What does it mean to practice ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in a world often ruled by violence?

The Beatitudes aren’t just ancient sayings—they’re a bold, countercultural call to action. In this episode, we’ll explore how nonviolence isn’t just the absence of conflict—it’s the presence of love in action and creative activism.

We can create real change, stand up to injustice, and find the courage to choose peace every single day. Together, let’s uncover how these timeless words can guide us to heal wounds, build bridges, and create a more peaceful world.

John reads from the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (from Matthew 5:1-11), and reflects on them not as an impossible ideal, but rather as a practical way to transform societal systems of power, justice, and relationships through Jesus’ vision of living a nonviolent life and working for a more just, more peaceful, more nonviolent world.

He will invite us to live out the Beatitudes and become people of Gospel nonviolence, peacemakers, the beloved sons and daughters of the God of peace.

Fr. John Dear is a priest, activist, and author of 40 books including The Beatitudes of Peace and The Gospel of Peace: Reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence, and the founder and director of www.beatitudescenter.org

See www.johndear.org

What if the key to a more peaceful world is following the path of the nonviolent Jesus?

Join Fr. John Dear—priest, author, activist, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee—for The Nonviolent Jesus, a weekly 30-minute podcast. Each episode reflects on the radical teachings of Jesus through the lens of active nonviolence, inspired by the traditions of Gandhi and Dr. King.

Featuring compelling conversations with spiritual teachers, authors, and activists like Martin Sheen, Joan Baez, Rev. Richard Rohr, Sister Helen Prejean, Dolores Huerta, Shane Claiborne, and many others, John dives deep into the practice of nonviolence to address critical issues. Together, they explore the practice of nonviolence and its power to end war, racism, poverty, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction—all while embracing Jesus’ call to universal love, compassion, and peace.

Be inspired to reclaim the radical nonviolence of Jesus and work toward a more just and peaceful world and discover how universal love and compassion can transform our lives and the world.

Subscribe now and join us as we follow The Nonviolent Jesus!

This week’s guest is actor and activist Martin Sheen, one of our most celebrated, award-winning actors from movies such as “Apocalypse Now,” “Gandhi,” “Selma,” “The American President,” “Gettysburg,” “The Way,” “Badlands,” and many more, and the star of the TV series, “The West Wing,” where he played President Bartlett.

Martin is perhaps the most committed activist celebrity, who has been speaking out against war, injustice, homelessness, and nuclear weapons and advocating for justice, disarmament, and peace for over 4 decades.

Fr. John will ask Martin about his activism, his understanding of Gospel nonviolence, and how his movies and activism have shaped his life and his peacemaking faith journey.

This week’s guest is Dr. Bernard Lafayette, one of the great heroes and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement who was also Dr. Martin Luther King’s assistant.

He is an activist and organizer who was part of the Nashville student movement with Rev. Jim Lawson, John Lewis and Diane Nash; one of the Freedom Riders; played a leading role in the Selma voting rights movement; and then served as Dr. King’s assistant until his death.

He worked closely with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. An ordained Baptist minister, Bernard Lafayette later founded the Center for Peace and Nonviolence studies at the Univ. of Rhode Island which has offered thousands of workshops and talks on Kingian nonviolence and continues to offer a wonderful summer institute each year.

Listen as John and Dr. Bernard Lafayette discuss Dr. King’s 100th birthday and the basics of Kingian nonviolence, and Dr. Bernard recalls his experiences and impressions during his ground breaking work with Dr. King and his own personal hopes for us today.

Our guest this week is Sister Helen Prejean, a spiritual powerhouse and one of the world's leading voices against the death penalty. Sister Helen’s journey into activism began in the shadows of death row, and her relentless pursuit of justice has captured hearts around the globe. Sister Helen is a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, and is one of the most well-known Catholic leaders in the modern era.

You may know her as the author of the best-selling book Dead Man Walking, which not only became an Oscar-winning movie starring Susan Sarandon (as Sr Prejean) and Sean Penn but also inspired a powerful opera recently performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

Her courageous and compassionate work has been shared through other critically acclaimed books, including the best-sellers The Death of Innocents and River of Fire: A Spiritual Memoir.

Through her incredible life and ministry, Sister Helen has accompanied eight men to their executions, bearing witness to the dignity of every human being—even in the darkest moments.

Today, she joins us from her home in New Orleans to share her wisdom, her faith, and her enduring hope for a world without the death penalty.

So, sit back, take a deep breath, and prepare to be inspired by one of the world’s most compassionate and courageous voices for justice.

🔥 Spiritual seekers, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! 🔥

This week on The Nonviolent Jesus, we welcome Fr. Richard Rohr, one of the most influential spiritual voices of our time. A beloved Franciscan priest, best-selling author, and prophetic teacher, Fr. Richard has guided millions—including Oprah, Bono, and even Pope Francis—toward a deeper, more transformative faith.

As the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, his teachings on mysticism, contemplation, and social justice have shaped the way we see faith in the modern world. His books, including The Universal Christ, Falling Upward, and The Divine Dance, have become essential reading for spiritual seekers worldwide. His daily reflections reach over half a million subscribers hungry for wisdom in a divided world.

Now, Fr. Richard returns with his most urgent book yet: "The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage." In a time of chaos and division, what can the prophets teach us about courage, hope, and speaking truth to power?

Join Fr. John as he sits down with Fr. Richard for a powerful conversation on faith, justice, and the prophetic voices we need now more than ever.

🎧 Listen in, be inspired, and discover why Richard Rohr remains one of the most beloved spiritual teachers of our time.

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast

🎙️ Episode #6: Fr. John Dear on “The Nonviolence of Jesus: 10 Essentials”

📅 Drops Feb. 10, 2025

What if Jesus wasn’t just a teacher of love, but a radical, nonviolent activist challenging empire, oppression, and injustice? What if his message wasn’t about passive faith but fearless resistance rooted in love?

In this episode, Fr. John Dear breaks down 10 essential lessons on the nonviolence of Jesus—a message more urgent than ever in our world of war, division, and systemic injustice. From the Sermon on the Mount to his bold civil disobedience in the Temple, from "Put down the sword!" in Gethsemane to the radical new covenant at the Last Supper (“My blood shed for you, do this!” — a total rejection of violence), we’ll explore how Jesus wasn’t just preaching peace—he embodied it in action.

This is more than theology—it’s a call to action. If you’re serious about peacemaking, activism, and following Jesus in a way that actually challenges power and transforms the world, this episode is for you.

Fr. John Dear is a renegade priest, activist, and author of 40+ books, including The Beatitudes of Peace and The Gospel of Peace. He’s been arrested for standing up against war and nuclear weapons, and he’s here to invite you into a new way of living the Gospel—one of courage, justice, and relentless nonviolence.

🔥 Are you ready to follow Jesus in a way that shakes the world? Tune in now.

👉 More from John Dear: www.johndear.org 👉 Join the movement: www.beatitudescenter.org

#Nonviolence #JesusTheActivist #RadicalChristianity #Peacemaking #SocialJustice #GospelAction

🎙 Episode #7: Fr. John Dear & Sr. Joan Chittister on “Jesus and the Beatitudes” (Part 1 of 3)

📆 Drops Feb. 17, 2025

What if the Beatitudes weren’t just comforting words, but a blueprint for a way of life? What if Jesus wasn’t just offering hope, but a call to action in a world of injustice, violence, and oppression?

In this powerful first episode of a three-part series, Fr. John Dear sits down with the legendary Sr. Joan Chittister to unpack the Beatitudes—not as prayers, but as bold, countercultural ways of living that challenge systems of power. "The 8 Beatitudes of life are actually the 8 attitudes for life!" Sr. Joan says. Together, they dive deep into:

💠 Blessed are the poor in spirit– What does it mean to let go of ego and privilege in a world obsessed with power?

💠 Blessed are those who mourn– How do we turn grief into action in the face of war, climate collapse, and social injustice?

💠 Blessed are the meek, humble, and gentle– Why is humility a revolutionary force for peace?

Sr. Joan doesn’t hold back—"The Beatitudes are not prayers of supplication: they are the reality of everything we could get out of life right now". She speaks truth to power as a fierce advocate for justice, peace, and human dignity. A Benedictine sister, activist, and author of 60+ books, she’s spent her life challenging the Church, political systems, and all of us to live out our faith with courage.

🔥 This is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

🎧 Listen now. Get inspired. Change the world.

Sr. Joan Chittister is an internationally known lecturer and teacher, a columnist for The National Catholic Reporter, and the author of 60 books including The Time Is Now; Becoming Fully Human; Radical Spirit; Aspects of the Heart; The Gift of Years; and The Rule of Benedict. She has served as Benedictine prioress and Benedictine federation president, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women.

👉 Learn more about Sr. Joan Chittister:joanchittister.org

👉 Join the movement for nonviolence:beatitudescenter.org

#Beatitudes #RadicalFaith #NonviolentResistance #JesusTheRevolutionary #Peacemaking

Episode #13 – "Jesus is a nonviolent general leading a peace revolution:" How to Build a Nonviolent Movement Today with Fr. John Dear

Jesus wasn’t just a teacher—he was a movement builder, a grassroots organizer, and a radical leader of nonviolent resistance. This week on The Non-Violent Jesus, John Dear unpacks Luke 10, where Jesus sends out 72 disciples in pairs—not to conquer, but to disarm, disrupt, and dismantle empire through radical peace.

What if following Jesus meant joining a real, organized, strategic movement of nonviolence?

What does it mean to be “lambs among wolves” in a world of rising fascism, white supremacy, and war? How do we mobilize like Jesus, Gandhi, and MLK to create real change today?

"Jesus isn't just a community organizer," Dear says. "He's a nonviolent general leading a peace revolution. But instead of war, he wages peace." Like Gandhi’s Salt March and MLK’s Selma-to-Montgomery march, Jesus calls us to get moving, start organizing, and take action.

