Welcome to the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus!

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and the National Catholic Reporter

January 26th, 2026

Episode #56, John Dear in conversation with actor/activist Mike Farrell

On this week’s episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with actor/activist Mike Farrell. Mike starred in the 1970s hit TV show, M*A*S*H, and later, “Providence.” He is also a writer, director, and producer of TV films and has also appeared in several movies. For three years he served as first vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, and as a member of the Guild’s national board of directors.
But Mike is also one of our great anti-war and anti-death penalty activists. John first met him in 1990, protesting US military aid to El Salvador.
 
A life-long opponent of the death penalty, he has led Death Penalty Focus for 38 years, since 1988, and speaks, debates, writes and campaigns across the country in opposition to state killing. He helped lead the 2021 campaign to abolish the death penalty in California, which required a statewide vote, and came within 2% of succeeding. Their 2016 proposition just barely lost, too. He is the author of a great memoir called, “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist.”
 
Mike has traveled the world of the poor and oppressed working with Concern America and Human Rights Watch, as well as visited death rows. They talk about all these things, from his start as an actor to MASH to Cambodia and El Salvador to death row.
“I don’t understand how anybody who believes in Christ could support the death penalty,” he says. “I think the tide is turning against the death penalty. More juries have refused to give the death sentence to people. The youth in this country are very opposed to the death penalty, and they are becoming more aware and becoming activists.”
 
When asked for parting wisdom, Mike says, “I have a deep sense that everybody needs to be loved. All human beings want three things: Love, attention, and respect. There is a way to model that. Love people!” Listen in and be inspired!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Emily Yellin! For more information, visit here.

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

February 2nd, 2026

Episode #57, John Dear speaks with Emily Yellin on Rev. Jim Lawson’s Memoir, “Nonviolent”

On this week’s episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with writer Emily Yellin, co-author of the new, posthumous memoir by the late Civil Rights leader Rev. James Lawson called Nonviolent: My Life of Resistance, Agitation and Love, which comes out on Feb. 17th from Random House. Emily is a longtime writer for The New York Times. Jim Lawson was John’s friend for 34 years. They met in jail during a protest in 1990 and he later hired John to be director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
 
Dr. King called Jim Lawson “the greatest theoretician and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Jim was taught nonviolence by his mother, went to prison for refusing to be drafted into the Korean war, spent years in India learning nonviolence from Gandhi’s friends, then returned to the US, joined Dr. King, and became the main strategist for the Civil Right movement, from the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to Birmingham, Selma, and the Memphis garbage workers’ strike. He spent the remainer of his life organizing and speaking out in Los Angeles.
 
“One of the things that stunned me about Rev Lawson,” Emily tells John, “was his consistency with nonviolence that came from a deep conviction to love. Jim Lawson was the best example of how to live a life that leads with love and does no harm. One of his core teachings was, ‘We can’t imitate the evil ways of our oppressors.’ Nonviolence is the way to build a more loving and just world, he taught.” Listen in and be inspired! God bless you!
 
(Jim Lawson did two zoom sessions with the Beatitudes Center before his death which you can watch on the free Beatitudes Center YouTube channel. You can read the transcript of the first one, “Nonviolence Is Power,” at www.beatitudescenter.org/blog/page/2/)

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Ched Myers! For more information, visit here.

Upcoming Zoom Programs:

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

 

Ched Myers on his new book, “Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics”

Saturday March 7, 2026

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

 

Sr. Helen Prejean, in conversation with John Dear, on the Holy Week Journey of the Nonviolent Jesus

Saturday March 28, 2026

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

 

John Dear on his new book, “Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace”

Saturday April 18, 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”

For info, click here
 
To order, Call Orbis Books at 1-800-258-5838
 
 
 
 

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

John Dear’s new book available February 17th, 2026

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

January 29, 2026

Dear friends, Christ’s blessings of peace to you!

    On the next episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” February 2nd, I speak with writer Emily Yellin, co-author of the new, posthumous memoir by the late Civil Rights leader Rev. James Lawson called Nonviolent: My Life of Resistance, Agitation, and Love, which comes out on February 17th from Penguin Random House. Emily is a longtime writer for The New York Times. Jim Lawson was my friend for 34 years. I first met him in jail during a protest in 1990 and he later hired me to be director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

   Dr. King called Jim Lawson “the greatest theoretician and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Jim was taught nonviolence by his mother, went to prison for refusing to be drafted into the Korean war, spent years in India learning nonviolence from Gandhi’s friends, then returned to the US, joined Dr. King, and became the main strategist for the Civil Rights movement, from the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to Birmingham, Selma, and the Memphis garbage workers’ strike. (Jim did two zoom sessions with the Beatitudes Center before his death which you can watch on the free Beatitudes Center YouTube channel. You can read the transcript of the first one, “Nonviolence Is Power,” at www.beatitudescenter.org/blog/page/2/)