Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Religion News

Books & Selected Opinion Pieces

Books Collage

The Complete Published Books of The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

183 books, arranged by the work they do.

The Death Penalty · Campaigns for the Condemned

These are the most urgent books Jeff Hood writes — composed in real time, in the middle of fights for actual lives. As a spiritual advisor to condemned people across the country, Hood has accompanied more than a dozen men to their executions, and each campaign book began as a weapon in a battle to stop one. Most of those battles ended in death chambers. Hood publishes them anyway, so that the names, the arguments, and the fights themselves cannot be erased.

1. The Weight of Someone Else’s Sin: The Story of an Innocent Man on Oklahoma’s Death Row · 2026

The story of Clarance Goode Jr., an innocent man on Oklahoma’s death row. Hood writes as Goode’s spiritual advisor and friend of many years, laying out a life that does not belong in the death chamber.

2. Nobody Is There: The Life, Death & Witness of William Silvia · 2026

The life, death, and witness of William Silvia, gathered from the essays Hood wrote across the final weeks before Florida executed him in August 2026. Hood served as his spiritual advisor to the end.

3. I Will Lose Nothing: The Final Days of Dennis Sochor · 2026

The final days of Dennis Sochor, executed by Florida in 2026. Essays from Hood’s last calls and vigils with Sochor close with a sermon on the God who loses nothing and no one.

4. The People v. Luigi Mangione · 2026

An examination of the prosecution of Luigi Mangione, written with Alli Sullivan. It asks what the state’s pursuit of a young man’s execution reveals about American justice itself.

5. Too Old to Kill · 2026

Writings on the execution of Dusty Ray Spencer. An extended argument that executing the aged serves no purpose a civilized society can name.

6. Condemned in the Dark: The Case Against Paul Everett’s Death Sentence · 2026

Makes the case that Paul Everett’s death sentence cannot stand. Written as a public brief for mercy, it lays the evidence before readers as jurors.

7. Condemned Without Cause: The Wrongful Conviction of Tony Egbuna Ford · 2026

An investigation of the wrongful conviction of Tony Egbuna Ford. Ford has spent decades on Texas death row for a crime the evidence says he did not commit.

8. Not Commensurate: The Case for Marbel Mendoza · 2026

An argument that death is not a just punishment in the case of Marbel Mendoza. The book weighs a whole life and its circumstances against the sentence the state wants to carry out.

9. The Boy from Bed-Stuy: The Case for Sparing the Life of Shawn Rogers · 2026

The case for sparing the life of Shawn Rogers. Hood traces Rogers from a Brooklyn childhood to death row, insisting the whole life be weighed.

10. Traversing the Shadow of Death: Writings from the Campaign for Anthony Wainwright · 2025

Writings from the campaign for Anthony Wainwright. Florida executed Wainwright in June 2025 with Hood accompanying him to the end.

11. The Last Revolutionary: Anthony Boyd, The Death Penalty & Alabama · 2025

The story of Anthony Boyd, the death penalty, and Alabama. Boyd’s decades at Holman prison anchor an indictment of the state’s machinery of death.

12. Nitrogen Hypoxia.: Writings on Alabama, Kenneth Smith and a Moral Apocalypse · 2025

Writings on Alabama, Kenneth Smith, and the moral apocalypse of nitrogen execution. Hood was in the chamber as Smith’s spiritual advisor when Alabama carried out the world’s first nitrogen execution in January 2024.

13. Don’t Kill a Pastor: Writings from the Campaign for Greg Hunt · 2025

Writings from the campaign to save Greg Hunt, a pastor on Alabama’s death row. The plea centers on Hunt’s decades of faith and ministry behind bars.

14. HOPE FOR STEVEN NELSON: Writings from a Campaign · 2025

Collected writings from the campaign to save Steven Nelson. Texas executed Nelson in February 2025 with Hood serving at his side.

15. Clemency! Collected Writings from the Campaign to Save Emmanuel Littlejohn · 2024

Collected writings from the campaign to save Emmanuel Littlejohn. Oklahoma’s parole board recommended clemency, the governor refused, and Littlejohn was executed in September 2024.

16. The David Hosier Story: Writings from a Campaign · 2024

Writings from the campaign for David Hosier. Missouri executed Hosier in June 2024 with Hood at his side as spiritual advisor.

17. UNDERREPRESENTED: Michael Smith, Oklahoma & the Death Penalty · 2024

The case of Michael Smith and the death penalty in Oklahoma. The state executed Smith in April 2024 despite unresolved questions about his case.

18. The Casey McWhorter Tapes · 2023

Conversations with Casey McWhorter recorded in the weeks before his Alabama execution. McWhorter was put to death in November 2023; the tapes preserve his voice.

19. Free Anthony Sanchez: Writings from a Campaign · 2023

Writings from the campaign to free Anthony Sanchez. Sanchez maintained his innocence until Oklahoma executed him in September 2023.

