The Nonviolent Jesus

Today I speak with my friend Lisa Sharon Harper. Lisa is a theologian, speaker, author, activist and trainer who has worked in Ferguson and Charlottesville, as well as South Africa, Brazil, Australia, Ireland and across the U.S.
Her 2022 book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World--And How To Repair It All, was named “Book of the Year” by Word and Way.
Her 2016 book, The Very Good Gospel, was named “Book of the Year” by the Englewood Review of Books.
After her leadership at Sojourners magazine, she founded Freedom Road, where she is the host of its podcast and column on Substack. The Huffington Post named her one of 50 Women Religious Leaders to Celebrate on International Women’s Day. (See: )
When I asked her about these days of social injustice, white supremacy and permanent warmaking under Trump, she spoke of crying every die.
“I actually have hope but I'm grieving like the rest of the country,” she said.
“I cry because of the Church's silence during the Obama era and back to the 70s/80s during the rise of the religious right. People didn't know what was right, just and Jesus's way…Evil is embedded in the Constitution and in the 3/4 compromise.
I grieve for our inaction in the past. It didn't have to be this way, but in every generation, there is a remnant. There has always been a witness of the actual Jesus way of being in the world."
"Right now, that witness is alive and well.”
She told three stories:
Her time in Ferguson in August, 2014 after Michael Brown was killed by a white policeman;
Her time in Charlottesville, VA, when she was present in the protest against Trump’s neo-Nazis who killed Heather Heyer;
Our experience when we were arrested and in the D.C. Central Cell block jail after protesting at the Supreme Court on the 40th anniversary of the U.S. death penalty.
She shares about her organization, Freedom Road, which trains people of faith to take public action for justice, as well as her recent best-selling books and why she wrote them.
“Nonviolence is the only way for people who are not on the upside of empire to fight back,” she concludes.
"Nonviolence is the only way to not be at war with God.”
Listen in and be inspired by this peacemaker to carry on!
Lisa Sharon Harper
Follow Lisa on Substack
www.freedomroad.us
beatitudescenter.org
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🌻, John

Today I speak with one of the great peacemakers of our time, my friend Zoughbi Zoughbi of Bethlehem, Palestine.
Zoughbi is a lifelong Catholic Palestinian activist, organizer and teacher of Gospel nonviolence.
Long ago he founded the Wi’am Center, the Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center in the center of Bethlehem. Wi'am is widely recognized as a place of nonviolent conflict resolution that helps Palestinians in the day to day struggle for justice and peace (www.alaslah.org)
For the last few years, he has also served as the president of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, which is the oldest peace group in the world (www.ifor.org).
Whenever you think you are working too hard for justice and peace, remember Zoughbi!
“This is the first time in history that Bethlehem and Jerusalem are separated, that you cannot travel between them,” he says. “We are living in reservations, separated from each other. Bethlehem is becoming a smaller reservation surrounded by 23 settlements and many outposts.
The West Bank is a prison; Gaza is a concentration camp. Every day, we see more prisoners, houses being demolished, state violence, settler violence, environmental violence. The situation is moving from worse to the worst.”
“I want my people to live their life and know their rights, to work for a culture of acceptance, to resolve conflict nonviolently. We are exposing the atrocities of the Occupation, and ask people to be in solidarity for us.
We are all global citizens of a global world. I want all Christian brothers and sisters to walk in our shoes. Come and visit! Stop aiding and supporting Israel, its weapons, wars and occupation.
"I don't want the Holy Land to become a museum without people.”
When asked about the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, he says, “Our dream is to educate all children in the world in peace and nonviolence, to get all religious leaders to preach the refusal of war, terrorism and violence, to get everyone to work for a world without war and nuclear weapons.”
Zoughbi reminds us of how Jesus was during Roman occupation: “Jesus was soft on people, but hard on the system,” he concludes.
“He asks us to love each other and to struggle against injustice…. Be the salt, the yeast and the light… Hope for me is a form of nonviolent struggle. We are going to become the Beloved Community one day!”
Listen to the voice of a Palestinian peacemaker in Bethlehem speaking words of encouragement for all of us and be transformed!
beatitudescenter.org
https://substack.com/@fatherjohndear
🌻, John

