The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones, Volume X: The 1975-1977 Sermons - The Long Walk to the End presents eleven full sermon transcripts from the federally catalogued Q-number archive - Q1018, Q1028a-3, Q1056-4, Q162, Q454, Q162 (Philadelphia 1976), Q965, Q969, Q945, Q987, and Q1028a-2 - covering the final three years before the catastrophe of November 18, 1978. This is the last volume in the series, and it reads like one.
By 1975, the Peoples Temple was under serious external scrutiny. Defectors were speaking to journalists. New West magazine was preparing the expos� that would run in 1977 and accelerate the community's relocation to Guyana. The sermons gathered here are the record of a community closing in on itself and a leader tightening his grip on everything inside the closing circle. Jones speaks increasingly of siege, of betrayal, of the suffering he endures on behalf of his people. The performance of sacrificial martyrdom - always present in his preaching - has by 1977 become something harder and more final. In the closing sermon of this volume, the 1977 Crucifixion sermon (Q1028a-2), Jones identifies himself fully with the suffering Christ and begins preparing his congregation for what he is, at some level, already planning. He has decided the cross is coming. He has not yet told his congregation how many of them will be nailed to it alongside him.
And yet these are not simply the sermons of a man in collapse. The 1975 Extraterrestrial sermon elaborates Jones's full cosmological framework - his claim to origins on a higher planetary civilization, his authority as something beyond the merely religious or political, his assertion that he descended to earth specifically to save the people in his congregation. The sermon on Mormonism delivers a sustained and detailed critique of that tradition's racial theology. The witchcraft sermon, one of the most surprising in the collection, locates the historical persecution of witches within a broader pattern of religious violence against women and the poor - more feminist in its analysis than Jones is usually credited for being. The Pentecost sermon of 1977 engages seriously with charismatic tradition. Jones was, until very near the end, capable of serious religious and political thought. This is not a comfort. It is a fact that makes the catastrophe harder to explain and more important to understand.
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."
