Jon Zens is one of the scholars who endorsed Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna, along with Dr. Robert Banks, Dr. Howard Snyder, Dr. Dave Norrington, Dr. Graydon Snyder, Dr. Gregory Boyd, Dr. Ralph Neighbour, Alan Hirsch and others.
Dr. Zens has a wide-ranging theological background. He holds a B.A. in Biblical studies from Covenant College, a M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and a D.Min. from the California Graduate School of Theology. Zens’ groundbreaking articles in the late 1970s, “Is There a ‘Covenant of Grace’?” and “Crucial Thoughts on ‘Law’ in the New Covenant,” were highly instrumental in developing what came to be called “New Covenant Theology.”
Jon’s doctoral thesis was published in an edited form in 1997 as “‘This is My Beloved Son, Hear Him’: The Foundation for New Covenant Ethics and Ecclesiology.” He is also the author of the new book A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick?, which releases at the end of July.
For the last thirty years, Jon has been the editor of a magazine entitled Searching Together. He’s not only a NT scholar, but he’s an expert on church history. Jon also served as a pastor for a number of years, but moved on after concluding that full reformation within the existing institutional church system was unworkable. You can read his story here.