of the post-modern with the pre-modern. Methodologically, his work treats history as a theological discipline and not as a secular archaeology.

PhD European History, Saint Louis University, 2012
MA in History, Western Washington University, 2007
BS, Hillsdale College, 2002

Published Books:

The Church Against the State: On Subsidiarity and Sovereignty (New Polity Press, 2025)
This book proposes a Catholic postliberal political theology. It takes as its starting point liberal notions of sovereignty and deconstructs them through a Thomistic understanding of justice, habit, and law. It then works through the High Medieval vision of the three orders and the senses of Scripture and shows how they offer a robust alternative to liberal modernity. The work brings together history and contemporary theology and engages directly not only the classics of modern political theory, but also the most important of the postmoderns: Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard,

The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021)
This book is a survey of the history of the Church from creation through Vatican II. It is written for the non-specialist and offers a Christocentric interpretation of history. It is oriented primarily to political issues and does not assume that “the Church” is merely the clerical hierarchy, but rather is the society of the baptized.

Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX, (Emmaus Academic, 2017)
The book looks at the theology, legal theory, and institutions of “Church” and “State” in the thirteenth century to paint a picture of the relationship between the temporal and the spiritual powers. The book proposes that the conventional model is inadequate to capture the reality of that relationship because it is predicated on assumptions of modern statecraft and discounts the importance of the medieval sacramental world view. The book has received very favorable reviews by, for example, First Things and Nova et Vetera.. 

Evidence of Things Unseen: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2019)
This book is volume 1 in the St. Paul Center theology curriculum. It, however, stands alone as an accessible introduction to Scriptural revelation. It is co-authored with Louis St. Hilaire. 

The Word Became Flesh: An Introduction to Christology (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2019)
This book is volume 2 in the St. Paul Center theology curriculum. It, however, stands alone as an accessible introduction to Christology.

 This Is My Body: An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2019)
This book is volume 4 in the St. Paul Center theology curriculum. It, however, stands alone as an accessible introduction to ecclesiology. 

Catholic Topical Index (Verbum, 2013)
I was the leader of a team of three who compiled this massive reference work for Catholic doctrine. The book contains over 1,000 doctrinally significant terms. For each of these terms citations to the key texts from the Catholic tradition are assembled and organized by category, for example: Old Testament, New Testament, Catechism, Denzinger, Papal Encyclicals, Ecumenical Councils, Liturgical Texts, Canon Law, Doctors of the Church, Fathers of the Church. 

Books in Progress:   

Principles of Catholic Politics
This book is an introduction to the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine. The work aims to re-introduce Catholic social teaching within the postmodern idiom and for a postmodern, yet American audience. The objective is to demonstrate that Catholic Social Doctrine can be applied within the distinctly American cultural and political context.
Project completion date: Summer, 2025
Publisher: New Polity Press 

Technology and Freedom: Man’s Struggle Against the Gods
This book is an attempt to bring together over twenty five years of research and thought on the problem of political order. It begins with an extended engagement with Greek thought, placing it in juxtaposition to the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, and Bonaventure. These opening chapters construct a theory of political power that is focused on the ancient understanding of regime forms, and on the foundation distinction between authority/obedience and power/submission. A theory of technocracy is here constructed as the inevitable form of tyrannical power. Furthermore, paganism is expounded as a form of technocracy. From there, the book moves into a theoretical articulation of how paganism works. This section focuses on modern anthropology and sociological theories concerning myth, sacrifice, and “the gods.” From there the book shifts to a discussion of Roman paganism and the conversion of the empire to Christianity. This historical phase of the book continues up through Charlemagne and the conversion of the Barbarians, and even beyond to the High Medieval synthesis. Throughout the historical chapters, the work takes special notice of the theories of Nietzsche, disputing directly his narrative of Christianity and power. The book ends with a chapter on technology and modern ideology and the forgetting of the very existence of regimes of authority/obedience.
Projected completion date: 2027
Publisher: Undetermined 

Book Chapters:

“Before Church and State” in Integralism (Emmaus Academic, forthcoming)

“The Scandal of the Small” in David Braine, The Fittingness of the Incarnation: Essay sin Analytic Thomistic Philosophy and Theology (Catholic University of America Press, 2025).

