John Dear 2024 Speaking Tour

Host Fr. John Dear on his 2024 Speaking Tour for his Forthcoming Orbis Book:
“The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence.”

On December 1st, Orbis Books will publish Fr. John Dear’s new 500-page book, “The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence.” It is the first ever commentary on the Synoptic Gospels from the perspective of active nonviolence, in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. King. In it, he goes through every line of the three synoptic Gospels to point out Jesus’ practice and teachings of nonviolence to inspire us to practice creative nonviolence like Jesus.

Next year, Fr. John Dear will embark on a national book tour to talk about “The Gospel of Peace” all over the country, from January-April, 2024. Please consider inviting him and hosting him to speak in your church, college or local community group sometime in early 2024.

If you are interested in receiving more information about his upcoming book tour and how you can help organize a book reading and signing event, please send me an email with your location, and all your contact info to john@beatitudescenter.org

Here below is a little more information about the book. Thank you!

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“The Gospel of Peace” starts with Matthew, and focuses on the Sermon on the Mount as the centerpiece and basis for everything that Jesus does. John Dear calls it the greatest teaching on nonviolence in history, and proposes we use it as a how-to manual as Gandhi did.

Then we move on to Mark as an action thriller of nonviolence, where Jesus engages in non-stop nonviolent resistance to systemic injustice and empire.

Next in Luke, we hear a call to service, compassion and solidarity with the poor, as Jesus acts like a classic movement organizer like Gandhi and King. He launches a grassroots campaign of nonviolence to Jerusalem, by sending out 72 nonviolence trained disciples as “lambs into the midst of wolves” until he arrives in Jerusalem and engages in civil disobedience in the Temple. Not only is Jesus meticulously nonviolent through his action, arrest, trial, torture and execution, but in his resurrection, he returns to his friends as gentle and nonviolent as ever, and sends them forth to carry on his global grassroots campaign of nonviolence to the ends of the earth.

John Dear’s Jesus is like Gandhi and Dr. King—nonviolent to the core, a disarming, healing presence toward those in need and a revolutionary disrupter of the unjust status quo and a political threat to the ruling authorities who succeed in killing him, only to push Jesus to the heights of nonviolence through his death and resurrection. This original commentary brings a fresh new approach to the Gospels that will help all those who preach and engage in social ministries, and inspire everyone in this time of permanent warfare, gun violence, racism, poverty, nuclear threat and climate change to join Jesus’ ongoing global movement for justice, disarmament and creation.

Available from Orbis Books, Dec. 1, 2023