20. The Anthony Sanchez Gospel: Innocence, Justice, Hope & Love · 2023

Reflections on innocence, justice, hope, and love drawn from the case of Anthony Sanchez. A spiritual companion to the fight for his life.

21. INNOCENT.: The Anthony Sanchez Report & Trial Exhibits (w/ David Ballard) · 2023

The Anthony Sanchez report and trial exhibits, compiled with investigator David Ballard. A documentary case file arguing that Oklahoma prepared to execute an innocent man.

22. The Lynching of Arthur Brown: Thoughts from a Texas Tragedy, 2023 · 2023

Thoughts from the 2023 Texas execution of Arthur Brown. Hood names the killing a modern lynching and asks what witness demands afterward.

23. The Fight for Scott Eizember · 2023

Writings from the fight to stop the execution of Scott Eizember. Oklahoma killed Eizember in January 2023 after a public battle over Hood’s right to stand beside him in the chamber.

24. The Fight for Kosoul Chantakoumanne · 2022

Writings from the campaign for Kosoul Chantakoumanne. Texas executed him in 2022; these pages preserve the fight to stop it.

The Death Penalty · Witness, Method & Argument

Hood has seen what the state prefers no one see. He was the first spiritual advisor in history present for a nitrogen execution, and these books carry that witness outward — into the mechanics of killing, the psychology of violence, the ethics of participation, and the moral arguments the death penalty cannot survive. Where the campaign books fight for one life, these books indict the machinery itself.

1. The Lie of the Clean Kill: Idaho, the Firing Squad, and the Allure of the Bullet · 2026

An account of Idaho’s decision to make the firing squad its primary method of execution. Drawing on the South Carolina executions that preceded it, Hood dismantles the promise that a bullet kills cleanly.

2. Suffocation by Design: Second Edition · 2026

The expanded second edition, subtitled The Final Breaths of America’s Newest Execution Method. It carries the account through the executions that followed the first.

3. The Monster · 2026

Exploratory essays on the psychology of violence, humanity, and the death penalty. Hood goes looking for the monster and keeps finding the human.

4. Slaughterhouses: The Hypocrisy Death Penalty Abolitionists Must Face at the Dinner Table · 2026

An argument that the moral logic of abolition extends to the industrial slaughterhouse. Drawing on philosophy, theology, and the documented toll on workers in both kinds of killing rooms, it asks whether the abolitionist’s opposition to killing is as large as the principles behind it.

5. Suffocation By Design: The Story of America’s Newest Execution Method · 2026

The story of nitrogen hypoxia, America’s newest execution method. Hood writes as the first spiritual advisor ever to witness a nitrogen execution, from inside the chamber.

6. Priest-Penitent Privilege: A Defense from Death Row · 2026

A defense of confidential spiritual counsel on death row. What passes between a condemned person and their priest, Hood argues, is sacred ground the state cannot seize.

7. Erstickung durch gezielte Planung: Die Geschichte der neuen amerikanischen Hinrichtungsmethode (Suffocation By Design – German) · 2026

The German edition of Suffocation By Design. Part of the effort to set America’s newest execution method before the eyes of the world.

8. ASFYXIE PAR DESIGN: L’Histoire du Procédé d’Exécution le Plus Récent en Amérique (Suffocation By Design – French) · 2026

The French edition of Suffocation By Design. Part of the effort to set America’s newest execution method before the eyes of the world.

9. ASFIXIA POR DISEÑO: LA HISTORIA DEL MÉTODO DE EJECUCIÓN MÁS RECIENTE DE ESTADOS UNIDOS (Suffocation By Design – Spanish) · 2026

The Spanish edition of Suffocation By Design. Part of the effort to set America’s newest execution method before the eyes of the world.

10. 意図的な窒息 (Suffocation By Design – Japanese) · 2026

The Japanese edition of Suffocation By Design. Part of the effort to set America’s newest execution method before the eyes of the world.

11. Universalism and the Death Penalty: An Essay · 2025

An essay on universal salvation and the death penalty. If God ultimately saves everyone, the state’s claim to final judgment collapses.

12. You Are A Murderer: Essays for Executioners · 2025

Essays addressed to executioners. Direct dispatches to every hand that touches the machinery of death, from governors to guards.

13. Whispers of Silenced Voices: An Anthology the Grief of the Death Penalty (w/ Lisa Taylor-Clarke) · 2025

An anthology of the grief the death penalty leaves behind, gathered with Lisa Taylor-Clarke. Voices from every side of an execution.

14. The Embodiment of Abolition (w/ Alli Sullivan) · 2023

On living abolition in the body, written with Alli Sullivan. Abolition treated not as a position but as a physical practice of showing up.

15. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah & Wyoming. · 2023

The crucifixion of Jesus located in every American death penalty state. A litany naming all twenty-seven jurisdictions as Golgotha.

16. Final Words: Lent from Mississippi’s Execution Chamber · 2022

A Lenten journey through Mississippi’s execution chamber. Forty days of devotion shaped by final words.