“New Directions in Catholic Social Teaching” an Afterword to Rocco Buttiglione, Modernity’s Alternative (New Polity Press, 2025).

Published Scholarly Articles:

“The Form of Power” Communio, Fall 2025.

“Friendship and the Common Good” The Hedgehog Review, 25.3 (Fall 2023)

“The Kingdom of Darkness: Sovereignty Politics” New Polity, 4.2 (Spring 2023)
-describes the deep logic of Hobbesian sovereignty and makes the case that what often passes for Christian political philosophy/theology is actually Hobbesian. 

“The Priority of Peace and the Problem of Power” Communio, Summer 2021.
-describes the a politics of peace as it emerges from the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. The article engages the thought of Foucault and offers an alternative to his politics of violence without denying the insights of his work. 

“The ‘Decision’ Against Carl Schmitt” New Polity, May 2021. (With Marc Barnes)
-argues against the Christian use of the thought of Carl Schmitt and by extension against the notion of sovereignty and against the usefulness of the friend/enemy distinction.

“A Liturgical Cosmos: The Political World of Pope Innocent III” New Polity, August 2020.
-describes the political and ecclesiological thought of Pope Innocent III, making use of the Senses of Scripture in order to demonstrate that the conventional understanding of the influential pope leaves much to be desired. 

“The End of Sovereignty: A Proposal for Christian Postliberalism” Communio (Summer, 2019)
-articulates an interpretation of late liberalism based on a Hobbesian understanding of sovereignty and proposes a Thomistic alternative. 

“The Preacher of the Fourth Lateran Council” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 18:2 (2015): 121-149.
-covers Innocent III’s understanding of the role of preaching in his sacramental ecclesiology and his   ultimately liturgical understanding of social order. 

“Fulk of Neuilly, Innocent III, and the Preaching of the Fourth Crusade,” Comitatus  41 (2010): 119-148.
-covers the role Fulk played in Pope Innocent III’s crusade plans, arguing that the crusade was wrapped up in the pontiff’s reform of the Church and ultimately in his campaign against evil itself. 

Other Published Articles:

“Is Christianity Nationalist?” New Polity (online): https://newpolity.com/blog/is-christianity-nationalist

“Let’s Fight: A Review of John Dickson’s Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History” First Things, June 2022. 

“The Weakness of Caesar and the Power of the Cross” New Polity, 3.1 (Winter, 2022)

“Capitalism Produces Socialism: An Interpretation of the Thought of Pius XI” New Polity 2.4 (Fall, 2021).

“The State Will be Transformed” New Polity (online) https://newpolity.com/blog/the-christian-form?rq=transformed.

“What States Can’t Do” New Polity (online) https://newpolity.com/blog/what-states-cant-do?rq=subsidiarity

“Catholic Ironies: A Review of George Weigel’s The Irony of Modern Catholic History,” First Things, November 2019, 45-48. 

“What if the liberal concept of religion is the real problem?” Postliberal Thought. https://www.postliberalthought.com/blog//what-if-the-liberal-concept-of-religion-is-the-real-problem

“The Postliberal Moment” Postliberal Thought https://www.postliberalthought.com/blog/2018/10/10/what-is-liberalism

“What the Nationalists Get Wrong: A Defense of the Particular and the Universal” Postliberal Thought. https://www.postliberalthought.com/blog//a-defense-of-the-particular-and-the-universal

Academic Conference Papers:

“Thinking the Christian Polity: Theology and Social Doctrine” Truth and Love Conference, Franciscan University, July 11-14, 2025, Steubenville, Ohio

“Is Christianity Nationalist” New Polity Conference, May 29-31, 2025, Steubenville, Ohio

“The Barbarians and the Education of the Laity” The Rediscovery of Reality: Education and the Catholic Imagination, at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute, Washington, D.C.

