The most complete scholarly edition of Jim Jones's recorded sermons ever assembled - 102 sermons across ten volumes, drawn directly from the Q-number archive maintained by the Jonestown Institute.
On November 18, 1978, more than nine hundred people died in Jonestown, Guyana, under the command of Jim Jones. What remains of that catastrophe - beyond the grief and the headlines - is a vast archive of recordings: Jones preaching, healing, arguing, commanding, and unraveling across more than two decades of ministry. This collection gathers those recordings into a single scholarly edition for the first time.
Edited by theologian and activist Jeff Hood, each volume pairs the full sermon transcripts with editorial introductions that place the recordings in historical and theological context. Hood does not excuse Jones. He does not rehabilitate him. He reads him - carefully, unflinchingly - because the people who followed Jones deserve more than silence, and because the mechanisms of manipulation documented in these sermons are not historical curiosities. They are warnings.
The collection spans Jones's full preaching career: from the earliest undated Pentecostal recordings through the tent revival healing services, the California years of explosive growth, the deepening control and paranoia of the early 1970s, the settlement of Jonestown, and the final sermons recorded weeks before the end. Taken in sequence, these ten volumes constitute a theological autopsy - the dissection of a faith that was real, a community that was genuine, and a catastrophe that was built, sermon by sermon, over twenty years.
Hood, Jeff: - "
The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a Catholic Priest (Old Catholic) and nationally recognized theologian and spiritual advisor to death row inmates nationwide. He has accompanied eleven men to their executions, including the first and eighth nitrogen hypoxia executions. Widely regarded as the leading spiritual voice on the death penalty, his work has been profiled in outlets ranging from the New York Times to a Rolling Stone documentary, The Spiritual Advisor. For his service and scholarship, he was nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Hood holds degrees from Auburn University (BA), Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv), Emory University's Candler School of Theology (ThM), the University of Alabama (MA), Creighton University (MS), Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University (DMin), and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the American Institute of Metaphysics. His primary interest has always been the power of spirituality to bring about liberation.
Ordained to ministry in 2006, Dr. Hood was incardinated into the priesthood of the Old Catholic Church in 2022. The author of over 100 books - including The Courage to Be Queer, named one of the best religion books of 2016 at the Independent Publishers Book Awards - he regularly partners with men on death row to co-produce original works of theology.
On July 7, 2016, Dr. Hood organized and led a Dallas rally against police brutality that ended in the shooting deaths of five police officers. He saved lives by using the cross he was carrying to force people away from the gunfire. The Dallas Public Library honored his role in that event and his wider work by opening the Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood Collection in its archives.
In January 2024, Dr. Hood became the first spiritual advisor present in an execution chamber for a nitrogen hypoxia execution. Amid the international media attention that followed, he kept the memory of Kenneth Smith at the center of the story while demanding that such an execution never be repeated. No other spiritual advisor in the country has been present in the execution chamber for as many executions.
Believing that traditional theological education is increasingly inadequate, Dr. Hood founded The New Theology School, where he serves as Dean and as the Rev. Charles Moore Professor of Prophetic Theology.
With many arrests and assaults, he is not afraid to give his body to the struggle for justice."