17. Deontological Dangers of the Death Penalty for the Medical Practitioner: A Bioethical Engagement · 2020

A bioethical examination of the death penalty’s dangers for medical practitioners. On what participation in executions does to the healer’s oath.

18. The Execution of God: Encountering the Death Penalty · 2017

Encountering the death penalty as the ongoing execution of God. Hood’s foundational death penalty book, published by Chalice Press in 2017.

19. Last Words from Texas: Meditations from the Execution Chamber · 2015

Meditations drawn from the final statements of those executed in Texas. Among Hood’s earliest death penalty books, built from the words of the dead themselves.

The Abolition Classics · Edited & Modernized

As founder of the Execution Intervention Project and the force behind Complicit Press, Hood believes today’s abolitionists must inherit their lineage. The Abolition Classics are his act of curation: more than two thousand years of argument against state killing — from Socrates to Dreiser — edited and modernized so the movement can read its own ancestors. It is canon-building as activism.

1. V. I — The Apology — Socrates (399 BCE) · 2026

Socrates’ defense before the Athenian court that condemned him to death. The founding scene of Western conscience facing state killing.

2. V. 0 — Before Abolitionism — Various (250 BCE–1631) · 2026

Ancient and early arguments against the death penalty, 250 BCE to 1631. The prehistory of abolitionism gathered in one volume.

3. V. II — On the Sacred Animal — Lactantius (c. 310) · 2026

Lactantius’ early Christian case for the sanctity of human life. A church father’s witness against killing, from around 310.

4. V. III — Against the Death Penalty — Giuseppe Pelli (1760) · 2026

Giuseppe Pelli’s argument against the death penalty from 1760. The first sustained modern case for abolition, written years before Beccaria.

5. V. V — An Essay on Crimes and Punishments — Cesare Beccaria (1764) · 2026

Cesare Beccaria’s treatise on crimes and punishments. The Enlightenment work that launched the modern abolition movement and reshaped criminal law across two continents.

6. V. XXIV — An Excerpt, a Speech & a Pamphlet — Bentham, Robespierre & Haughton (1791–1850) · 2026

Abolitionist arguments from Bentham, Robespierre, and Haughton, 1791–1850. An excerpt, a speech, and a pamphlet from three unlikely allies.

7. V. IV — Considerations on the Injustice and Impolicy of Punishing Murder by Death — Benjamin Rush (1792) · 2026

Benjamin Rush’s founding-era case against punishing murder with death. A signer of the Declaration argues the new republic should not kill.

8. V. VIII — The Opinions of Different Authors Upon the Punishment of Death — Basil Montagu (1809) · 2026

Basil Montagu’s 1809 collection of authorities against the punishment of death. The movement’s first great anthology.

9. V. VII — Observations on the Criminal Law of England — Samuel Romilly (1810) · 2026

Samuel Romilly’s observations on the criminal law of England. The great reformer’s case against a code that hanged the poor.

10. V. XX — On the Punishment of Death — Percy Bysshe Shelley (1815) · 2026

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s essay against the punishment of death. The Romantic poet as abolitionist.

11. V. IX — Under Sentence of Death — Victor Hugo (1829) · 2026

Victor Hugo’s novel from inside the mind of a condemned man. Written in 1829, it remains literature’s most sustained protest against the guillotine.

12. V. VI — Argument Against Capital Punishment — Edward Livingston (1833) · 2026

Edward Livingston’s argument against capital punishment in America. A founding-generation jurist’s case for a penal code without death.

13. V. XII — Report in Favor of the Abolition of the Punishment of Death by Law — John L. O’Sullivan (1841) · 2026

John L. O’Sullivan’s 1841 report urging abolition of the death penalty by law. The case as it was made to the New York legislature.

14. V. X — Essays on the Punishment of Death — Charles Spear (1844) (w/ Kat Bodrie) · 2026

Charles Spear’s essays on the punishment of death, edited with Kat Bodrie. The Universalist minister who made abolition a ministry.

15. V. XXII — Thoughts on the Death Penalty — Charles C. Burleigh (1845) · 2026

Charles C. Burleigh’s thoughts on the death penalty. An American abolitionist’s 1845 case against the gallows.

16. V. XXIII — Capital Punishment — Charles Dickens (1846) · 2026

Charles Dickens’ case against capital punishment. Drawn from his public letters against hanging.

17. V. XXV — Capital Punishment Is a Mockery of Justice — Frederick Douglass (1858) · 2026

Frederick Douglass’ declaration that capital punishment mocks justice. An 1858 address recovering the great abolitionist’s stand against the gallows.

18. V. XI — Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866) · 2026

Dostoevsky’s great novel of crime, punishment, and conscience. Its author survived his own mock execution before Siberian exile.

19. V. XIII — Christ and the Gallows — Marvin H. Bovee (1869) · 2026

Marvin Bovee’s Christ and the Gallows, from 1869. The gospel set squarely against the rope.