Are you ready to step into the movement? Listen now and learn how to carry on Jesus’ campaign of daring, active nonviolence.

For more, check out John Dear’s book, The Gospel of Peace.

Learn more at www.johndear.org beatitudescenter.org

#JesusTheOrganizer #NonviolenceNow #GrassrootsResistance #TheNonViolentJesus #FaithInAction #ResistEmpires

🎙Bryan Stevenson: "If I am successful at all, it is because I got close to a condemned man and heard his song."

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with the legendary lawyer, founder and executive director of Equal Justice Initiative, professor of law at New York University law school, and author of the best-selling book, JUST MERCY, which was made into a great movie of the same name starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.

Bryan graduated from Harvard and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he started a non-profit to serve those on death row, the poor, the wrongly condemned, and those trapped in the furthest reaches of our criminal injustice system. He tells us that "going to death row completely changed me" and at the heart of his story is Walter McMillian, an innocent man sentenced to die for a notorious murder he did not commit.

After a profound struggle, Walter was released.

Bryan has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the supreme court, and won many awards, including the MacArthur Foundation Genius grant. A few years ago, he raised millions of dollars and built 2 museums in Montgomery: the National Museum of Peace and Justice, the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were enslaved and terrorized by lynching; and “the Legacy museum: from Enslavement to Mass Incarceration,” which displays the history of slavery, racial lynchings, and segregation.

Archbishop Tutu called Bryan “America’s young Nelson Mandela,” and deservedly so.

John asks Bryan for his take on the current national crisis under Trump, the rise of fascism, racism, and ongoing systemic injustice, as well as his understanding of nonviolence, what he has learned from so many unjust incarcerated people, and where he finds hope. “

The politics of fear and anger are reigning. We need to become hopeful, courageous, faithful truth-tellers,” Bryan Stevenson says. "Truth is the antidote to the abuse of power: the truth will set us free." Join us!

beatitudescenter.org

eji.org

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4916630/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Mercy_(book)

#15: "Contrary to what a lot of people see or think, there is more protest and resistance to Trump than you see or read in the mainstream media" with Eric Stoner, co-founder and editor of WagingNonviolence.org

On Feb 28 up to 4oM people participated in the economic blackout boycott, making it one of the most successful acts of non-compliance in U.S. history.

John Dear speaks with Eric Stoner, founding editor of WagingNonviolence.org, an independent, non-profit media platform that covers social movements and grassroots activism around the world on all issues of justice, disarmament and creation. Since 2009, it has published original reporting on nonviolent action from contributors in more than 90 countries.

Eric and friends started this clearinghouse of nonviolent movements in the 2000s from scratch, and today it regularly gets over 1.3 million readers looking for news about people power movements that you will never hear on the mainstream media.

John asks Eric about the signs of movement and hope in recent months against the growing authoritarianism and oligarchy, as well as stories of movements from around the world, and Eric says surprisingly that covering the world from the perspective of nonviolence actually gives him hope because so many people are struggling hard for positive social change.Eric also shares the 10 points based on Daniel Hunter's article published on November 6,

Eric Stoner: "Boycotting is the most important tool in protesting, hands down".

wagingnonviolence.org

choosedemocracy.org

beatitudescenter.org

#16 "We are experiencing the thrashing of empire and death throes of capitalism", says Dorothy Day's granddaughter Martha Hennessy in this week's conversation with Fr. John Dear. Dorothy Day was an activist, author, anarchist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement.

Martha Hennessy, also a longtime peace activist, lives on her family farm in Vermont and volunteers part time for the last fifteen years at Maryhouse Catholic Worker in New York City. She speaks regularly on the issues of war, poverty, the works of mercy, and nuclear weapons, and has traveled to Russia, Iraq, Iran, Palestine/Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Korea to witness for peace.

She reminds us that "solutions will never come from the state... we need to "find one's niche...to create a new world from the shell of the old world, to create a society where it's easy to be good."

John asks Martha about Dorothy’s shocking, brilliant statement after Pearl Harbor saying “Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount.” Even if everyone else runs off to war, they will obey the teachings of Jesus and not support war. Dorothy Day said "No" to every. single. war.

Martha says that "the U.S. church desperately needs her (Dorothy Day) as a saint: (as a) laywoman, a mother, a grandmother...and Pope Francis recognizes her as a saint. She was a mystic, she was touched by God. She was an extraordinary grandmother."

Martha tells about her recent arrest on Ash Wednesday outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations calling upon the U.S. to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; her work at Maryhouse; her imprisonment for the King’s Bay Plowshares disarmament action; and her grandmother’s impending canonization.

beatitudescenter.com

catholicworker.org

#17, “Start a revolution! Shake things up! The world is deaf. You have to open its ears.” Fr. John Dear on Pope Francis—The Most Radical Pope in History.

Fr. John shares his own outreach to Pope Francis and the Vatican on nonviolence; reflects on the great themes of Pope Francis; and in particular, reviews Francis’ extraordinary efforts at peacemaking and how he started to turn the church back to its roots in Gospel nonviolence. In this episode he reflects on the life and death, of Pope Francis on Easter Monday.

He calls Francis “the most radical, most progressive, most nonviolent, most prophetic, most peace-activist-oriented pope in history, and therefore, the greatest pope in history, hands down.”

“I give thanks because Francis spoke out so boldly, so prophetically in word and deed for justice, the poor, disarmament, peace, creation, mercy, nonviolence, and the nonviolent Jesus; that we had him for 12 years; that did not resign and retire, but kept at it till the last day, Easter Sunday, and that we got to live during his time.

I think he’s one of our greatest saints, and I hope he will be named a Doctor of the Church.”

“Let us pray for a more widespread culture of nonviolence,” Francis said, “that will progress when countries and citizens alike resort less and less to the use of arms.” Fr. John calls us to honor Pope Francis by rising to the occasion, speaking out, and resisting war, injustice, poverty, racism, corporate greed, fascism, genocide in Gaza, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction, that we might be Gospel peacemakers like Francis.

Listen as Fr. John recounts the times Pope Francis went into the world at risk of his own safety to actively promote peacemaking and reconciliation in the world, many of which never made the media headlines. A truly unique POV on the most radical Pope ever in history and certainly in our lifetime.

#TheNonviolentJesus

BeatitudesCenter.org

🔥This week, John Dear speaks with Kazu Haga, a brilliant young author and teacher of Kingian nonviolence about his new book, Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse.

Kazu Haga shares with us the six principles of Kingian nonviolence, how to build the Beloved Community and that "we are in a polycrisis and we are not crazy for thinking the world is burning all around us."

He is the founder of the East Point Peace Academy, a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and the Fierce Vulnerability Network and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm.

He is a practitioner, trainer and teacher of nonviolence, restorative justice, organizing and mindfulness and works with incarcerated people ("incarcerated people are some of my greatest teachers"), youth, and activists from around the country.

He has over 20 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work, and has been an active trainer since 2000. He resides in Oakland, CA, with friends at Canticle Farm, an inner city community of nonviolence that has a public garden right there in the neighborhood.

In his new book, Kazu suggests that the "real issue behind humanity’s violence and insanity is trauma", and that our goal really is healing on a personal, social, and global level.

He calls to get beyond “us vs. them” and “right vs. wrong” thinking, to pursue our interdependence and interrelatedness, as Dr. King and Thich Nhat Hanh taught.

👉Learn more about Kazu Haga:

kazuhaga.com

canticlefarmoakland.org

👉🏽More information on Fr. John Dear and The Nonviolent Jesus:

beatitudescenter.org

#19 Fr. John Dear Talks with Legendary Environmental Activist Bill McKibben

This week, Fr. John Dear speaks with best-selling author and environmental activist and organizer Bill McKibben about catastrophic climate change and how to respond by joining movements, taking to the streets, and building political will. It will be jam packed with inspiration for anyone who supports environmental activism.

“I started life as a writer, I still am a writer. But to win the fight, we're gonna have to take on money and power, that's why we have to organize, and build a movement to change hearts and minds and change power. We keep our humor, our love for each other and our eyes fixed on the future, and on we go!”

He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal.

He’s one of the world’s leading environmental activists and founder of 350.org, a global grassroots climate campaign which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action.

Bill’s 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change and was published in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament.

Hear more about his newest book Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization will be available in August 2025.

Recently, Bill also founded www.ThirdAct.org, a global grassroots movement of people over the age of 60, which has taken off.

During this podcast also he announces the upcoming global day of action for solar power, “Sun Day,” September 21st. "The sun is willing to provide us with all the power we could ever use, but that great gift is a threat to powerful interests." Go to sunday.earth for more about resources, events, organizations and creative partners.

BE PART OF THE MOVEMENT.

Check out:

www.sunday.earth

www.thirdact.org

www.350.org

www.BillMcKibben.com

#20 John Dear speaks with political scientist, author, teacher, advocate and organizer Maria Stephen on how ordinary people can bring about extraordinary change: “The resistance is alive and well across the United States today."

This week, I speak with Maria Stephan, a political scientist, teacher, advocate, and organizer, who has dedicated her life to the proposition that ordinary people, when organized and inspired, can bring about extraordinary change.

She is the co-author with Erica Chenoweth of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, one of the most important books in decades, which documents how nonviolent resistance campaigns over the last century have been twice as effective as armed struggles, and been major drivers of democratization and civil peace.

“The resistance is alive and well across the United States today, with over 1300 protests with 3.5 million participants at the recent ‘Hands Off’ Day of Action… Faith communities are a glue that give people hope, and promote unity throughout these protests.”

“On the one hand, we have more regimes taking away rights and abusing power, but on the other, there's an explosion of nonviolent campaigns and mass mobilizations of ordinary people around the world,” Maria Stephan tells me.

