Welcome to the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus!

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June 2nd, 2025

#22, John Dear on Mt. 5:39—the Most Revolutionary–and Most Disobeyed–Teaching in the Gospels

This week, John Dear takes a deep dive into Jesus’ specific commandment on nonviolent resistance in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:39-43. He tells 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,” John suggests. “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!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes John Dear in conversation with Matthew Fox! For more information, visit here.

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and the National Catholic Reporter

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May 26, 2025

#21, John Dear Talks with Bishop John Stowe, head of Pax Christi, the Catholic peace movement

“We have to sustain each other in hope!” That’s what Bishop John Stowe, the bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, and the president of Pax Christi, the national Catholic peace movement, tells John Dear this week on the latest episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast.”

 
“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?”
 

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 in to their conversation on Jesus and peacemaking for wisdom and encouragement to go forward in hope!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes John Dear! For more information, visit here.

Upcoming Zoom Programs:

A Conversation on “The God of Universal Love and Compassion”
with Elizabeth Johnson

Saturday June 7, 2025

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

“Bonhoeffer and Resistance to Tyranny and Organized Stupidity” with Larry Rasmussen

Saturday July 5, 2025

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

 “The Bible as a Call Out of Empire into the God of Peace” with Wes Howard-Brook

Saturday August 2, 2025

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

John Dear’s new book now available

“The Gospel of Peace:
Reading Matthew, Mark & Luke
from the Perspective of Nonviolence”

For info, click here
 
To order, Call Orbis Books at 1-800-258-5838
 
Visit Fr. John’s 2025 Speaking Schedule
 
 
 

To invite John Dear to speak in your city, write to: john@beatitudescenter.org 

National Catholic Reporter Review of “The Gospel of Peace,” click here
 
To watch Fr. John’s interview with Dean Young of Grace Cathedral about the book, click here
 
To watch Fr. John’s sermon at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, on Jan. 21, 2024, (at the 30 minute mark) click here

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LATEST NEWS FROM THE BEATITUDES CENTER

Quote for the Day: 

“The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the
adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the God of peace as the waters cover the sea.”

(Isaiah 11:6–9)

Quote for the Day: 

“I am called in the Word of God — as is everyone else — to the vocation of being human, nothing more and nothing less … To be a Christian
means to be called to be an exemplary human being. And to be a Christian categorically does not mean being religious. Indeed, all religious versions of the gospel are profanities. In the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, speak the truth. Confront the noise and verbiage and falsehood of death with the truth and potency and efficacy of the Word of God. Know the Word, teach the Word, nurture the Word, preach the Word, define the Word, incarnate the Word, do the Word, live the Word. And more than that, in the Word of God, expose death and all death’s works and wiles, rebuke lies,
cast out demons, exorcise, cleanse the possessed,
raise those who are dead in mind and conscience.”
–William Stringfellow

June 2, 2025

Dear friends, Blessings of Christ’s Peace! 


     This Saturday, June 7th, I’ll be speaking with one of our greatest theologians, Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, about “The God of Universal Love and Compassion,” the most beautiful topic in the world. I invite you to join me, share this with your friends, listen to her, ask your questions, and take a step forward into the God of Universal Love and Compassion. I don’t know how we could better spend our time.

   I think God gives us the freedom to reject God and God’s way of love, compassion, and nonviolence, and that even though all humanity has chosen to do exactly that, nonetheless, we still go forward and give our lives to serve the God of universal love and compassion by serving humanity and working for a new culture of love, compassion, and nonviolence.

     A former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and also of the American Theological Society, an ecumenical association, Sr. Elizabeth Johnson is the author of many great books such as She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (which received the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Religion); Come Have Breakfast; Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God; and Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love. Please join me as we listen to this great teacher and bring your questions.

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