Books
Good Soil
Forthcoming in 2025 (maybe?) from Convergent. Good Soil will be the story of my experience at the Farminary. We’ll journey through the seasons, drawing lessons from the soil and the compost pile, the chickens and the goats.
Wholehearted Faith
Rachel Held Evans, a #1 New York Times best-selling author, was also my dear friend. Rachel was—and is—widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith.
At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. Her husband, Dan, asked me to help turn that work-in-progress into a finished book. We wove the words of her partial manuscript with other unpublished writings to create a rich collection of essays that ask candid questions about the stories we’ve been told—and the stories we tell—about our faith, our selves, and our world.
This book is for the doubter and the dreamer, the seeker and the sojourner, those who long for a sense of spiritual wholeness. Through theological reflection and personal recollection, Rachel wrestles with God’s grace and love in an imperfect world, looks unsparingly at what the Church is and does, and explores universal human questions about becoming and belonging.
Released on November 2, 2021. An instant New York Times best-seller.
Does Jesus Really Love Me?
A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America
The title of the book wasn’t mine; my agent came up with it. Then I couldn’t convince my publisher to get rid of it. But it is a question I’ve asked myself repeatedly: “Does Jesus really love me? Could God possibly care? Am I damned to hell because I’m gay?”
Some years ago, I finally tried to gather some answers, exploring why Christianity is allegedly one religion yet its adherents differ so dramatically on sexuality. I spent nearly a year on the road, visiting individuals, families, and congregations across the Christian spectrum. I went to Westboro Baptist Church, even observing their pickets with their “God Hates Fags” signs, and I interviewed Episcopal bishop Mary Glasspool, a lesbian who exists and teaches from a far-different part of the theological spectrum.
People ask all the time: What did you conclude? The best answer I have: “It depends on whom you ask.” Though the almanac tells us that Christianity is one faith, I’m not sure it is. Spend time at people’s kitchen tables and in their pews as I did, and slowly, you begin to see that we have very different conceptions of Jesus and very different images of God.
Buy “Does Jesus Really Love Me?”
“Poignant, at times painful, and spiced with wry humor, this is a must-read for LGBT people on their own spiritual journeys or anyone interested in reconciling religion with sexuality.”
“In telling these stories–chief among them his own–Jeff has done an extraordinary thing, showing us all to the God who is big enough and loving enough and true enough to meet all of us exactly where we’re at. This book is moving, inspiring, and much needed.”
“Compassionate, engaging. . . . Resisting easy answers, Chu deftly portrays the lived experiences of Christians-mostly gay, though not all. . . . Overall, the book brings complexity and humanity to a discourse often lacking in both.”
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