Maria works with www.Horizonsproject.us focusing on the role of nonviolent action and peacebuilding in advancing human rights, democracy, and sustainable peace in the US and globally. Before joining Horizons, Maria founded and directed the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace, overseeing global programming, applied research, and policy engagement.

She was the lead foreign affairs officer in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and also worked at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. She has taught at Georgetown University and American University.

“Nonviolent resistance is a skill based activity; you can learn how to do better and how to build broad-based coalitions… We need to think big, both globally and locally. We need a more interconnected ‘movement of movements.’ We need to change the popular consciousness so that movements and campaigns are seen as a cool form of activity.”

KEEP THE MOVEMENT MOVING

www.horizonsproject.us

www.beatitudescenter.org

Check out her recent article, "We Are Stronger Than We Think," at https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/02/we-are-stronger-than-we-think/

Episode #21. "The nonviolent Jesus hasn't been preached enough in our churches:"

This week I speak with Bishop John Stowe,Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky and head of Pax Christi, on how we can transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity.

“We have to sustain each other in hope!”.

“It's so essential to root out the violent tendencies within ourselves, or to think violently about others. Violence doesn't provide the lasting solution that Jesus does. But the nonviolent Jesus hasn't been preached enough in our churches…

It's a lack of faith to think it's impossible to live in a nonviolent way.”

Bishop John joined the Conventual Friars Minor, as a Franciscan in 1984, was ordained in 1995, served in El Paso, Texas; then served as its vicar general and chancellor, then vicar provincial of his Franciscan province. In 2015, Pope Francis named him the Bishop of Lexington, Kentucky.

“What we believe about Jesus has consequences in our personal lives and in our politics. We need to know who Jesus was. It's exciting to see how Jesus took on the establishment of his day. How do we build up a spirituality of nonviolence when it's missing in our catechism?”

Bishop Stowe shares why he thinks addiction to guns and violence is so prevalent in Kentucky, and how young people are connecting to make a change in the world.

"We can’t just paper over our differences, our division. We have to confront it all. It has to be healed. Inner work has to begin with the Word of God and prayer for the grace to be able to live in the way of nonviolence--to absorb violence instead of contributing to violence. We have to find ways to move beyond war and get along together and be at peace with nature.”

Listen as we talk about the nonviolent Jesus and peacemaking, be inspired and encouraged to go forward in hope!

CONNECT AND CHANGE THE WORLD

www.beatitudescenter.org

www.paxchristiusa.org

www.paxchristi.net

(Note: This episode was recorded days before the passing of Pope Francis on April 21).

“Offer no violent resistance to one who does evil” (Mt. 5:39)--the most revolutionary—and most disobeyed—teaching in the Gospels, says John Dear

This week, I take a deep dive into Jesus’ specific commandment on nonviolent resistance in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:39-43. I tell how Leo Tolstoy learned the power of this verse from the Abolitionists, and then wrote his classic text, “The Kingdom of God Is Within You, or Christianity not as a mystical teaching but as a new concept of life.”

There, on the first page, Tolstoy declares that Christianity has totally failed Christ because it ignores and disobeys Matthew 5:39. He asks: Did Christ want us to put this teaching into practice or not? Tolstoy hoped to disarm the Russian Orthodox Church. Instead, he inspired Gandhi to launch national movements of nonviolent resistance, and bring the power of organized nonviolence to the world.

This one verse of scripture opens a new way to understand Jesus’ life and teachings. These words launch a permanent nonviolent revolution, because they forbid all violence. This new commandment holds the key to a new way of life and the disarmament of the world. As Dr. King explained and Gandhi demonstrated, this teaching was intended not just for individuals, but for nations and the whole world. We are commanded to figure out creative nonviolent alternatives to violence.

Jesus throws out the old teaching, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” and calls for an immediate end to the downward cycle of violence, John Dear says. But he does not advocate meek submission to violence, or using the same means of violence as one’s opponent and then becoming as violent as everyone else.

Instead, Jesus commands “a Third Way”--active, courageous, fearless, nonviolent resistance to evil and he insists that this is God’s will for humanity.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus leads a nonviolence training session just Dr. King did, Jesus says, ‘I want you to be bold, daring and creative in your nonviolence, to claim your power, confront all systemic violence and injustice, and disarm your oppressor--not kill them.’

The good news is that today millions of people around the world are taking Jesus at his word and engaging in grassroots campaigns of nonviolent resistance to oppression, war, and empire.

Listen in and be inspired to experiment in Sermon on the Mount nonviolence in your own life!

For further reading, get John Dear’s latest book, The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence (Orbis)

beatitudescenter.org

Episode #8: "It's so easy!" Fr. John Dear with Sr. Joan Chittister on “Jesus and the Beatitudes” (Part 2 of 3)

📆 Drops Monday, Feb. 24, 2025

❓What if living the Beatitudes wasn’t just about faith—but about transforming the world?

In this second powerful conversation, Fr. John Dear and the fearless Sr. Joan Chittister dive into the next three Beatitudes, showing how they call us to radical compassion, unshakable justice, and undivided hearts: "Americans have a hard time with humility, and what goes around, comes around".

💠 Blessed are the merciful – How do we practice radical forgiveness in a world filled with violence and division?

💠 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice – What does it mean to crave justice so deeply that it drives every part of our lives?

💠 Blessed are the single-hearted – How do we stay focused on love and truth when the world pulls us in every direction?

Sr. Joan doesn’t just talk about faith—she lives it. "They will see God...it is so easy! God is manifest in everything of everything!" She’s a Benedictine sister, a fierce advocate for peace, human dignity, and justice, and the author of 60+ books. In this episode, she reminds us that the Beatitudes aren’t just spiritual ideals—they’re the key to finding God, serving others, and living a life of deep joy.

Want to build a world rooted in mercy, justice, and love? This episode will inspire you to take action.

🎧Listen now.

🔥 Get fired up.

🌍 Change the world.

Sr. Joan Chittister is an internationally known lecturer and teacher, a columnist for The National Catholic Reporter, and the author of 60 books including The Time Is Now; Becoming Fully Human; Radical Spirit; Aspects of the Heart; The Gift of Years; and The Rule of Benedict. She has served as Benedictine prioress and Benedictine federation president, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women.

Learn more about Sr. Joan Chittister: www.joanchittister.org

Sign up for our newsletter and join the movement for nonviolence: www.beatitudescenter.org

#Beatitudes #FaithInAction #HungerForJustice #MercyMatters #JesusTheRevolutionary #Peacemaking #SpiritualActivism

#9: ✨"How to be a human being" ✨: Sr. Joan Chittister with Fr. John Dear on “Jesus and the Beatitudes” (Part 3 of 3)

❓What does it really mean to be a peacemaker? To fight for justice? To get into “good trouble” for the sake of love? "How do we form a happy, holy world"?

In this powerful final conversation, Fr. John Dear and the unstoppable Sr. Joan Chittister explore the last Beatitudes—where Jesus calls us:

💠 Blessed are the peacemakers – How do we become fearless, nonviolent warriors for peace in a world addicted to war?

💠 Blessed are those persecuted for justice – What does it mean to stand for truth, even when it costs us everything, as Joan says to "get in trouble for justice or peace" ?

Sr. Joan challenges us to go beyond words and build a real movement—a “Beatitudes Movement” that brings people together in small communities of action, resistance, and deep faith. What if we reimagined the Church as a “new Church of the Beatitudes”—a community of justice-seekers, healers, and changemakers?

The Beatitudes aren’t just lessons—they tell us "how to be a human being". Joan shares that "to me, the Beatitudes are a hunk of pasta mix and my next loaf of bread". Are you hungry yet?

Tune in, be inspired, and take action. Joan encourages us to "find and build your own happiness group".

Sr. Joan Chittister is an internationally known lecturer and teacher, a columnist for The National Catholic Reporter, and the author of 60 books including The Time Is Now; Becoming Fully Human; Radical Spirit; Aspects of the Heart; The Gift of Years; and The Rule of Benedict. She has served as Benedictine prioress and Benedictine federation president, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women.

👉 Learn more about Sr. Joan Chittister: www.joanchittister.org

👉 Sign up for our newsletter and join the movement for nonviolence: www.beatitudescenter.org

#BeatitudesMovement #Peacemakers #GoodTrouble #NonviolentResistance #JesusTheRebel #SpiritualActivism #JusticeForAll

🙏 Episode #10 – "Nonviolence is the only way forward" with Marie Dennis

❓What if the Church fully embraced the radical nonviolence of Jesus? Can the Church lead a nonviolent revolution?

This week on The Nonviolent Jesus, Fr. John Dear sits down with longtime peace activist and Catholic Nonviolence Initiative leader Marie Dennis to talk about shaking up the Vatican, challenging the outdated just war theory, and reclaiming the heart of the Gospel—active, world-changing nonviolence.

She states: "We can no longer view war as a solution...now we want to see nonviolence move to the center of the Catholic Church teaching."

Marie has spent her life pushing the Church toward justice, especially in recent years working behind the scenes at the Vatican and on the frontlines of global peacemaking. She calls nonviolence not just an ethic, but a way of life—a force capable of transforming entire societies. She tells us "Jesus teaches us to be more imaginative in how we deal with moments of crisis".

If you care about justice, social change, and living out the revolutionary message of Jesus, this is an episode you can’t miss! Marie Dennis reminds us that "Jesus on the cross is the ultimate witness to nonviolence!" and challenges us to a new way of thinking, a new way of living, and to carry on his witness of total nonviolence in our world of violence."

🎧 Listen in and join the movement for a Church that leads with peace, not war.

👉🏽 Learn more at www.paxchristi.net and beatitudescenter.org

#Nonviolence #Christianity #SocialJustice #GospelRevolution #PaxChristi #TheNonViolentJesus

Episode #11 – "Decide how you want to show up: this is your one and only life!" with best-selling author, theologian and activist Brian McLaren

In a time of rising Christian nationalism, oligarchy, and fascism, here at home under the Trump administration, the Republican party and FOX news, as well as around the world, what does it mean to follow the nonviolent Jesus? Brian warns us: "we are going to have to keep our eyes and ears open for the right time to do the right thing".

