Listen on Apple, Spotify, all major platforms,
and the National Catholic Reporter

June 29, 2026

Episode #789, John Dear in conversation with Lisa Sharon Harper

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with 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: www.freedomroad.us)

Asked about these days of social injustice, white supremacy and permanent warmaking under Trump, she said she cries every day. “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 goes all the way back to the Constitution, 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: of 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; and our experience 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 shared about her organization, Freedom Road, which trains people of faith to take public action for justice, as well as her recent best-selling books.

“Nonviolence is the only way for people who are not on the upside of empire to fight back,” she concluded. “Nonviolence is the only way to not be at war with God.” Listen in and be inspired by this peacemaker to carry on! God bless you!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Wes Howard-Brook! For more information, visit here.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, all major platforms,
and the National Catholic Reporter

June 22, 2026

Episode #77, John Dear in conversation with Zoughbi Zoughbi of Bethlehem, Palestine

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with one of the great peacemakers of our time, his 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.”

“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 in and be inspired! God bless you!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Lisa Sharon Harper! For more information, visit here.

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