Peter L. Jones, PhD

About

I joined the IPS faculty in 2013 and have found a home here among wonderful colleagues and engaged students. My passion is teaching and I have been able to teach several different kinds of courses and as an academic advisor become involved in the journey of many students. We have an outstanding student body, with people from all walks of life and experiencing the call to form themselves and serve their communities in diverse ways. My teaching philosophy includes a commitment to get students sharing with each other: graduate students need to be talking to one another and a great deal of learning occurs in this process. Indeed, I continue to learn so much from our students and relish the opportunity not only to guide but participate in these discussions as a professor and academic advisor.

Degrees

• Ph.D. – Southern Methodist University
• M.T.S. – Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University
• B.B.A (business management) – Texas Christian University

Research Interests

• Theology and Ethics
• Political Economies
• Social Theory and Cultural Studies
• Theological Anthropology

Professional & Community Affiliations

• Society of Christian Ethics
• Catholic Theological Society of America

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Theology and Ministry
• Social Ethics in the Catholic Tradition
• Liberation Theology
• The Church and Its Mission
• Christian Doctrine
• Doctrine in Art and Architecture
• Christology
• Moral Theology
• Theologies of Suffering
• Christian Origins: Word and Image

Comments from Students:

Peter, I have enjoyed taking classes with you these two years and have learned so much from all our discussions and materials that we’ve gone through in class. Thank you for your enthusiasm, dedication, and service.

Peter Jones is absolutely amazing. He has pushed me in my thinking about so many things from theology to ethics to social justice—then allowed me the space to process my thoughts both in and out of the classroom. He’s been an incredible mentor to me, and working with him is one of the highlights of my time at Loyola.

Peter is a wonderful teacher, and I admire his style. He makes difficult subjects understandable, but knows them incredibly well so that if someone tries to question his 'understandable' answer, he has the facts, canons, and supporting documents in his pocket (or rather, brain) to work with whatever level of learning each student requires. And, he loves Star Wars. So how can he NOT be an excellent teacher?

I appreciate the different mediums that Dr. Jones used including videos, articles and PowerPoint decks. This made the course richer by adding other perspectives in addition to those of the authors of our textbooks. The choice in the materials was relevant to what's going on today so that helped me with applying the learning immediately. He also challenged my thinking and I have learned a tremendous amount.