This week, Fr. John Dear sits down with a provocative Brian McLaren - best-selling author, theologian, and activist - to explore how Jesus challenged the violent rulers of his day and how we can respond with bold, creative nonviolent action today: "Jesus was an agent of dissent" and "He is the absolute inverse of an authoritarian!"

Brian McLaren is Dean of Faculty for the Center for Action and Contemplation, founded by Fr. Richard Rohr, and a podcaster with Learning How to See, a leading voice in progressive Christianity. He brings deep wisdom from his books Faith After Doubt, Do I Stay Christian?, and Life After Doom. If you're questioning, resisting, or seeking a faith rooted in justice and peace, this episode is for you.

Listen now and join the movement for a fearless, nonviolent faith!

More at www.brianmclaren.net and beatitudescenter.org

#Nonviolence #ResistAuthoritarianism #FaithAfterDoubt #GospelRevolution #TheNonViolentJesus

Episode #12 – "Our love doesn't stop at our own borders" with author, activist and founder of Red Letter Christians, Shane Claiborne

This week, Fr. John Dear has a dynamic conversation with Shane Claiborne in about public organizing, bold resistance, and living out the Gospel where it matters most—on the streets, in communities, and on the frontlines of change; how we need to respond to the worsening violence, racism, war making, greed, lies, death and destruction that are overtaking our nation and the world. Shane reminds us: "The closer we are to the pain, the more urgent we respond to it."

John Dear calls Shane one of the greatest Christian peacemakers of our time. Shane has worked on the streets of Calcutta with Mother Teresa, spent time in Rwanda and Iraq, and journeyed with John to Kabul, Afghanistan during the war.

How do we follow the nonviolent Jesus in a world consumed by war, greed, and injustice? Shane Claiborne is an author, activist, and founder of Red Letter Christians—and he doesn’t just talk about it. He lives it. Shane has put radical love into action. He invites us to "proclaim a vision of a better world because our protest is a form of liturgy" and "we can bring joy in the midst of public lament".

If you’re ready to challenge injustice, reclaim Christianity from empire, and take action for peace, this episode is for you.

Listen now and join the movement for a nonviolent revolution!

Learn more at www.redletterchristians.org and beatitudescenter.org

#JesusForJustice #RedLetterChristians #Nonviolence #TheNonViolentJesus #Resist #FaithInAction

This week we have created a special one hour year end episode of highlights of just some of our guests that have contributed to The Nonviolent Jesus podcast this year.

Our first year of weekly podcasts has been a whirlwind: so many great stories, personal experiences, deep spiritual (and theological) insights and most of all, words of hope and inspiration which we hope you have and will enjoy, many are worth and 2nd and 3rd listening.

It is an astonishing collection of visionaries, teachers and peacemakers.

You will hear short segments, usually 2-3 minutes each featuring, in order:

Martin Sheen

Helen Prejean

Richard Rohr,

Joan Chittister

Brian McLaren,

Bryan Stevenson,

Cornel West,

Charles McCarthy,

Stanley Hauerwas

John Fugelsang

Paul Chappell

Kathy Kelly

Simone Campbell

Jamie Raskin

Joan Baez

We want to thank you, our listeners, subscribers and donors, for your generous spirit in supporting this weekly podcast and we look forward to a new year with more amazing guests that will lead us to being followers of the nonviolent Jesus.

Go to BeatitudesCenter.org for more about The Nonviolent Jesus and other programs we offer. Just last month we have started a Substack account under FatherJohnDear as well, which we will be building on this coming year.

We’re starting 2026 with Robert Ellsberg talking about the saints, and don't forget to mark Dr. King’s upcoming birthday holiday with a special conversation with his assistant Rev. Andrew Young on Monday, January 19th.

We really appreciate every one of you and hope you are being blessed and encouraged by this podcast.

Happy New Year, God bless you and keep following the nonviolent Jesus!

Onward in peace,

🌻 John

Dear friends,

Next week we will be publishing highlights of our 52 episodes here on the first year of The Nonviolent Jesus podcast. Next year we will continue to explore and expand our dedication to nonviolence with conversations with inspirational thought leaders and icons of peacemakers and nonviolent activists. Thank you to everyone who listens and subscribes and shares the nonviolent Jesus in your world.

This week I take a deep dive into Matthew 2, the famous story of the three Magi. I offer this Christmas reflection as four movements:

1) The journey to the nonviolent Jesus;

2) The epiphany of meeting the nonviolent Jesus;

3) What we do after we meet the nonviolent Jesus; and

4) The epilogue, and how the empire, the culture of violence and war, reacts to the coming of the nonviolent Jesus and the threat of active nonviolence.

Let's take our inspiration from the Magi, as I propose that their story is our story.

Like the three wisdom figures, we too are on a spiritual journey, a holy pilgrimage, one that lasts a lifetime—the journey to the God of peace, to God’s reign of peace and the nonviolent Jesus.

During this episode we ask ourselves:

When did you have an epiphany of the God of peace?

When have you met the nonviolent Jesus among the poor, the homeless and the marginalized?

How does nature lead you to the God of peace?

What gifts do you bring the nonviolent Jesus?

The shocking part of Matthew 2 is what happens after the Epiphany. The Magi were ordered to report back to the warmaking, sociopathic tyrant, King Herod, but instead they commit civil disobedience and head home a different way!

Matthew invites us this Christmas to seek the nonviolent Jesus on the margins of the culture of violence, empire and war.

Let our encounter with the nonviolent Jesus lead us away from the corrupt culture of violence and war.

We too, can live as wisdom pilgrims of nonviolence who obey Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount teachings.

Let's do our part to stop the ongoing slaughter of the innocents; and to serve God and God’s reign of peace only from now on.

Merry Christmas to everyone and may the God of peace bless you on your Epiphany journey! ---Fr. John

beatitudescenter.org

“Everyone has a piece of the work of justice to do, so what’s yours?” Sr. Simone Campbell asks.

This week I speak with Sr. Simone Campbell, one of the strongest voices, organizers, and leaders for social and economic justice in the U.S.

A Sister of Social Service, Sr. Simone is a religious leader, attorney, author, and recipient of the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For 17 years, she was executive director of NETWORK, the national Catholic Lobby for Social Justice and the leader of “Nuns on the Bus.”

Her healthcare policy work was critical in the passing of the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.” Before that, she spent 18 years working at the Oakland Community Law Center which she founded.

She also has served as the leader of her religious community and now serves on their governing Council. Her two award-winning books are A Nun on the Bus (2014) and Hunger for Hope (2020).

In part 1 of this 2 part conversation, I ask her about the growing authoritarianism and fascism under Trump, and her journey to the Oakland law center, to NETWORK, and to organizing for the Affordable Care Act.

“We have a two party system, and what we’re experiencing is the end of the Republican party,” she says at the beginning. Now, in this crisis, “we have to learn how to talk to each other and find the best practices to be engaged and talk to each other, and listen to one another. We have a lot of work to do!”

She was radicalized with her younger sister in 1965 while watching TV when the children in Birmingham were fire-hosed and attacked by dogs for marching for an end to segregation.

“I was horrified but motivated by that. From then on, the gospel and Jesus were always connected with justice. After my sister died of cancer, I picked up her spirit and decided to carry on the journey for justice and have her with me along the way.

She shares with us how NETWORK has grown in the more than 50 years since it was established in 1972:

"It was founded by Catholic sisters in 1972 to be a network of Catholic sisters around the country to do advocacy for economic justice and environmental issues, to bring the voices of real people to inform pending legislation.”

She tells how the work of the sisters became the tipping point to pass the Affordable Care Act, which is under assault right now by the Republicans in the current government shutdown.

When asked how she has maintained her work for justice over decades, she tells of her contemplative practice which she calls "deep listening".

"With curiosity, deep listening, and sharing stories, we can build community and new connections. The gospels are full of Jesus' curiosity,” she says. “It's the invitation that creates the weaving of community.”

Listen in to part one of this conversation and be inspired to carry on the work of justice with Sr. Simone! See: www.networklobby.org

www.beatitudescenter.org

“What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach reading and writing?” asks Paul Chappell

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with Paul Chappell, an international peace educator and founder of Peace Literacy.

A former military captain, he realized that we all need to as well-trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war, so he created Peace Literacy to help students and adults from all backgrounds work toward their full potential and a more peaceful world.

Paul is the author of a six books: Will War Ever End?; The End of War; Peaceful Revolution; The Art of Waging Peace; The Cosmic Ocean; and Soldiers of Peace. He focuses on three questions: What if people were as well trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war? What if people were trained to address root causes of problems rather than symptoms? What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach reading and writing?

“Peace Literacy teaches that peace is not merely as a goal, but a practical skill-set – a literacy like reading and writing – that needs to be taught and practiced from pre-K through higher education.

“Humans have a natural aversion to hurting and killing others,” he says. “Military history shows us that dehumanization is used to keep the mind from feeling guilty or remorseful. Nonviolence refutes all the stereotypes of dehumanization.

We try to help rehumanize people with social interaction, storytelling and art, and nonviolence skills. We offer new curriculums about peace for every grade; skills to teach peace by our example; and how to use one’s culture to create a new culture of peace and nonviolence

“People don't know the basic skills of nonviolence that will help them in their daily lives--at work, home, school, with addiction, and every other situation. If we don't teach people peace literacy and nonviolence, then we're actively teaching people the opposite.

“The idea that peace is inevitable is dangerous,” he adds. “We have to do something to help push humanity in that direction. Teaching peace is necessary for human survival. The education and practice of nonviolence has to involve a deeper knowing, a deep knowing down to our bones, and that process takes a lot of effort.

