North Texas pastor hospitalized with coronavirus doesn’t regret his ‘religious activism’
From his upper-level hospital room in Denton, Jeff Hood could see people mill about at the Rayzor Ranch shopping center, swinging shopping bags or eating on patios on a sunny Monday afternoon.
Hood thought it was ironic — the crowds of people were risking their health to go shopping, but he was the one hospitalized with COVID-19 for doing what he considered his pastoral duty.
The 36-year-old Denton pastor and local activist was diagnosed with COVID-19 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Denton early Monday morning.
Over the past few weeks, Hood has posted his thoughts on the coronavirus shutdown to Facebook and his blog. In multiple posts, he argued religious and community leaders should continue their social work in the community despite coronavirus and called the closure of churches unconstitutional.
“With such affirmed, I CALL FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE,” Hood wrote in a blog post on March 23. “Religious leaders should invite their congregations to carefully continue performing their essential social role in our society. To do anything else…is to lose who we are/who we are called to be…lovers of our neighbors.”
Hood made clear in an interview Monday that he does not advocate for churches to reopen to the public. But he does think religious and community leaders have a duty to continue caring for members of their flock.
“That should never be any question as to whether a church should be a safe haven for a community,” Hood told the Star-Telegram on Monday.
Over the past few weeks, Hood said he continued to leave the house when others called on him for help. Several times, he was called out to a domestic violence situation and went to help the person leave the house. Another time, he went to visit with someone who was suicidal.
At each visit, he said he wore a mask, gloves, and a bandanna on his head.
But still, last Thursday, he started to feel sick. He had trouble breathing, chills, body aches and dizziness. On Saturday, he went to get tested and was told they would have the results in five to seven days.
At 1 a.m. Sunday, his condition worsened to the point that he went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Denton. Doctors tested him again for COVID-19, but the test came back negative. He had an X-ray of his chest done, and the doctor told him despite the negative test, they were sure he had the virus.
Hood said his doctor explained the test they use is about 60% accurate. Inaccurate tests have been a common problem of the virus.
“I have argued for the place of religious activism and religious leadership in the community, and here I am sitting hospitalized with coronavirus,” Hood said. “This is the nature of my faith. We don’t run away from fires, we run into fires. We don’t show our love by running away from people, we show our love by running to people.”
Only one regret
On April 2, Hood wrote on Facebook that “tinkering with religious liberty is always a very dangerous game.”
“For the first time, the government has told me that I cannot freely go to church,” he said in the post. “While prevention of COVID-19 is certainly a legitimate concern, one has to wonder where this is going.”
On Monday, Hood said he is still wary of the government limiting religious liberties, and said other community leaders should continue to perform the social services of the church — but with caution.
“The headline is not, why did Jeff Hood go out and do this?” he said. “The question is, why don’t all pastors in Tarrant County have coronavirus? Because they love their people so much they stayed home?”
As of Monday evening, Hood had still not been able to leave the hospital.
He had an IV, and doctors were monitoring his condition. He took frequent short breaths in the middle of sentences and was fatigued. Hood put it succinctly by saying he felt like he “got hit by a damn truck.”
However, Hood said he does not regret his actions, and would go to those homes all over again.
“I not only feel like I was doing the right thing, but I feel like I was walking on the path of love,” he said.
Hood said he has not held any kind of in-person congregational meeting or worship service, and only went to people when they called on him for help.
Since mid-March, many local churches started live-streaming services to avoid exposing congregations to the virus. Hood said many of his congregants do not have access to internet, and other situations required him to be there in person.
Hood said he hopes he did not get his wife sick, although he is fairly certain their five children are safe based on precautions they’ve taken. On Monday, his wife posted on Facebook that one of their children started having symptoms the same day Hood did, but the boy recovered quickly.
When he announced his COVID-19 diagnosis on Facebook, Hood said some people messaged him asking where he had been or if he had been safe enough, which he found unfair.
“If doctors or nurses get coronavirus, we don’t fault them,” he said. “Other essential workers going to work are asking themselves the question: am I willing to risk my life in order to save a life? That’s the same thing I do.”
While the government does not classify clergy as essential personnel, Hood said he considers himself to be an essential worker.
“It would be different if I was one of these Michigan protesters storming the Michigan capital demanding everything be opened,” he said. “I think that’s absolutely insane. But on the other hand, I think we need to look at pastors and community leaders and community activists — those frontline workers of justice and fairness — as essential workers.”
Hood will not be able to go into the community anytime soon because of his diagnosis, but he said he plans on continuing to answer calls for help when he is healthy and no longer contagious.
“If there’s anything I regret, it’s that I’m in the hospital, and I’m not able to do more,” he said. “I regret only that I have one body to take on one coronavirus.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 8:39 PM.