Dear friends,
This week I speak with one of the great peacemakers of our times, my friend Mel Duncan about unarmed civilian protectors and the Nonviolent Peaceforce that has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016.
Mel has been a leader in developing the practice of unarmed civilian protection for over two decades:
He started providing nonviolent protective presence along Nicaragua’s northern border in 1984 during the Contra war. In 2002 along with David Hartsough and Mary Lou Ott he co-founded Nonviolent Peaceforce nonviolentpeaceforce.org
Nonviolent Peaceforce’s “nonviolent civilian protectors” provide direct protection to civilians caught in violent conflict and work with local groups to prevent further violence and sustain peace in a variety of conflict areas including South Sudan, Ukraine, the Philippines and the United States.
Mel has represented Nonviolent Peaceforce at the United Nations where the group has been granted Consultative Status. Recent UN global reviews as well as Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions have cited and recommended unarmed civilian protection. The American Friends Service Committee nominated Nonviolent Peaceforce for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 2018 Nonviolent Peaceforce received the Luxembourg Peace Prize.
Since retiring in 2023, Mel has helped organize a team of unarmed civilian protectors who are now working in Palestine as “Unarmed Civilian Protection.” He worked there for six months in 2025. For the past few months during the ICE occupation, he has been providing protective presence in St. Paul where he lives.
When I asked about Palestine, he said, “The violence has intensified greatly since the attacks on Iran and Lebanon. It's provided a cover for Israelis to brutally attack Palestinian civilians.
What can people do? As Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, we pray with our feet. Know that the Kingdom of God is here and now; it's a consciousness in all of us. Even when it's hopeless, we can continue on.”
Mel tells us how thousands of people over the last 25 years have learned Nonviolent Peaceforce skills to take back to their own communities.
There are now over 60 other civil society groups now doing this kind of work in 24 areas of the world.
Mel says: "We stress the two hand approach: we resist the injustice with one hand while we reach out to the humanity in every one of us with the other.”
Listen in and be inspired to step up your Gospel nonviolence!
ucpip.org
beatitudescenter.org

🌻, John

This week I speak with the beloved spiritual writer Joyce Rupp.
An international retreat leader and conference speaker, Joyce is the author of three dozen bestselling books on compassion, grief, aging in midlife and in the later years, prayers and poems for every occasion, reflections on nature, and a memoir.
Among her bestsellers are Boundless Compassion; Return to the Root; Jesus Guide of My Life; Constant Hope; Dear Heart Come Home; Praying Our Goodbyes; Inviting God In; and Walk in a Relaxed Manner. Orbis Books also published Joyce Rupp: Essential Writings.
She is a member of the Servite community (Servants of Mary), was a volunteer for Hospice for fifteen years, and lives in West Des Moines, Iowa.
“Elderhood is really all about surrender,” she tells me as we discuss her new book, The Years of Ripening. “But I like the word ‘acceptance’ better."
She shares with us her thoughts on the aging process, self-compassion, surrender and vulnerability.
Be encouraged, inspired and lifted up, you can also order her 2026 Nautilus Award winning book The Years of Ripening: Reflections on Aging in the Later Years" here
"Acceptance and being with the process of surrender and letting go lead us to being at home in the heart of God. We can't give in to discouragement,” she concludes. “It doesn't get us anywhere!”
You can find me on Substack @FatherJohnDear
beatitudescenter.org
joycerupp.com
IG: @joyceruppauthor
🌻, John

Today is Part 2 of my conversation with scripture scholar John Dominic Crossan along with Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, about their new book, Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God’s Reign on Earth Then and Now.
Co-author Michael Okinczyc-Cruz is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership in Chicago where he is a community organizer. He is also a professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University of Chicago.

“One cannot look at our current political moment and not think about Jesus,” Dom Crossan says. “
Jesus’ teaching had to do with the lived realities of the oppressed people of his time. Jesus did faith-based community organizing and his nonviolent movement has ongoing relevance for today,” he says.
Their new book, Jesus and Justice, reflects on Jesus as a grassroots movement organizer of nonviolent resistance, and combines Dom’s scholarship with Michael’s organizing work on the streets of Chicago.
“In Chicago,” he says,“you could encounter Border Patrol and ICE agents roaming the streets, arresting people based on the color of their skin. Conditions were so horrific in detention, one local judge described it as a concentration camp. We organized thousands of people to protest these conditions, and our grassroots movement has made some progress. The distinctive nature of our work is nonviolence in all our actions and our words. This is how we follow Jesus.”
“This path of nonviolence is the only path to an approximation of God's reign,” Dom concludes.
“What's happening in our country is a revelation of who we are. We have a savage culture. We need people of good faith to be engaged, organize nonviolently and take risks and action to pursue and live out God's reign in our hearts and here on earth.”
beatitudescenter.org
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