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June 30th, 2025

Episode #26, Kathy Kelly, on Fasting for an End to the US-backed Israeli Genocide in Gaza

This week, John Dear speaks with longtime peace activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly, who is on a 40 day fast with others near the United Nations, calling for an end to the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.
 
“We need to stand up against US military funding for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Kathy says. “The US backed Israeli genocide in Gaza needs to stop.”
 
Kathy Kelly has traveled the warzones of the world, and stood with all those targeted for death by the United States for decades, from Central America to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. She has travelled the world to the places bombed and attacked by our country over the last three decades in an effort to “make peace” and “love our enemies.” With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 – 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions. She led John Dear’s 1999 FOR delegation of Nobel Laureates to Iraq.
 
Kathy was in Iraq throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank’s Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense. 
 
Kathy Kelly is board president of “World Beyond War.” From 2022 to the present, she has co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul. 
“Many of the Israeli weapons used in Gaza are of US origin,” she says. “It’s crucial to go to weapons manufacturers and protest. It’s important to raise the lament, and then to follow up with organizing. We must keep trying to figure out how to organize and get a ceasefire. Love of our brothers and sisters in other countries makes so much sense right now. It’s dependent on the people in the pews to speak out and follow the nonviolent Jesus.” She suggests we ask ourselves, “Is there a greater risk I might be willing to take?”
 
“Don’t be afraid,” Kathy tells us. “Seek ways to embrace the so-called enemy.  Look for the people nearest to you who are practicing the works of mercy rather than the works of war, and align yourself with them.”
 
Listen in to Kathy’s plea for peace in Gaza, her living solidarity with the victims of war and hunger, and her ongoing work to promote a more nonviolent world, and be inspired!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Cornel West! For more information, visit here.

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

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Apple Podcasts
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Fountain FM
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July 7, 2025

#27, Cornel West on the collapse of the US empire, and the need to love our way through the darkness and cruelty

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with Dr. Cornel West on the nation and the challenges of love and nonviolence.
 
“The country is in deep trouble,” Cornel has written. “We’ve forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that’s the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.”
 
Cornel West is widely considered the leading public intellectual of our time, right up there with Emerson and WEB DuBois. He is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. He is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13, and is best known for his classics Race Matters and Democracy Matters.
 
“Every empire comes and goes,” Cornel says to John. “They begin to decay and decline because of military overreach and end up reaping what they sow. There is a spiritual and moral vacuum right now. We are witnessing the collapse and implosion of the American empire in real time. The cause is organized greed and weaponized hatred. We have to try to tell the truth where we are, but all this is nothing new.”
 
Then, he makes an astonishing analogy. “Herman Melville told us all this long ago.” Trump is Ahab and Ahab is insane, chasing the white whale, or white supremacy. The ship is full of people from around the world, but white supremacy and fascism will destroy us all. “Gold, status, position, spectacle, white power, all forms of idolatry lead toward self-destruction…We can never be surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair.”
 
“To be a follower of Jesus means to take up your cross and follow him,” he concludes with his usual passion. “Love means courage, integrity, and honesty. We will always be viewed as foolish, but we lead with love, and love our way through the darkness and cruelty. Love requires tremendous risk and sacrifice. Nonviolence without love is just a strategy and a tactic. Love is the fundamental criteria. But love is never crushed, joy is never crushed, love is never eliminated. So, we will never forget, cave in, give up, or sell our souls.”
 
Listen in and be inspired by this Christian intellectual about the crises we face and how we can respond with the power of love and nonviolence!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Art Laffin! For more information, visit here.

Upcoming Zoom Programs:

“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

July 3, 2025


Dear friends, Blessings of Christ’s Peace!

     I’m happy to welcome back my friend Dr. Cornel West to speak on the next episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” which posts on Monday, July 7th. During our conversation, we discuss the state of the nation, Christian nationalism, democracy, racism, Jesus, Dr. King, and nonviolent resistance to tyranny.

     “The country is in deep trouble,” Cornel has written. “We’ve forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that’s the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.”

     Like millions of others, I consider Cornel West the leading public intellectual in the US, right up there with Emerson and Web DuBois. Brother Cornel has recently served as the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. He is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13, and is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. (See: CornelWest.com)

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