20. V. XV — A Life Sentence — Adeline Sergeant (1889) · 2026

Adeline Sergeant’s 1889 novel of a life sentence. Victorian fiction reckoning with punishment that does not kill.

21. V. XVIII — The Ballad of Cummins Prison — Oscar Wilde (1898) · 2026

Oscar Wilde’s prison ballad, written from his own imprisonment. This edition resets the poem at Arkansas’s Cummins Prison.

22. V. XVI — The Sport of the Gods — Paul Laurence Dunbar (1901) · 2026

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s novel of injustice and a family destroyed by it. An early Black American novel of wrongful conviction and its wreckage.

23. V. XIV — An Eye for an Eye — Clarence Darrow (1905) · 2026

Clarence Darrow’s novel against retributive death. The great defense attorney’s only novel, an argument carried in fiction.

24. V. XXI — The Death Penalty — Gabriel Alomar (1912) · 2026

Gabriel Alomar’s 1912 essay against the death penalty. A Catalan voice in the international movement.

25. V. XVII — Capital Punishment in the United States — Raymond T. Bye (1919) · 2026

Raymond T. Bye’s early scholarly study of capital punishment in the United States. The 1919 book that helped found the empirical case against the death penalty.

26. V. XIX — An American Tragedy — Theodore Dreiser (1925) · 2026

Theodore Dreiser’s American tragedy of a young man condemned to die. The novel that made an execution the indictment of a whole society.

27. The Abolition Classics: Origins — Arguments Against the Death Penalty, 250 BCE–1631 (Collected Editions, #1) · 2026

The collected ancient and early arguments, 250 BCE to 1631. Volume one of the collected editions.

28. The Abolition Classics: The Enlightenment — Pelli, Beccaria, Bentham, Robespierre and Rush, 1760–1799 (Collected Editions, #2) · 2026

Pelli, Beccaria, Bentham, Robespierre, and Rush in one volume. The era that made abolition thinkable.

29. The Abolition Classics: The Age of Reform I — Montagu, Romilly, Shelley, Hugo, Livingston and O’Sullivan, 1809–1841 (Collected Editions, #3) · 2026

Montagu, Romilly, Shelley, Hugo, Livingston, and O’Sullivan in one volume. The first wave of nineteenth-century reform.

30. The Abolition Classics: The Age of Reform II — Spear, Burleigh, Dickens, Douglass and Bovee, 1844–1869 (Collected Editions, #4) · 2026

Spear, Burleigh, Dickens, Douglass, and Bovee in one volume. The moral crescendo of the reform era.

31. The Abolition Classics: The Modern Era — Wilde, Dunbar, Darrow, Alomar and Dreiser, 1889–1925 (Collected Editions, #5) · 2026

Wilde, Dunbar, Darrow, Alomar, and Dreiser in one volume. The movement carried into the twentieth century.

Death Row Theology & Spirituality

Hood does not write theology about the condemned; he writes it with them. Years of sitting on the other side of the glass — praying, corresponding, and co-authoring with men awaiting execution — have convinced him that death row is one of the few places left where theology is a matter of life and death. These books emerge from that conviction, several of them written jointly with the men themselves.

1. A Floating Feather and Other Musings — Roderick “Seadog” Orme (edited w/ Samantha Wainwright) · 2026

The musings of death row’s Roderick “Seadog” Orme, edited with Samantha Wainwright. Orme took his own life and asked Hood to publish these pages; the book keeps that promise.

2. Wellness from Death Row: Staying Human in a Place Built for Death (with Paul Everett) · 2026

Staying human in a place built for death, written with Paul Everett. Practices of survival and dignity from inside the row.

3. The Deliverance of Hope: The Spiritual Discipline of Writing People on Death Row (with Wendy Ramage) · 2026

The spiritual discipline of writing people on death row, with Wendy Ramage. A handbook for correspondence as ministry.

4. Learning to See in the Dark: Finding God on Death Row · 2025

On finding God in the darkness of death row. A theology of vision built from years of sitting with the condemned.

5. The Existential Journey: 40 Days with the Final Words of the Condemned · 2025

Forty days of devotion with the final words of the condemned. Each day pairs a last statement with a meditation.

6. Why Jesus?: A Thesis on the Old & New Testaments from Alabama’s Death Row (w/ Greg Hunt) · 2025

A thesis on the Old and New Testaments written from Alabama’s death row with Greg Hunt. A condemned pastor and his advisor work through the whole of scripture together.

7. Systematic Theology: The Image of God, The Doctrines of the Church, and The Spiritual War Against the Death Penalty · 2025

The image of God, the doctrines of the church, and the spiritual war against the death penalty. Hood’s mature systematic statement, ordering doctrine around the fight for life.

8. The Parables of Jesus: Commentary from Death Row (w/ Bart Johnson) · 2024

Commentary on the parables written from death row with Bart Johnson. The stories of Jesus reread by a man awaiting execution.

