Description

THE COLLECTED SERMONS OF JIM JONES, VOLUME VI: THE 1973 SERMONS, PART ONE

The 1973 sermons of Jim Jones stand at a hinge point in history. The Temple was ascendant. The darkness was gathering. And yet the full horror of what would come — the compound in the jungle, the death tape, the 918 — was still years away.

In this sixth volume of The Collected Sermons of Jim Jones, theologian and activist Jeff Hood presents thirteen sermons from 1973, drawn from the federal archive catalogued after the Jonestown massacre. Arranged by their FBI Q numbers and accompanied by Hood's signature theological commentary, these sermons document Jones in motion: a preacher of extraordinary power and malevolent vision, transforming love into bondage and freedom into slavery.

Hood is not here to excuse. He is here to witness. As he has written, "Theology that cannot descend into hell is not theology." These pages descend. Through sermons on congressional power, ownership, heaven, defiance, and the deconstruction of Christ himself, readers encounter Jones at the precise moment his vision was crystallizing — and are invited into the unsettling question that haunts all of Hood's Jonestown work: can God be sought even in the valley of death?

This volume includes Hood's 2026 introduction wrestling with universal reconciliation, a note on the Q numbering system and its origins in federal evidence collection, and a dedication to Rebecca Moore and Fielding McGehee of the Jonestown Institute, whose archival ministry ensures the victims will not be forgotten.