“The Kingdom of Darkness” Keynote, New Polity Conference, June 3-4, 2022, Steubenville, Ohio

 “Against Sovereignty: Lessons from the Catholic Response to Absolutism in the 17th  Century” The Common Good and the Political Order: On the Church’s Responsibility for the World, November 4-5, 2022, at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute, Washington, D.C.  

“The Priority of Peace and the Problem of Power” New Polity Conference, March 19-20, 2022, Steubenville, Ohio.

Response to Panel on Before Church and State, Society of Catholic Social Scientists Annual Meeting, October 28, 2017, Franciscan University of Steubenville.

“The Two Swords and the Two Testaments: Pope Innocent III, the Senses of Scripture, and the Meaning of Kingship” The Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies Conference (PMR), October 14-16, 2016, Villanova University

“Justice, the State, and the Law in St. Louis’s Parlement” The Second Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, June 16-18, 2014, Saint Louis University.                

“An Enqueteur Talks to an Inquisitor: The Context of Gui Foucois (Clement IV)'s Consultation to the Dominican Inquisitors (c. 1257)”  Forty-fifth International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 13–16, 2010, Kalamazoo, MI. 

“A Crusade Without a Pope: Louis IX’s Second Crusade and the Making of Canon Law” The Second International Symposium on Crusade Studies, February 17-20, 2010, Saint Louis University.

“The Inquisition against Raymond, Bishop of Toulouse, and the Limits of Papal Power during the Reign of Urban IV (1261–1264)”  Forty-fourth International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 7–10, 2009, Kalamazoo, MI.

“The Archpriest Controversy and the Negotiation of Catholic Orthodoxy in England, 1595-1602” Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Panel on the Reformation in England, April 29, 2009, Saint Louis University.

“Crusaders, Barbarians, and the Fall of Constantinople in the History of Nicetas Choniates” The Crusades Studies Forum, February 20, 2009, Saint Louis University.

“The Preacher’s Right to sumptus in the Exchange Between Thomas Aquinas and William of Saint-Amour” Conference of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, March 2-3, 2007, UCLA.

Invited Scholarly Talks:

“Freedom and the New Right” Cornell, April 8, 2025

“Freedom and the Feudal Imagination” ISI Honors Conference, July 30- August 5, 2024, Wilmington, Delaware.

“Subsidiarity as The Form of the Common Good" Northeastern University, March 28, 2024

“The Royal Society: Pagan Problems and Christian Solutions” ISI Honors Conference, July 30- August 5, 2023, Annapolis, MD.

“Money” and “Politics” New Polity Conference, May 5-6, 2023, Steubenville, Ohio

“The Form of Power” Notre Dame Law School, April 21, 2023

“Kingship and Tyranny in the Classical Tradition” ISI Little Platoons Seminar, Franciscan University, April 4, 2023.

“The Senses of Scripture and the Cycles of History in the High Middle Ages” Keynote Address at Braniff Conference in the Liberal Arts at the University of Dallas, March 4-5, 2022.

“Christ Against Caesar: How Martyrdom Defeated the Empire,” Alcuin Institute, October 7, 2021

“Socialism in the Thought of Pius XI” Franciscan University of Steubenville, November 15, 2021.

“Before Church and State,” University of Toronto, March 20, 2020.

“Before Church and State,” Harvard, February 13, 2020.

“Against Liberalism: The Spiritual and Temporal Powers in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas,” Blackfriars, Oxford, March 8, 2019.

“Before Church and State” Christendom College, April 24, 2017

“The Liturgical Cosmos: The Worldview of the High Middle Ages” a 3-part series on the Worldview of the High Middle Ages in honor of the 800th Anniversary of the Fourth Lateran Council. Franciscan University of Steubenville, October 20, 27, and November 3, 2015.