The Deafness of Tony Jones & Friends

Why is it that Tony Jones & Friends seem to have adopted this pose?

giphy.com

Many people were disgusted when Rachel Held Evans, who had previously loudly denounced abuse of power, deleted multiple comments questioning her seeming support of Tony Jones. She assured everyone that she takes "abuse allegations very seriously" and that she'd made a "diligent investigation of this situation" (i.e. abuse claims by his ex-wife, Julie McMahon).

(Of course, some weeks later she did say, "I don’t want to overstate my knowledge of this situation... I have spoken with neither Tony nor Julie..."!?!)

And after writing a glowing review of Jones's latest book on her blog, Nadia Bolz Weber found that her husband had apparently accidentally deleted the 800 plus comments thread that had been generated there. Fortunately, they can still be found on Disqus ;)

Now Peter Rollins, who applauded the resistance against "ubiquitous, normalized violence operating in disavowed ways" in other contexts, has written a blog post which appears to be a defence of the abusive, narcissistic behaviour of Tony Jones.

And it seems he is joining the 'I'm Not Listening' club.

I left the following comment on his Facebook page:

I also tried to leave a comment on the blog itself, but it was failed (twice) in moderation. So I returned to Rollins' Facebook page and added it:

It lasted a whole minute before it was taken down, along with the original comment. As well as that, I  have been blocked from making any any further comments on his page.

So it would appear that this is standard behaviour for anyone (professionally) connected to Tony Jones. Avoid questions, delete comments, ignore the abuse.

I know what it is like to have to speak out about the toxic behaviour of people close to me. I know it seemed at the time that in doing so I'd lost everything that was important to me.

But I now realise that I had actually been set free!

I feel sorry for those people who are too afraid to hear the truth, let alone speak it. Their deafness is self-inflicted and they are enslaved - trapped in a cage of their own design.