“I think there are explainable causes for why we're doing what we're doing and that there is a path that can lead us out of that. If we can teach the building blocks of peace to young children, we can help people internalize peace and nonviolence and live the ideals of peace.” Listen in to this true peace educator, and be inspired by his campaign to teach peace!

Check out www.peaceliteracy.org

beatitudescenter.org

I can imagine Jesus lamenting today: "America, America, you who bomb children, execute people, and prepare nuclear warfare, how many times I yearned to gather your children together…but you were unwilling. If this day you only knew the things that make for peace!"

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I reflect on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem (Luke 19) where he breaks down sobbing saying, “If this day you only learned the things that make for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Luke describes how everyone had been blinded by violence and hatred, and how it led to their complete destruction by the empire.

Had they taken Jesus’ teachings to heart, loved their enemies, turned the other cheek, and joined his grassroots nonviolent revolution, Jerusalem and its inhabitants would have survived.

We too have not learned the things that make for peace: Jerusalem has now become the whole world. We cut funding for schools, jobs, housing, healthcare, poverty relief, and environmental cleanup, but spend billions—trillions!—for permanent warfare and nuclear weapons. We support warfare in Gaza, Ukraine and Africa, but with our 13,000 nuclear weapons and catastrophic climate change upon us, we are closer to total destruction than ever.

The Sermon on the Mount catalogues a long to-do list for peace, love, nonviolence, and justice.

These days, that also means we must unlearn the things that make for war. If the world is to survive, the days of war have to come to an end.

You and I want to do what others were not able to do, to learn from the nonviolent Jesus the things that make for peace. If we learn the things that make for peace and unlearn the things that make for war, then we can be a leading force in the global grassroots movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons, war, and the causes of war.

We want to be people who learn the things that make for peace and teach them far and wide. That means we have to learn how to weep with Jesus over the world and then go forward and take action.

We grieve over our wars, weapons, corporate greed, injustice, and environmental destruction. And with Jesus, we walk into our own modern-day Jerusalems and act and speak for disarmament, justice, and peace.

May we all choose to learn from Jesus the things that make for peace and join his never-ending peace movement.

Weep. Grieve. Mourn. Then go forward! Take action!

Let us follow the nonviolent Jesus as we learn the Things that Make for Peace!

beatitudescenter.com

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with John Fugelsang, actor, comedian, talk show host, and author of the new book, Separation of Church & Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds (Simon and Schuster).

The son of a former Franciscan brother and a nun, John Fugelsang acted on CSI, has appeared on MSNBC and CNN, and has hosted many TV shows and podcasts, including VH1 shows with Paul McCartney and the final public appearance of George Harrison.

He has debated Jerry Falwell and David Duke, been picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church, and hosted the radio series Tell Me Everything on SiriusXM (where he once welcomed John Dear). His PBS road trip film on the American Dream, called Dream On, was named Best Documentary at the New York Independent Film Festival. He currently hosts the John Fugelsang podcast.

John explains why he wrote this book and who it is for; "I’ve learned that we don't have to hate or fight Christian nationalists; share the words of God and Jesus with them and let them argue with God and Jesus".

"Tele-evangelists didn't tell me to love my enemies; instead, they told me who my enemies are. Christian nationalism is just about power. It’s about their club being on top and imposing their version of Christianity on us all. They use Jesus as camouflage. Why should I listen to Trump and Stephen Miller and reject the words of Jesus?"

He exposes prosperity gospel as dangerous, victim blaming junk theology that has nothing to do with Christ's teachings, and explains how we can go forward in the age of Trump.

At one point he reflects with great empathy and compassion on Charlie Kirk, the far right Christian nationalist who was recently assassinated in Utah, who had challenged him in the past: "I made so many mistakes, I said so many things i thought were righteous, and powerful, and strong, that were actually cruel and stupid, Charlie Kirk never got to grow old, see how wrong he was, and change his position. I have.”

John compares so-called "Jesus fans and followers" without being "Christ followers" with a Rolling Stones cover band, and explains what Jesus' favorite issue was and why it is like Eric Clapton's "Layla" in his setlist.

John takes the words of Jesus seriously, and he concludes with a powerful message: Jesus is breaking every cycle of violence. Love is the only religion that works. That’s what we have to do, he says: "practice the teachings of Jesus, love our enemies, make peace and reconcile with one another."

"We need people willing to take a punch in the name of love".

Listen in to this thought-provoking conversation and learn more at www.johnfugelsang.com

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Archbishop John Wester of New Mexico about his pilgrimage of peace last month to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, for the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombing, and his ground-breaking work of reconciliation with the bishops and church in Japan.

Archbishop John Wester became Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2015 after serving as bishop of Salt Lake City, and before that, auxiliary bishop of San Francisco. His January 11th, 2022, pastoral letter called, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament” is the first official document in US Church history calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. To read it visit www.archdiosf.org

He tells about his first visit to Hiroshima a few years ago, and returning home to Santa Fe and seeing the place where the scientists worked on the actual Hiroshima bomb.

“We commemorate this anniversary,” he continues, “so that it will never happen again. We’re not just commemorating the past but trying to preserve the future.” During his meetings with the Japanese bishops and other church leaders, he and others launched a new organization, “A Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” www.pwnw.org to promote solidarity and cooperation between the Japanese and American church for nuclear disarmament. This is something that has never happened until now. It’s a real sign of hope.

He quotes Omar Bradley: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”

Wester shares with me who he thinks changed the whole discourse on nuclear weapons in the Catholic Church, and even said that possessing nuclear weapons is immoral.

And he says in no uncertain terms how we have "become inured to war, violence and starvation. Over 60,000 have died in Gaza; we read about, sip some coffee and go on with our daily business. We have to join our voices with others to get rid of nuclear weapons and end our wars.”

He recalls some statistics that should give us pause regarding what the results of a nuclear war would be and how our nuclear arms race is worse than ever.

There is hope as Wester explains who is behind all the peace movements. Listen in and be inspired by this prophetic leader for nuclear disarmament!

www.pwnw.org

archdiosf.org

beatitudescenter.org

On this week’s episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I share the life and lessons of Mahatma Gandhi, India’s great independence leader and the world’s foremost teacher of active nonviolence on a national, global scale.

I’ve been a student of Gandhi for 45 years, and studied his collected works for my own anthology, Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings (Orbis, 2002).

I consider Gandhi one of the greatest followers of the nonviolent Jesus in the last two centuries, whose teachings are well worth studying and pursuing today.

Listen why I propose that Gandhi was not born Gandhi, but had to become Gandhi.

That life long journey of transformation takes single-minded, concentrated effort to allow God to disarm us, change us and fashion us into people of universal love and Gospel nonviolence.

In this episode, I outline the chronology of his life, and then discuss various basic lessons. I recall at one point his statement during the 1922 trial, when he said, “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.” I share how Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, president of the Jesuit University in El Salvador who was later assassinated with five other Jesuits in 1989, told me something similar when I first met him in 1985. “If you want to be for the reign of God, we have learned in El Salvador, you have to also be against the anti-reign of evil.”

I suggest a new understanding of morality and ethics: In a world of institutionalized, systemic evil, it’s not enough to be a good person or to try to do ‘the good.’ We also have to stand up publicly against evil and resist it. We can’t just be for peace; we also have to be against each and every specific war.

“Nonviolence means avoiding injury to anything on earth in thought, word or deed,” Gandhi wrote early on in South Africa. Over the years, as he gained more experience, he concluded that “Devotion to nonviolence is the highest expression of humanity’s conscious state…Nonviolence is the greatest and most active force in the world… One person who can express nonviolence in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality.

My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. The more you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world.”

We too have to become our ideal selves before God, change ourselves and strive to become the peacemakers we were created to be, to become the people of nonviolence stuck in a culture of violence.

Listen in and see what you think about Gandhi’s steadfast, persistent insistence on truth, nonviolence and peace.

www.beatitudescenter.org

Note: Share this podcast with others to celebrate International Peace Day on Sunday, September 21st.

This week I speak with world renown theologian and ethicist Professor Stanley Hauerwas. In 2001, TIME magazine named him “America’s greatest theologian.” He taught for years at the University of Notre Dame, before moving to Duke University where he was the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological ethics at Duke Divinity School. He also served at Duke Law School, and the University of Aberdeen. He has lectured around the world, and has been featured on “Oprah.”

Stanley has written too many books to list, but his bestsellers include, “The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics;” “Jesus Changes Everything: A New World Made Possible;” “Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony;” and “Cross-shattered Christ: Meditations on the 7 last words.”

Retired at 85 now, he continues to inspire and encourage us with his knowledge of and insights on nonviolence.

“When I grew up, I didn’t know what nonviolence was. That’s because I’m from Texas,” he says with a chuckle. “I went to Notre Dame to teach Catholics and ended up being shaped by Mennonites. I discovered that Jesus and the church were mutually interrelated. To worship Jesus is to bring to the world a witness of nonviolence that otherwise could not be seen.”

He reveals to us who Jesus is in a word, and that word being more powerful than we realize. In his words: "It raises questions that demands responses.”

“To be a worshipper of Christ is to be shaped by a cross that is a manifestation of God's love of our enemy. We must say ‘You can kill us, but you cannot determine the meaning of our death.’

The cross is a challenge to people who say 'Jesus is my Lord and Savior, but you have to kill someone every once in a while.’”

We discussed the great book The Politics of Jesus by his colleague John Howard Yoder, as well as the Kingdom of God, God’s will, and living the way Jesus intended.

He continues to eradicate false perceptions of what nonviolence is and is not, and how Jesus himself recreated community to bind people together to make God's kingdom real:

"The politics of Jesus exposed the false alternatives that claim to be peaceable but are in fact structural in their violence. God's will is to live in a world without violence. God's grace is always there making possible alternatives that would not be there without God's presence.”