9. Execution Echoes: Reflections on the Seven Last Words of Christ · 2024

The seven last words of Christ heard from the execution chamber. Holy Week read through the witness glass.

10. Systematic Theology from Alabama’s Death Row · 2023

A systematic theology forged on Alabama’s death row. Doctrine written where the stakes are literal.

11. Orationes Mortuorum (Prayers of the Dead): A Lenten Series, 2023 · 2023

Prayers of the dead: a 2023 Lenten series offered for the executed. Ancient forms bent toward modern killing.

12. A Concise Theology of Love: Ruminations after an Evening with Ohio Death Row Philosopher, Keith Lamar · 2022

Ruminations after an evening with Ohio death row philosopher Keith LaMar. A seven-part dialogue on what love requires.

13. Jesus on Death Row: An Adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew · 2014

The Gospel of Matthew retold with Jesus as a condemned man. One of the earliest of Hood’s gospel adaptations, from 2014.

Self-Immolation & Historia Divina

Hood holds the Rev. Charles Moore Professorship of Prophetic Theology — a chair named for the Methodist minister who gave his life in flames against injustice in 2014 — and the fire witnesses have never let him go. Through Historia Divina, a contemplative practice of his own devising, Hood spent years sitting with the stories of those who burned: for peace, for conscience, for the world’s attention. These books are the fruit of that long vigil.

1. God In the Flames: A Modern History of Self-Immolation · 2026

A modern spiritual history of self-immolation. The compiled account of the witnesses Hood has spent years chronicling.

2. The Self-Immolation of Nhất Chi Mai: Historia Divina · 2022

The witness of Nhất Chi Mai, who burned herself for peace in Vietnam in 1967. Part of the Historia Divina series of contemplative histories.

3. The Self-Immolation of George Winne, Jr.: Historia Divina · 2022

The story of George Winne, Jr., who burned himself on the UC San Diego campus in May 1970 in protest of the Vietnam War. A Historia Divina contemplation.

4. The Self-Immolation of Roger Allen LaPorte: Historia Divina · 2022

The story of Catholic Worker Roger Allen LaPorte, who burned himself before the United Nations in 1965. A Historia Divina contemplation.

5. The Self-Immolation of Norman Morrison: Historia Divina · 2022

The story of Quaker Norman Morrison’s self-immolation at the Pentagon in 1965. A Historia Divina contemplation.

6. The Self-Immolation of Alice Herz: Historia Divina · 2022

The story of Alice Herz, the first American to self-immolate against the Vietnam War. A survivor of Nazi Germany, she burned herself in Detroit in 1965 at eighty-two.

7. The Self-Immolation of Thích Quảng Đức: Historia Divina · 2022

The witness of Thích Quảng Đức, whose 1963 self-immolation shook the world. The burning monk of Saigon, seen through the practice of Historia Divina.

8. Historia Divina (a new spiritual practice): On Self-Immolation · 2022

A new spiritual practice built on the contemplation of self-immolation. The method behind the whole Historia Divina series.

9. The Passion of Charles Moore · 2019

The story of the Rev. Charles Moore, the Methodist minister who gave his life in flames against racism and injustice in Grand Saline, Texas, in 2014. Hood now holds the professorship named in Moore’s honor.

Jonestown & Jim Jones

Jonestown is Hood’s cautionary mirror. A pastor himself, he has spent years staring at what happened when pastoral power curdled into mass death — editing the recorded sermons of the evil Jim Jones so the archive cannot be erased, and writing theology from inside the horror. Hood writes about Jonestown to lift up its victims — more than nine hundred people who deserve to be remembered as human beings, not a punchline — and to wrestle honestly with one of the 20th century’s most disturbing spiritual tragedies.

1. The Jonestown Trilogy (revision and compilation) · 2026

The Slaughter of God, Systematic Theology/Shit, and Five Visions collected in one volume. A decade of wrestling with Jonestown, gathered.

2. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 8 (editor) · 2021

The eighth volume of Jim Jones’ collected sermons.

3. Systematic Theology/Shit.: Revelations from Jonestown. · 2020

Revelations from Jonestown on what theology becomes when it kills. The rawest volume of the Jonestown trilogy.

4. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 7 (editor) · 2020

The seventh volume of Jim Jones’ collected sermons.

5. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 6 (editor) · 2020

The sixth volume of Jim Jones’ collected sermons.

6. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 5 (editor) · 2020

The fifth volume of Jim Jones’ collected sermons.

7. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 4.3 (editor) · 2020

The third part of the fourth volume of the collected sermons.

8. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 4.2 (editor) · 2020

The second part of the fourth volume of the collected sermons.

9. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 4.1 (editor) · 2020

The first part of the fourth volume of the collected sermons.

10. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 3.2 (editor) · 2020

The second part of the third volume of the collected sermons.

11. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 3.1 (editor) · 2020

The first part of the third volume of the collected sermons.

12. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 2 (editor) · 2020

The second volume of Jim Jones’ collected sermons.

13. The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones: 1 (editor) · 2020

The first volume of Jim Jones’ collected sermons. Edited from the recorded preaching of the Peoples Temple, so the record could not be erased.

14. Five Visions of Jim Jones/Jonestown. · 2020

Five theological visions drawn from Jim Jones and Jonestown. Hood stares into the abyss of a pastor who killed his people.

15. The Slaughter of God: Theologies from Jonestown · 2017

Theologies excavated from the horror of Jonestown. Published by Wipf & Stock in 2017, it began Hood’s long reckoning with Jones.

Queer Theology & LGBTQ Life

Hood’s writing life began here. A Southern Baptist minister who earned a doctorate in queer theology at Brite Divinity School, he spent his first books claiming queerness as divine gift from inside a tradition built to deny it. These volumes carry the cost and the joy of that emergence — the sermons, the scripture, and the satire of a preacher who refused to choose between his ordination and the truth.

1. A QUEER CHRISTMAS: Denton County, Texas · 2020

A queer Christmas story set in Denton County, Texas. The nativity retold on ground where Hood once pastored.

2. Rainbow in the Word: LGBTQ Christians’ Biblical Memoirs / Ellin Jimmerson (contributor) · 2017

LGBTQ Christians’ biblical memoirs, edited by Ellin Jimmerson. Hood’s contribution joins a chorus of queer readings of scripture.

3. The Basilica of the Swinging Dicks · 2016

An irreverent provocation aimed at patriarchal religion. Among the most notorious titles in Hood’s early catalog.

4. The Courage to Be Queer · 2015

A theology claiming queerness as divine gift. It grew from Hood’s doctoral work in queer theology at Brite Divinity School.

5. The Queer: An Interaction with the Gospel of John · 2013

The Gospel of John engaged through queer experience. Hood’s first book, published in 2013.

Race, Justice & Social Witness

Before the execution chambers, there were the streets. Hood organized against police violence in Dallas — including the July 2016 march seared into the city’s memory — served as a hospice chaplain where he watched racism follow people to their deathbeds, and traveled to see injustice up close. These books are the record of a witness that has never confined itself to one issue.

1. BLACKOLOGY: The Theological Dexterity of Blackness (w/ Yoel Omowale) · 2022

The theological dexterity of Blackness, written with Yoel Omowale. A dialogue across race on what Blackness teaches theology.

2. All Things Beautiful: Short Meditations for Black Days. (w/ Yoel Omowale) · 2022

Short meditations for black days, written with Yoel Omowale. Brief consolations for heavy seasons.

3. Governors Amongst the Racists.: A 50th Anniversary Retrospective of The 1970 Alabama Democratic Primary. · 2020

A 50th-anniversary retrospective of the 1970 Alabama Democratic primary. The race that pitted George Wallace against Albert Brewer, and what it cost the state.

4. 6 Days in Guatemala: A Journal of Justice · 2020

A justice journal from six days in Guatemala. Field notes from a week among communities seeking justice.

5. The Complicated Legacy of Cesar Chavez · 2020

An honest reckoning with the complicated legacy of Cesar Chavez. Honoring the movement while refusing hagiography.

6. Sanctuary Hospice House: The Nature of Deathbed Racism · 2020

On the nature of deathbed racism. Drawn from Hood’s time as a hospice chaplain.

7. The Murder of Joseph Hutcheson: A Struggle for Justice · 2020

The struggle for justice in the death of Joseph Hutcheson, who died in the lobby of the Dallas County jail in 2015. Hood helped lead the fight that followed.

8. Dallas: Mixed Verse from a Shooting · 2017

Mixed verse written in the aftermath of the Dallas shooting. Hood organized the July 2016 march after which five officers were killed, and these poems carry that night.

Theology & Philosophy

This is Hood’s constructive core. As Dean of The New Theology School, he believes the great words — God, love, justice, freedom — have not lost their meaning but are waiting to be lived again, and the eighteen-volume Theosemantics cycle is his sustained attempt to reopen them. Around it orbit the experiments: dialogues, provocations, and inquiries testing what theology can still do.

1. Theosemantics: The Complete Work (revision and compilation) · 2026

All eighteen Theosemantics volumes in a single edition. Published by New Theology School Press, it gathers the full Courage to Be cycle.

2. Polyamorous Theology: A Dialogical Experiment in Thinking (w/ Bryan Demeritte) · 2023

A dialogical experiment in thinking, with Bryan Demeritte. Two minds test what theology becomes when it refuses to settle down with one idea.

3. THEOSEMANTICS: 1.0 The Courage to Be GOD · 2023

A spiritual inquiry into divine nature and human becoming.

4. THEOSEMANTICS: 1.1 The Courage to Be TANGIBLE · 2023

An inquiry into embodiment, materiality, and sacred presence.

