I began my professional life as a village missionary and pastor, then a lecturer in NT Greek, in South India.
Twelve years later, I returned to Britain but left the ministry after a year because I no longer felt comfortable advocating a credal faith. It increasingly seemed to me a dangerous pursuit playing with words which have no definable meaning. I was soon lecturing in a College of Education in Lancashire. While I was there I wrote my first book, Faiths of the World. This secondary school text broke new ground by including modern secular ideologies like communism and humanism.
Five years after that I had been appointed to lecture in the Philosophy Department at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. My field was Buddhist thought in its early days in India, then in its development as it spread into SE Asia, China and Japan. This resulted in Tales and Teachings of the Buddha, which compared and contrasted the teaching conveyed by the popular stories about the Buddha's previous lives with the more orthodox scriptural teachings.
We returned to Britain in 1983 and now have three grandsons and a granddaughter. We both have lots of friends; two of my male friends were also my lovers, one for more than twenty years and the other for more than four. As well as my writing, my wife and I enjoy walking and have recently rejoined the YHA. We like reading and listening to music. We used to enjoy playing together, she on the piano and me on the violin, but I have had to give up the violin and am trying to learn the piano instead.
Although I prefer my pals to call me 'John', I find my middle name, Garrett, makes me a bit easier to identify as an author, which I now mainly am. I learn from the Net there is at least one other John Garrett Jones out there and a few other Garrett Joneses, but this is a big improvement on John Jones - especially in Welsh Wales, which is where we now live.
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