He concludes, “God is patient with us in terms of our unfaithfulness in a way that gives us hope in a world that seems hopeless. In a world that has no time for patience, patience creates time and makes it possible for us to live our lives and work for nonviolent alternatives that otherwise would not be considered.”

Reignite your imagination, be inspired and encouraged by this wise Christian elder.

Check out: Stanleyhauerwas.org

beatitudescenter.org

This week I'm speaking with author, activist, and movement scholar Rivera Sun. Her novels include The Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning, Ari Ara Series. She is the editor of “Nonviolence News” and program coordinator of “Campaign Nonviolence,” an annual national week of action that with over 5000 events across the US around International Peace Day, Sept. 21st. Her articles are syndicated by Peace Voice and published in hundreds of journals nationwide.

She tells me all about 'One Million Rising", an effort to mobilize and train one million people with a nonviolent toolbox for 'noncooperation' and how to resist authoritarianism. Find out about all kinds of actions we can take along with street protests, and the many ways people are standing up to ICE.

Find out why we need to do some soul searching if we want to live in a democratic society, and according to Rivera: "decide if is this a normal presidency or a presidency that has stepped outside the rule of law,"

She appeals to us to "organize, speak out and invoke the articles of impeachment to remove the president from office. If we want to live in a democratic society, we have to demand it. Find what you want to work on and do that, because we need you in the movement!”

Rivera offered many examples, such as last month’s massive one day strike led by ten unions in India just a few weeks ago, which 300 million people joined. “There is a rising swell of activity against authoritarianism all around the world.”

At the end of the conversation, Rivera suggested six holistic practices of nonviolence that can help sustain us for the long haul and elaborates on the following:

1. Don't go alone; make friends in the movement, and join a community.

2. Take breaks. It's a relay race, a marathon not a sprint.

3. Take a breath, then act.

4. Be against the injustice, not the people; go after the policy. Remember that people can and will change; give them space to do that.

5. Try not to become what you oppose!

6. Reclaim love, integrity, and always strive to embody the deepest principles of nonviolence.

For more about Rivera Sun and her books, check out: www.riverasun.com

and www.campaignnonviolence.org

Listen in and be inspired!

Today I'm speaking with Dr. Ken Butigan, author, organizer, activist, speaker, nonviolence trainer, and leader of Pace e Bene, a Franciscan-based peace organization.

Ken is Professor of Practice in the Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies Program at DePaul. He has worked in a series of movements for social change, including campaigns addressing homelessness, nuclear weapons, freedom for East Timor, and the US wars in Iraq.

In the 1980s he was a founder and national coordinator of the Pledge of Resistance, which for nearly a decade mobilized nonviolent action for peace in Central America. He has worked for over 30 years with Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, which has trained tens of thousands of people in the power of nonviolent change and which organizes Campaign Nonviolence, a long-term, nationwide effort seeking to foster a more nonviolent culture free from war, poverty, racism, and environmental destruction.

In recent years, Ken works with Pax Christi International's Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and the Vatican to promote Gospel nonviolence literally around the world through the Catholic church. He has published seven books, including Pilgrimage through a Burning World: Spiritual Practice and Nonviolent Protest at the Nevada Test Site; Nonviolent Lives; and From Violence to Wholeness. Ken earned his Ph.D. in the Historical and Cultural Studies of Religions at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He lives in Chicago with his wife Cynthia and daughter Leah.

He shares with me his spiritual awakening as a young man and how it changed his life path and led him to take part in anti nuclear weapon demonstrations.

Dan shares with me: "I wasn't particularly political, but I was distressed by nuclear weapons, so I called Daniel Berrigan and asked to visit him when I was going to be in New York City. He invited me over. I was transformed in those 3 hours." Listen as he tells us how Dan Berrigan clarifies why Ken should in nonviolent organization.

When describing his leadership in various campaigns, he keeps returning to the refrain:

"We have more power than we think.” “

We stopped the official U.S. invasion of Nicaragua because of ordinary people power….Through the Nevada Desert Experience, by 1993, after over 25,000 were arrested at the Test site, we generated enough people power to get a test-ban treaty promulgated and signed by over 187 nations.

Through the Declaration of Peace, we helped end the U.S. war in Iraq in the mid-2000s.”

Be inspired and motivated by this conversation with this amazing human being who believes:

"We need each other, we need to be rooted in prayer, we need to follow the nonviolent Jesus, and create conditions for a global shift.”

Check out: www.paceebene.org

Philip Berrigan’s “Ministry of Risk” with Brad Wolf

By John Dear

On this week’s episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I welcome former prosecutor, professor, community college dean, and now full-time activist Brad Wolf from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Brad is executive director of Peace Action Network of Lancaster; co-coordinator of “The Merchant of Death War Crimes Tribunal;” and current chair of the U.S. organizing committee for the “People’s Tribunal on the Korean Victims of the 1945 Atomic Bombings.”

Brad recently edited the first ever collection of writings on peace and nonviolence by legendary activist Philip Berrigan, called A Ministry of Risk (Fordham University Press).

Brad tells me why his writings are so important, and how Philip and his brother Dan Berrigan were the St Peter and St Paul of their day as nonviolent activists:

With his brother Daniel, he was a leading voice and organizer against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. By the time of his death in 2002, he spent over 11 years of his life in prison for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against warmaking and nuclear weapons.

We discuss Phil’s leadership and daring actions from the Baltimore Four action in 1967, the Catonsville Nine action in 1968, and to the 1980 Plowshares disarmament action and the other plowshares actions Phil did, including one with John in December 1993.

Brad tells how during the pandemic, he read through Phil’s archives at Cornel and DePaul, and how on the first day, he found a quote from Phil that became the title of his book: “A ministry of risk goes unerringly to the side of the victims, to those threatened or destroyed by greed, prejudice, and war. From the side of those victims, it teaches two simple, indispensable lessons: first, that we all belong in the ditch, or in the breach, with the victims; and second that until we go to the ditch or into the breach, victimizing will not cease.”

“Phil was not fazed by anything,” Brad says. "You have to be faithful enough to suffer and daring enough to serve," Phil wrote. "Obeying God's Word can get you killed."

Reflecting on his long friendship with Phil and Dan, John added that they were the most “biblical” Christians he ever knew, who read the Bible day and night, and spent every day trying to obey the Word of God.

Brad talks about a question Phil put to a youth retreat in the late 1950s, a question that came to haunt him and motivate him for the rest of his life. “What does Christ ask of me?” Brad concludes that Phil would want us to wrestle with that question, and take new risks for peace and justice, to go into the breach, and follow the journey of the nonviolent Jesus. Listen in and be inspired! And check out:

www.philipberrigan.com

www.danielberrigan.org

www.merchantsofdeath.org

www.beatitudescenter.org

This week I reflect on what I call “Mary’s Advent Journey of Nonviolence,” from the Anunciation to the Visitation to the Magnificat.

Luke tells her story as the three movements of the spiritual life--from contemplative nonviolence to active nonviolence to the Magnificat as prophetic nonviolence.

How did Jesus learn his spectacular nonviolence? Luke tells us it is from his Holy Jewish mother, Mary and she can be our teacher too.

In the Anunciation, contemplates what God has told her in silence and stillness.

In the Visitation as active nonviolence, Mary reaches out to “love her neighbor” and “show compassion to someone in need.”

These public actions would become the bedrock teachings of Luke’s Jesus. In this second movement of nonviolence, when we reach out in love to serve someone in need, we bring peace, joy, and consolation. That’s what peacemakers do.

Mary also proclaims the greatness of the God of peace, announces that God is throwing down the rulers from their thrones and lifting up the lowly, and remembering God’s promise of mercy, of nonviolence!, for generations to come!

Like Mary, this Advent, we proclaim a prophetic announcement about the coming of God’s reign of peace and nonviolence here and now.

Listen in, take heart, and go forward into the Christmas blessings of contemplative, active and prophetic nonviolence! God bless everyone—Fr. John

beatitudescenter.org

*Note: Terry can sometimes be difficult to understand due to a medical condition: a written transcript of this episode is available for reading.

This week I welcome teacher, organizer and author, Terry Rynne, author of two important books, Jesus Christ Peacemaker, and Gandhi and Jesus” (Orbis Books).

Terry is a former priest from Chicago, who became a hospital administrator. Then from 1983-2003, he was President of Rynne Marketing Consulting Services which advised over 400 hospitals, in 48 states, over the 20 years.

In 2006, he received his PhD in Theology from Marquette University, and then in 2008, he co-founded, with his wife Sally, the Center for Peacemaking at Marquette University, which has gone on to make a huge difference in Milwaukee teach nonviolent conflict resolution skills in schools. For years, he has taught the Introduction to Peace Studies course at Marquette University. He is also chair of the Board of Beatitudes Center.

Terry speaks about the power of Gandhi’s salt march to mobilize the people of India to demand justice and independence, and in particular, the famous silent march to the Dharasana Salt Works, and how the world was shocked by the British response to the peaceful, unarmed, nonviolent movement.

“Jesus devoted his life to confronting the structures of oppression and violence and changing them,” he says. In the earliest Gospel, in one of his first public actions, Mark’s Jesus heals the man with the withered hand in the synagogue, and in the next sentence, we read that that the religious authorities met with the political leaders to plot the assassination of Jesus.

What did Jesus do? Terry asks. Why do they want to kill him? How are we to model his approach in our unjust world?

“Why did Jesus die?” Terry asks. "We, too, need to stand up, speak out and resist the structures of violence and oppression, even to the point of offending the powers that be".

Jesus also removed suffering from people; changed the culture's attitude towards violence; and turned enemies into friends. That’s his challenge for us.

“Nonviolence is at the heart of the gospel,” he concludes. “Nonviolence adds love even in the midst of conflict. These days, I have hope in the Catholic Church becoming a peaceful church that embraces nonviolence. We can get there.”

Listen in to this great teacher of nonviolence and be inspired!