5. THEOSEMANTICS: 1.2. The Courage to Be NOW · 2023

An inquiry into presence, time, and the liberation of the present moment.

6. THEOSEMANTICS: 1.3. The Courage to Be LOVE · 2023

An inquiry into connection, vulnerability, and sacred relationship.

7. THEOSEMANTICS: 1.4. The Courage to Be REAL · 2023

An inquiry into authenticity, truth, and sacred vulnerability.

8. THEOSEMANTICS: 1.5. The Courage to Be ART · 2023

An inquiry into creativity, expression, and sacred creation.

9. THEOSEMANTICS: 2.0. The Courage to Be CHRIST · 2023

An inquiry into incarnation, manifestation, and divine expression.

10. THEOSEMANTICS: 2.1 The Courage to Be HUMAN · 2023

An inquiry into embodied existence, wholeness, and sacred humanity.

11. THEOSEMANTICS: 2.2. The Courage to Be JUSTICE · 2023

An inquiry into fairness, accountability, and sacred healing.

12. THEOSEMANTICS: 2.3. The Courage to Be HERE · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into presence, place, and the sacred ground underfoot.

13. THEOSEMANTICS: 2.4. The Courage to Be DEFIANT · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into holy refusal and the dignity of resistance.

14. THEOSEMANTICS: 2.5. The Courage to Be BEAUTY · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into radiance, form, and the sacred face of the world.

15. THEOSEMANTICS: 3.0. The Courage to Be SPIRIT · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into the breath that moves in all things.

16. THEOSEMANTICS: 3.1. The Courage to Be MAGIC · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into wonder, synchronicity, and the aliveness of the world.

17. THEOSEMANTICS: 3.2 The Courage to Be ELECTRIC · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into aliveness, energy, and the current that runs through all things.

18. THEOSEMANTICS: 3.3. The Courage to Be FIRE · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into passion, transformation, and the burning heart.

19. THEOSEMANTICS: 3.4. The Courage to Be UNCANNY · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into strangeness, mystery, and the sacred edges of the known.

20. THEOSEMANTICS: 3.5. The Courage to Be FREEDOM · 2023

A lyrical inquiry into liberation, responsibility, and the open future.

21. Dialectic in The Desert: Meditations on the Sages (w/ Simon Richardson) · 2022

Meditations on the sages, written with Simon Richardson. A desert dialogue with the wisdom traditions.

22. Science Fiction Theology: Three Stories / Many Salvations · 2021

Three stories, many salvations. Speculative fiction as a laboratory for doctrine.

23. Drugged.: Interstellar Exploration of the Incarnation · 2020

An interstellar exploration of the incarnation. The Christmas story launched into deep space.

24. out of my head: *freed thoughts · 2020

Freed thoughts let loose on the page. Fragments and flashes from an unquiet mind.

25. High Country Theology · 2020

Theology written from the high country. Mountain-born meditations on God and altitude.

26. Revelations in Isolations. · 2020

Revelations recorded in isolation. Writings from the shut-in seasons of 2020.

27. The Cathedral: A Parable · 2017

A parable of the church. A short fiction about what the cathedral is for.

28. The God of the Future · 2017

A theology of the God still to come. Hope located ahead of humanity rather than above it.

29. The Psychosis of God: An Exploration of Mental Illness · 2016

An exploration of mental illness and the divine, written with Emily Hood. It faces madness inside faith without flinching.

Scripture Reimagined

Hood retells the gospels so they can be heard again. Adaptation, for him, is a form of commentary: setting Luke inside a woman’s story, mistranslating Mark on purpose, putting Matthew’s Jesus on death row’s doorstep. Each retelling wagers that the oldest stories still have the power to shock — if the familiar words are made strange enough to actually be read.

1. THE NATIVITY EXPERIENCE: Seeing as Those Who First Saw (w/ Kyle Sigmon) · 2021

Seeing the nativity as those who first saw it, co-written with Kyle Sigmon. Advent recovered at ground level.

2. The Gospel of Mary: A Modern Commentary · 2021

A modern commentary on the Gospel of Mary. The suppressed gospel read for the present.

3. The Revised Gospels of Jesus Christ · 2020

A fresh revision of the gospels of Jesus Christ. The four accounts reworked in Hood’s own hand.

4. Frances: An Adaptation of the Gospel of Luke · 2015

The Gospel of Luke adapted as the story of Frances. Luke retold with a woman at its center.

5. The Sociopathic Jesus: A Mistranslation of the Gospel of Mark · 2014

A deliberate mistranslation of the Gospel of Mark. A provocation asking what readers project onto Jesus.

Church, Ministry & Evangelicalism

Hood was raised evangelical, trained at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and ordained in a Southern Baptist church — an inheritance he has spent a career wrestling rather than discarding. These books confront the tradition that formed him: its manhood, its money, its seminaries, and its saints, written by someone who knows the house from the inside.

