Major Works
Author Clayton Sullivan
Fiction
- Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church (2004)
- Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church: A Fable. (1992)
- Why Professor Sinclair While Naked Sat on a Thorn Bush (Unpublished)
Nonfiction
- The Impossibility of Atheism (2010)
- Rescuing Sex from the Christians (2006)
- Rescuing Jesus from the Christians (2002) Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International
- Toward a Mature Faith: Does Biblical Inerrancy Make Sense? (1990) Decatur, GA: SBC Today
- Rethinking Realized Eschatology (1988) Macon, GA: Peeters
- Called to Preach, Condemned to Survive: The Education of Clayton Sullivan (1985) Macon, GA: Mercer UP
- A Critique of Realized Eschatology in the Writings of C. H. Dodd (1960) Dissertation. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Biography of Clayton Sullivan
Clayton Sullivan was born in Jackson, Mississippi, on July 6, 1930. After earning his B.A. from 
Mississippi College in 1952, he attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he earned a B.D. degree in 1955 and a Ph.D. in 1960. In addition, he earned an M.A. in philosophy and Middle Eastern Religions from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also did postdoctoral studies at Princeton University, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge.
Sullivan married the former Mae Taylor of Jackson. They had a daughter, named Charlotte McDonnell. He was a Baptist minister who in 1966 joined the faculty at University of Southern Mississippi. He taught more than thirty years as a professor of philosophy and religion, retiring from full-time teaching in 2000. However, he continued to teach and write part time.
During semi-retirement from teaching, his interest turned to the writing of fiction. His published works of fiction include Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church: A Fable (which has been optioned as a movie) and Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist Church. Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Church was made into a play by Kent Thompson and work-shopped by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 1996.
Sullivan is also the author of numerous scholarly articles and books on religion, including Called to Preach; Condemned to Survive: The Education of Clayton Sullivan; Toward A Mature Faith: Does Biblical Inerrancy Make Sense?; Rethinking Realized Eschatology; Rescuing Jesus from the Christians; and Rescuing Sex from the Christians.
Sullivan was a member of the American Academy of Religion and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion when he died Dec. 14, 2012. He lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, with his wife.