For more information on the nonviolent Jesus: https://www.beatitudescenter.org

This week I share with you a Bible text that contains what I believe are the most profound spiritual teachings ever taught in human history.

They are the most radical, political, revolutionary words in the entire Bible, and we know historically that no one ever wrote these words. For the last 1,700 years, we Christians have done our best to pretend Jesus never said them.

If we want to follow the nonviolent Jesus, and these words are his bottom line, His fundamental teaching, then we need to spend time listening to them, taking them to heart, and figuring out how to apply them concretely to our own day to day lives in this terrible moment of permanent war and global destruction.

I explain how these words pertain to us as a nation, not just as individuals, and how the so-called Just War Theory is never mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount, the four Gospels or the New Testament. It is heresy and blasphemy.

Dive deep with me in these powerful, often ignored verses and how these words describe the nature of God in the simplest, clearest terms.

The image of a God of nonviolence is a breakthrough in human history. It is the heart of Jesus’ message and continues to be rejected. It challenges us to question our image of God.

Is our God violent or nonviolent?

Do we want the God of universal nonviolent love that Jesus tells us about?

If we want to be sons and daughters of the living God, are we willing to practice the same universal nonviolent love as God and to accept the social, economic, and political consequences for our public stand?

Any idea what this life-changing, all powerful verse is? This is my call to universal love and for you to be inspired as we follow the nonviolent Jesus together.

More can be found in my book The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence.

https://www.beatitudescenter.org

Episode #30 with Michele Dunne, on Monday, July 28th

This week I speak with Michele Dunne, director of the Franciscan Action Network. Michele is a professed Secular Franciscan (there are over 200,000 in the world) who has had a long career as a diplomat in the Middle East and then a scholarly researcher focused on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy.

From 2006 until 2021, she headed programs focused on peace, human rights, and democracy in the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Atlantic Council.

Over the years, she’s been a regular commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Before that, she served for nearly 20 years in the U.S. State Department, including assignments in Jerusalem and Cairo. She holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University and lives in Washington DC with her husband.

Michele shares with us what the Franciscan Action Network is, and does with its 17,000 members in the U.S., and why she is part of it.

“Today, we've got this broken relationship between humanity and creation." Michele tells how Franciscans have been celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Canticle of the Sun, St. Francis’ poem/prayer to ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon' and how it inspires her today:

"St. Francis had an incredible kinship with all humanity, with all humans as brothers and sisters, and with all creation. We all need to find that kinship today."

She asks the questions that make a difference to followers of the nonviolent Jesus: "‘What is God's will for me? What is mine to do?’ We all need to show up and find what's ours to do and do it.”

Visit www.franciscanaction.org and www.beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Rev. Charles McCarthy, one of the world’s great teachers of Christian nonviolence.

Rev. McCarthy is a priest of one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Byzantine-Melkite, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, ordained in Damascus, Syria. He is a co-founder of Pax Christi-USA, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and author of "The Nonviolent Eucharist", "Christian Just War Theory: The Logic of Deceit" and "The Stations of the Cross of Nonviolent Love".

He has been a Catholic priest for forty years with a Master's Degrees in English and Theology from Notre Dame, and a Doctorate in Jurisprudence from Boston College Law School.

He was married for 53 years to Mary Margaret McCarthy, and they have 13 children and 23 grandchildren. (The cure of their daughter, Teresia Benedicta, was the official miracle for the canonization of Sr. Terese Benedicta, St. Edith Stein).

Charles McCarthy taught at the University of Notre Dame where he founded and was the original Director of The Program for the Study and Practice of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution. He served for many years at St. Gregory, the Theologian Byzantine-Melkite Catholic Seminary. For over fifty years he directed retreats and spoke at conferences throughout the world on the Nonviolent Jesus.

He describes how he defines nonviolence, and how that is modeled by Jesus in the Gospels and what our action taking looks like in the face of violence.

When asked how he defines “nonviolence,” he begins by saying, “Nonviolence is the nonviolent love of friends and enemies modeled by Jesus in the Gospels. Nonviolence asks, ‘Is this action that you are doing imbued with Christlike, nonviolent love?’

"Any action without love is nothing at all. If our actions are not motivated by and imbued with Christlike love, they are not going to be effective in countering evil and death."

“I've never been able to get beyond the fact that when the will of God is known, what follows immediately is an imperative to live it, embrace it, and follow it. When I thought of God, I thought of power, but God is something entirely different.

Find out more as we listen to Rev. Charles McCarthy and the revelation of God's love throught the most horrendous conditions, as modeled by the nonviolent Jesus.

Check it out, and read more at:

www.emmanuelcharlesmccarthy.org

www.beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Art Laffin, long-time peace activist, author, and Catholic Worker.

Art was a member of the Covenant Peace community in Connecticut in the 1970s, then joined the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C. in the late 1970s, where he still lives with his wife and son. He has been active in the faith-based nonviolent movements for peace, social justice, disarmament, and human rights.

Find out why he has been imprisoned for nonviolent actions with the plowshares movement. He is also the author of a new edition of The Risk of the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age, co-editor of Swords into Plowshares, and co-editor of Arise and Witness: Poems by Anne Montgomery, About Faith, Prison, War Zones, and Nonviolent Resistance.

He tshares his experiences with his mentors and friends, Fr. Richard McSorley, Dan and Phil Berrigan and Henri Nouwen, and what they taught him how "everything makes a difference".

He speaks about the Plowshares movement, his actions and time in prison, as well as keeping a peace vigil every Monday morning at the Pentagon—since 1990!

" People ask, 'What difference does it make?'"

We ask, “What happens if we're not there?"

Hear how the words of Jesus have inspired Art to renounce all forms of violence and killing, and how he has responded in his life as an activist and Catholic Worker.

Speaking about the upcoming 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th, he also tells us why we need to heed the cry of the Hibakusha:

“Humanity and weapons cannot co-exist. We need to heed Jesus' gospel call to nonviolence. We need to hear Dr. King’s message just before he was killed: “The choice is no longer violence or nonviolence; it’s nonviolence or non-existence.”

What is the solution to standing for life where it is threatened and has activist and founder of the Catholic Worker Dorothy Day influenced him?

How does Jesus open up a new nonviolent history so we don't lose heart?

Listen in to Art Laffin, take heart, and be encouraged to be a doer of the Word, and to carry on the long haul of Gospel nonviolence and universal love!

beatitudescenter.org

catholicworker.org

Author, actor, poet, musician, producer, philosopher, theologist and iconic thought leader Dr. Cornel West joins me on this episode; among the many things we discuss, he tells me:

“We are witnessing the collapse and implosion of the American empire in real time,.

Why does Dr. West think "the country is in deep trouble"?

Like millions of others, I consider Cornel West the leading public intellectual of our time, right up there with Emerson and WEB DuBois. Brother Cornel graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. He is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.

He has written 20 books and has edited 13, and is best known for his groundbreaking bestsellers Race Matters and Democracy Matters (and his cameos in The Matrix series).

“Every empire comes and goes,” Cornel said to me. “They begin to decay and decline because of military overreach and end up reaping what they sow. There is a spiritual and moral vacuum right now. "

What does Dr. West think is the cause of the collapse and implosion of the American empire as we are experiencing it in real time?

He also offers us an astonishing analogy which I never heard anyone else say before, based on the classic tale of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and how we can never lose hope:

“Gold, status, position, spectacle, white power, all forms of idolatry lead toward self-destruction…We can never be surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair.”

Listen in and be inspired by this Christian intellectual about the crises we face and how we can respond with the power of love and nonviolence:

“To be a follower of Jesus means to take up your cross and follow him,” he said to me with his usual passion. “Love means courage, integrity, and honesty. We will always be viewed as foolish, but we lead with love, and love our way through the darkness and cruelty. Love requires tremendous risk and sacrifice. Nonviolence without love is just a strategy and a tactic.

His conviction goes deep and his words ring true: Love is the fundamental criteria. But love is never crushed, joy is never crushed, love is never eliminated. So, we will never forget, cave in, give up, or sell our souls.”

Join us in this empowering conversation as we follow the nonviolent Jesus together!

cornelwest.com

beatitudescenter.com

As we recorded this episode, Kathy is participating in and coordinating a 40 day fast for an end to the US backed Israeli genocide in Israel, which began on May 22nd. When we spoke, she was placed on a 250 calories a day intake to keep her heart rate up.

"We need to stand up against US military funding for Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.” That’s what Kathy Kelly told me, what she insists upon. Unicef calls the genocide in Gaza "The War Against Children".

"The US backed Israeli genocide in Gaza needs to stop."

Long time peace activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Kathy Kelly has traveled the war zones of the world, and stood with all those targeted for death by the United States more than anyone else I know, from Central America to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.

Find out why I consider her the greatest living peacemaker in the United States, one of the great saints of our time.

She has travelled the world to the places bombed and attacked by our country over the last three decades in an effort to “make peace” and “love our enemies.” With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 - 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions.

She led my 1999 FOR delegation of Nobel Laureates to Iraq.

Kathy was in Iraq throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank's Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense.

Kathy Kelly is board president of “World Beyond War.” From 2022 to the present, she has co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul.

“Many of the Israeli weapons used in Gaza are of US origin,” she says. “It's crucial to go to weapons manufacturers and protest. It's important to raise the lament, and then to follow up with organizing.

We must keep trying to figure out how to organize and get a ceasefire. Love of our brothers and sisters in other countries makes so much sense right now. It's dependent on the people in the pews to speak out and follow the nonviolent Jesus.” She suggests we ask ourselves, “Is there a greater risk I might be willing to take?”

“Don’t be afraid,” Kathy tells us. “Seek ways to embrace the so-called enemy. Look for the people nearest to you who are practicing the works of mercy rather than the works of war, and align yourself with them.”

