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July 6, 2026

Episode #79, John Dear in conversation with Wes Howard-Brook

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with scripture scholar Wes Howard-Brook, author of several great books, including his commentary on the Gospel of John, Becoming Children of God, his free YouTube commentary “The Radical Bible,” and his study of the Bible as a whole called, Come Out My People!: God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond. He just published a smaller, more accessible version of it called: Creation or Empire: A Choice of Religions in the Bible and Beyond.
 
“Most Christians treat the Bible like someone who’s been on a one-week tourist trip with a bad tour guide, which is to say they’ve gotten a superficial overview and had it interpreted wrongly, and then concluded, ‘Why would I want to go there again?’” he says. “The heart of my work is trying to re-establish a passion for biblical literacy, because as all indigenous cultures know, as a people, you are the stories that carry you forward.
 
“The Bible is a set of narratives, poems, proverbs, and other texts that were written by our Israelite and Judean ancestors to get their children to grapple with one central question: what kind of people does God intend us to be?
 
“The Bible proposes two choices: the religion of creation and the religion of empire. Jesus enters into that 2,000 year old argument among his people: are we to be a powerful empire in the name of God, centered in Jerusalem, to which all the nations will stream and bow down to us and our God? Or is creation the temple; do we find the Creator in the creation, and every created being is part of that? Jesus plainly and explicitly sides with the religion of creation and resists empire.” Listen in and be inspired by this Bible scholar to find the Creator in creation and resist empire! God bless you!  
 

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Fr. Ron Rolheiser! For more information, visit here.

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and the National Catholic Reporter

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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.

Upcoming Zoom Programs:

John Dominic Crossan and Michael Okinczyc-Cruz on “Jesus and Justice”

Saturday July 11, 2026

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



Joyce Rupp in conversation with John Dear on “Compassion and Prayer”

Saturday July 25, 2026

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



Todd Walatka on Saint Oscar Romero’s Prophetic Voice for Peace

Saturday August 22, 2026

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



Robert Jonas, “Teachings and Stories of Henri Nouwen on the 30th anniv. of his death”

Saturday September 19, 2026

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



The Gospel of Mark and the Nonviolent Jesus: A 4 Week Monday Series with John Dear, October, 2026

Mondays October 5, 12, 19, 26, 2026

4 PM Pacific, 5 PM Mountain, 6 PM Central, 7PM Eastern



John Dear’s new book

Universal Love:
Surrendering to the God of Peace
By John Dear

For more information, click here
 
Available from www.orbisbooks.com or call 1-800-258-5838, or Amazon.com
 
 
“One of the people I respect most on this earth and whose winsome company I enjoy most is Fr. John Dear. In this short, valuable, and practical book, John shares his conversations with a young spiritual seeker named Will who came to him seeking spiritual guidance. As I read each chapter, I felt like I was meeting with John for coffee, sharing my struggles, and receiving his wisdom and encouragement. This book is a treasure.”
— Brian McLaren, author of Faith After Doubt and The Last Voyage

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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

July 7th, 2026

Dear Friends, Blessings of Christ’s peace!

     This Saturday, July 11th, I’ll welcome scripture scholar John Dominic Crossan and Michael Okinczyc-Cruz to the Beatitudes Center to speak with us about their new book, Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God’s Reign on Earth Then and Now. Join us!

     Their new book presents the life of the historical Jesus “as a bold and transformative call to action,” inviting us to actively follow “his nonviolent and revolutionary example.” They say that Jesus organized “a grassroots movement of poor and marginalized peasants to confront the Roman Empire’s economic, political, and ideological domination—an imperial system with striking parallels to today’s corporate-driven global order.”

     Together, they argue that Jesus’ message is “a radically anti-imperial vision of God’s reign as a collaborative, egalitarian and justice-centered alternative to systems built on scarcity and oppression.” Their talk will offer a powerful spiritual and theological framework for confronting contemporary injustice, i.e. the American empire of the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation.

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