1. Wonderful Words of Life (w/ Mark Sandlin) · 2022

An engagement with the old words of faith, written with Mark Sandlin. Two progressive pastors test which words still give life.

2. SOUTHERN BAPTIST DISTINCTIVES: REIMAGINING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A BAPTIST IN THE SOUTH AND BEYOND. (w/ Ellin Jimmerson) · 2021

Reimagining what it means to be a Baptist in the South and beyond, with Ellin Jimmerson. Two dissenters reclaim the Baptist inheritance.

3. The Gospel of Martin Luther King, Jr., to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary · 2020

The gospel of Martin Luther King, Jr., preached to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. King’s witness aimed at Hood’s own alma mater.

4. Toxic Masculinity:: Honest Engagement with John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart · 2020

An honest engagement with John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart. A page-by-page confrontation with evangelical manhood.

5. The Prosperity Gospel: Theological F*CKERY · 2020

A takedown of prosperity theology. Blunt by design, starting with the subtitle.

6. Tales from the Crypt: Verbatim from Clinical Pastoral Education · 2020

Verbatim accounts from clinical pastoral education. Hospital chaplaincy transcribed raw.

7. The Bonhoeffer Chrism Mass / Christopher D. Rodkey (contributor) · 2020

Christopher Rodkey’s Bonhoeffer liturgy, featuring a contribution from Hood. A radical-theology rite built on Bonhoeffer’s witness.

8. The Rearing of an American Evangelical · 2015

A memoir of being raised American evangelical. The formation Hood later spent a career unlearning.

9. A Beautiful Thing: Sermons from the Inaugural Festival of Young Preachers / Lee Huckelberry (contributor) · 2010

Sermons from the inaugural Festival of Young Preachers. Includes one of Hood’s earliest published sermons, from 2010.

The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood

Since 2013, Hood has kept the running record of a ministry lived in public. Year by year, the Collected Writings preserve the sermons, letters, denouncements, and dispatches as they happened — an unbroken chronicle that now stretches from a queering Southern Baptist minister finding his voice to a death row witness who will not look away. Read in order, they are the autobiography Hood never sat down to write.

1. The Suffocation of Hope: The 2025 Writings: (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood: 8) · 2025

The collected writings of 2025. The most recent annual volume.

2. Executing Hope: The 2024 Writings of The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood · 2024

The collected writings of 2024. A year documented execution by execution.

3. Witness to Death: The 2023 Writings (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood #6) · 2024

The collected writings of 2023, the year Hood began accompanying the condemned into the chamber.

4. The Penalty is Death: The 2022 Writings (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood 8) · 2022

The collected writings of 2022. The year the death penalty took over Hood’s writing life.

5. Scribblings from Solitude: Writings from 2021 (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 7) · 2022

The collected writings of 2021. Notes from a year lived largely alone.

6. God is Sick.: The 2020 Writings (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 6) · 2021

The collected writings of the pandemic year 2020. The sickness of the title is the world’s.

7. A Life in Writings: 2017-2019 (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 5) · 2020

The collected writings of 2017–2019. The fifth volume of the series.

8. Responses:: A Sampling · 2020

A sampling of published denouncements of popular opinions, 2011–2020. Later reissued as I Disagree.

9. The Violence of Being: Prophetic Writings, 2016 (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 4) · 2017

Prophetic writings from 2016. The fourth volume of the Collected Writings.

10. Love Remains: Prophetic Writings, 2014-2015 (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 3) · 2016

Prophetic writings from 2014–2015. The third volume of the Collected Writings.

11. The Year of the Queer: Thoughts, Blogs, Letters and Sermons, 2013-2014 (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 2) · 2015

Thoughts, blogs, letters, and sermons from 2013–2014. The second volume of the Collected Writings.

12. The Queering of an American Evangelical: The Sermons, Statements, and Prayers of a Southern Baptist Minister (The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood Book 1) · 2013

Sermons, statements, and prayers of a queering Southern Baptist minister. The 2013 volume that opened the Collected Writings series.

Omnibuses & Compilations

The gatherings. These volumes collect whole eras of the work into single bindings — the campaign books, the collaborations, and the arguments of the execution years — so the record can be held in the hand.

1. The Execution Omnibus, 2022-2025: Volume III: Thoughts and Demands (revision and compilation) · 2026

The thoughts and demands of 2022–2025 collected. The essays and arguments of the execution years.

2. The Execution Omnibus, 2022-2025: Volume I: The Campaigns for the Departed (revision and compilation) · 2026

The campaigns for the departed: the campaign books of 2022–2025 collected. Each fight for a life, preserved.

3. The Execution Omnibus, 2022-2025: Volume II: Collaborations (revision and compilation) · 2026

The collaborations of 2022–2025 collected. The books written with the condemned and their companions.

4. The Omnibus : Collected Works of Jeff Hood, #1 (revision and compilation) · 2026

The first omnibus of the collected works. A gathering of the earlier standalone books in one volume.