I hope you will listen in to Kathy’s plea for peace in Gaza, her living solidarity with the victims of war and hunger, and her ongoing work to promote a more nonviolent world, and be inspired. May the God of peace bless us all!

“Nonviolence is both the deepest core of our being and also the destiny of the human race,” Michael Nagler says on this week’s episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast.” “All human progress has been a progress toward nonviolence.”

Is he right?

Michael Nagler is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, and co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program and UC Berkeley and the Metta Center for Nonviolence. He has dedicated his life to teaching nonviolence, spirituality, and meditation.

He is co-host of Nonviolence Radio and his books include The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World; The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action; Looking for Light; and The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature. (See www.mettacenter.org)

“Violence is a terribly destructive frame of mind and practice,” Michael teaches. He also teaches us in this episode the practice of nonviolence through meditation, and what it means to discover our nonviolent capacity and how to implement that in the world.

He tells of the outcome of the only mass public demonstration by non-Jewish Germans in 1943, now known as the Rosenstrasse protest.

"There is little nonviolence education happening," he laments. Teachers of nonviolence like Michael Nagler help us to renounce our violence, learn the wisdom of nonviolence, plumb the spiritual depths of God’s nonviolence, and energize us to stand up and do what we can for disarmament and justice.

Listen as he explains how meditation can deepen our spiritual awareness, of ourselves and other human beings, and gives us concrete instruction to slow our minds down.

Let him inspire you with his wisdom and thoughtfulness:

"Whatever is positive, true, and good in human nature is real and available to every one of us.”

beatitudescenter.org

mettacenter.org

24: My guest today is Frida Berrigan, the daughter of legendary activists Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister, and niece of Daniel Berrigan. She offers us an intimate look into her childhood as a daughter of full time protesters at Jonah House, a community in Baltimore, and her life today.

The community at Jonah House protested full-time for decades. Her housemates were regularly arrested and jailed, including her parents: "We were just driving down to the Pentagon all the time, my parents never sugar coated anything for us,” she says. “

"They let it be known to us that any change we wanted to see in the world, we had to make ourselves. And if we didn't see the change, it was still worth doing what we could. We always knew that it was our responsibility to bear witness and resist as much as possible."

I also ask her about the upcoming 80th anniversary of U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6th. She shares with me why this anniversary is so important, who the Hibakusha are, and what we need to do today to make sure they are never forgotten.

In 2015, Frida published her book, It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood, about growing up in the Berrigan family. She has worked for years at the World Policy Institute studying U.S. military policy and nuclear weapons.

She also cofounded Witness against Torture, a campaign calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay detention center and the end of U.S. backed use of torture and continues to write, organize and speak out for justice and disarmament.

And this year she tells how she got blessed and arrested on Ash Wednesday this year and why she was protesting outside the UN building in New York:

“Nuclear weapons are not on people's hearts. We are reminding people that nuclear weapons are still here and threatening the planet. They're not going to disarm themselves. We need to do that!”

This episode is a unique look into the ordinary life of a committed full time activist and demonstrator, hear her call to resistance and be inspired to go forward working for disarmament, justice and peace!

beatitudescenter.org

“We’re living through a dark night of our species, our society, and our souls,” my friend Matthew Fox tells me. A world-renowned theologian, Episcopal priest, and long-time activist, Matthew has written over 37 books, including Original Blessing, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, and The Hidden Spirituality of Men.

This episode is for all seekers of peace, spiritual warriors, contemplative artists, and activists of the heart. If you're longing to root your nonviolence in deeper spirituality, and your spirituality in bold action — this conversation will speak directly to your soul.

In our conversation, Matthew pulls no punches.

“We’re in the middle of a coup,” he says. “American democracy is being hijacked by billionaires in the name of authoritarianism. The movement culminating in Trump began over 40 years ago—gathering racism, revenge, and resentment. Project 2025 is deeply anti-Christ. But we don’t talk about evil—we reduce it to sin.”

Find out what "spiritual forces" really are—and what he names as the evil spirits that return every generation and how we resist and transform our society.

🔔 Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help spread the message of gospel nonviolence and sacred resistance.

📢 Invite your friends, spiritual communities, protest circles, and music collaborators to tune in. The time to gather and rise is now.

🎧 Listen and 👉Follow Fr. John Dear and The Nonviolent Jesus on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and beyond.

The Nonviolent Jesus is a production of the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus.

beatitudescenter.org

This is a conversation for anyone seeking to link deep spirituality with bold, prophetic action. I hope you’ll join us, take Matthew’s words to heart, and let them strengthen your own path of nonviolence.

This week I speak with my friend Mike Martin, a blacksmith and founder of RAWtools.org, one of the most creative Christian peacemaking projects in the country.

To me, this is what the Advent work of "beating guns into garden tools" is all about: getting ready for the coming of peace on earth.

Mike Martin is a former Mennonite youth pastor and licensed for this specialized ministry by the Mennonite Conference. He learned to how to blacksmith in order to turn guns into garden tools. He is the co-author of a great book with our friend Shane Claiborne, Beating Guns: Hope for people who are weary of violence. See www.beatingguns.com

I first met Mike about 10 years ago at the Wildgoose Christian summer festival in North Carolina. I was giving a talk on peacemaking in a tent, and Mike was outside banging away on handguns and putting them into a fire, and eventually, turning them into plowshares, garden tools, and little crosses to wear around your neck--I kid you not.

It was thrilling. I was talking about beating swords into plowshares, but he was actually doing it, and you could take part in it, and hammer on a gun, and maybe buy one of his new creations.

Since then, his project has taken off around the country. Check out: www.rawtools.org

“I've probably hammered on a gun barrel thousands of times and it feels meaningful every time,” he tells me. “We're using raw tools--not war tools--to transform the world. We offer a safe space for gun violence survivors to heal.”

"Gun violence survivors tells us it's the first time they can deal with their anger or pain in a healthy way, you're destroying the thing that brought you harm to transforming something that can cultivate life ."

Be inspired by a former Mennonite pastor and blacksmith that has created a unique movement to disarm hearts, promote peace and cultivate justice.

Listen in and learn how to do your Advent part of preparing for the coming of peace on earth. God bless everyone!

www.rawtools.org

beatingguns.com

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the strongest voices and advocates for democracy and truth, about movements, democracy, and nonviolence. He represents Maryland’s 8th Con. District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Raskin was previously a state senator in Maryland where he helped abolish the death penalty and gain marriage equality. Before that, he was a professor of constitutional law at American University for more than 25 years.

He has authored several books, including the Washington Post best-seller Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People, the acclaimed We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About America’s Students, and the New York Times #1 best-seller Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy, about the death of his beloved son Tommy, followed two weeks later by the Jan. 6th insurrection led by Trump.

Jamie shares with us his harrowing story of hiding under a desk with his daughter and son-in-law sending what they thought were farewell texts while a violent mob was pounding on the door screaming death threats.

He was appointed to lead the 2nd impeachment trial of Donald Trump. It ended in the most sweeping bipartisan vote to convict an impeached president in history. He also served on the committee to investigate the Jan. 6th attack.

"We're in the fight of our lives and have been since the beginning of this nightmare,” he says at the start. “But people are galvanized and mobilizing all across the country."

Listen to this incredible leader of democracy and constitutional expert explain in his own words what democracy means to him and how we have to be a part of saving the country we live in.

“The whole Constitution is under attack, and we need the whole people to defend it. Democracy is the system that relies on nonviolent expression.”

Hear why he calls to us to "be the hope!”

https://raskin.house.gov

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with my friend, filmmaker and author Gerry Straub about his life making films about extreme poverty around the world, and then his move to Haiti where he founded the Santa Chiara Children’s Center, an orphanage for children in war-torn Port au Prince.

Last year, he had to flee Haiti because of the total violence and anarchy that has swept through the country. Since then, he’s been living in Florida and helping the orphanage online and via zoom.

He has now written a new book about his mythic journey from Hollywood, where he was once the director of the soap opera “General Hospital,” to Assisi, where he wrote his award- winning book about St. Francis called The Sun and the Moon Over Assisi, to his founding Pax Et Bonum Communications, where for twenty years he traveled into the poorest slums on the planet and made some 20 movies about extreme poverty.

All those films can now be watched for free online at www.paxetbonumcomm.org (including the film he made about my work for nonviolence, “The Narrow Path”).

“I was just trying to understand St Francis' love of the poor and poverty itself,” he tells me at the start. “I knew could put the power of film to the service of the poor.”

Gerry moved to Haiti himself and started the orphanage. His new spiritual memoir, The Cross of Love, The Pain of Poverty, (with a foreword by me) is available online and all proceeds go to the orphanage.

To learn about Santa Chiara, or offer a donation, please visit www.santachiaracc.org.

“We wanted the children to live a nonviolent life. In this horrible place of screaming kids and gun shots, something beautiful was created.”

Listen in and be inspired!

www.paxetbonumcomm.org

www.santachiaracc.org

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with long time social justice activist and church leader, Wes Granberg-Michaelson on his inspiring new book, The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action.

Wes Granberg-Michaelson is a writer, speaker, and global ecumenical leader who worked in the 1970s and 1980s as the assistant to progressive US Senator Mark Hatfield, then Sojourners magazine, and then the World Council of Churches.

During COVID, he reread the daily journal he kept for over 50 years, and discovered four key movements that transformed him over the course of his lifelong work for justice, which we discuss: self-sufficiency to belonging; rational certainty to spiritual connection; grandiosity to authenticity; and control to trust.

“Grandiosity is in the water in our culture, particularly our political culture,” he says. “It's so important to learn to keep asking ourselves, ‘Where am I discovering my true self, and really knowing that I'm beloved, not because of what I do, but because of God's action to love me?’”

He concludes by offering eight guideposts for activists. Check it out and be inspired to go deeper within so that your public work for justice and peace will be more rooted and grounded in God and God’s love.

www.wesgm.com

beatitudescenter.org