Welcome to the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus!
December 1st, 2025
Episode #48, John Dear in conversation with Rep. Jamie Raskin
This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of our 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. After the violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, he led 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.Next week…
The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Mike Martin! For more information, visit here.
December 8th, 2025
Episode #49, John Dear in conversation with activist Mike Martin on beating guns into garden tools!
This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with Mike Martin, a blacksmith and founder of RAWtools.org, one of the most creative Christian peacemaking projects in the country. This, John suggests, is what Advent is all about: beating swords into plowshares, preparing the way for the nonviolent Jesus, and 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 Shane Claiborne, Beating Guns: Hope for people who are weary of violence. [See www.beatingguns.com]Next week…
The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes John Dear! For more information, visit here.
December 15th, 2025
Episode #50, John Dear on Mary’s Advent Journey of Nonviolence
This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear offers an Advent reflection on Luke 1, “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.Next week…
The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes John Dear on the Epiphany of Christmas! For more information, visit here.
Upcoming Zoom Programs:
Elizabeth Johnson in a Special Christmas Conversation with John Dear on “The Theology of the Incarnation of the God of Peace in a World of War”
Saturday December 20, 2025
11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern
Paula D’Arcy, “Blessed are those who mourn”
Saturday January 24, 2026
11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern
Rev. Charlie McCarthy, “The Nonviolent Jesus Is, Before Abraham or the World Was”
Saturday February 14, 2026
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”
To invite John Dear to speak in your city, write to: john@beatitudescenter.org
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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
December 11, 2025
Dear friends, Blessings of Christ’s Peace!
On the next episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” Monday December 15th, I reflect on Luke 1, what I call “Mary’s Advent Journey of Nonviolence,” from the Anunciation to the Visitation to the Magnificat. I think Luke presents Mary as Jesus’ teacher of nonviolence, and she can be our teacher too. 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 says from Mary, his holy Jewish mother. Mary’s journey begins with contemplative prayer, so Luke teaches that the spiritual journey of peace and nonviolence begins with contemplative peace and nonviolence. The Annunciation is a scene of contemplative prayer where Mary communes with the God of peace. She surrenders her life to God, does only God’s will, listens attentively for God, and in that silence and stillness, encounters God and is ready to say Yes.
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, we learn to reach out in love and compassion to serve someone in need, and bring peace, joy, and consolation. That’s what peacemakers do.