Terry Jones (pastor)

Terry Jones
Jones in March 2011
Born	October 1951 (age 65) Cape Girardeau, Missouri, United States
Residence	Gainesville, Florida, United States
Nationality	American
Education	High school degree, two years of college
Alma mater	Central High School, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Southeast Missouri State University
Occupation	Pastor
Years active	1981-present
Organization	Dove World Outreach Center
Known for	Koran burning
Home town	Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Political party	Independent
Spouse(s)	Sylvia
Awards	Honorary degree from California Graduate School of Theology

Terry Jones (born October 1951) is the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center, a small nondenominational Christian church located, until July 2013, in Gainesville, Florida, United States. He is the President of a political group, Stand Up America Now. He first gained national and international attention in 2010 for his plan to burn Korans, the scripture of the Islamic religion, on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

He was a self-declared independent U.S. presidential candidate in the 2012 U.S. presidential election and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In 2011, he was listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of 10 people in the United States' "Anti-Muslim Inner Circle".

Jones, a native of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, graduated from Cape Girardeau's Central High School in 1969. He then attended Southeast Missouri State University for two years. Jones received no academic degree in theology but was given an honorary degree from the unaccredited California Graduate School of Theology in 1983, which sought to disassociate itself from him during the 2010 Koran burning controversy.

Jones worked as an assistant hotel manager in the late 1970s, then became an assistant pastor with Maranatha Campus Ministries in Kentucky. He went to Cologne, Germany with his first wife to work as a missionary and founded and led the Christliche Gemeinde Köln (CGK) in 1981, with that church growing to as many as 1,000 members over the years, initially as a branch of the Maranatha Campus Ministries and a sister church to Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida.