The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast

Posted Every Monday

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast is a free, weekly thirty-minute podcast, posted on every Monday, featuring Fr. John Dear and his reflections about Jesus, Gospel nonviolence, and peacemaking, and guests who teach, speak out, organize and work for a more just, most peaceful, more nonviolent world. Through these weekly reflections, we hope to inspire everyone to follow the nonviolent Jesus more faithfully and do our part to welcome God’s reign of peace with justice on earth!

To listen, click on any link below to hear past podcast.

To hear the latest podcast, click on the most recent link at the bottom of the list.

Below that, you will see some of the platforms which also host it, including Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and Substack, as well as on the National Catholic Reporter.

April 20th. #68 John Dear speaks with Prof. Melanie Harris on “Ecowomanism”

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with his friend Dr. Melanie Harris, Professor of Black Feminist and Womanist Theologies jointly appointed with African American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. A graduate of the Harvard Leadership Program, she is the author of Gifts of Virtue: Alice Walker and Womanist Ethics, and Ecowomanism: Earth Honoring Faiths. She is a former broadcast journalist who worked as a news producer for ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates. Dr. Harris earned her PhD. and M.A. degrees from New York’s Union Theological Seminary, her M. Div. from Iliff School of Theology and a B.A. from Spelman College in Atlanta.

“Womanist theology came from black seminary women looking for a term to express the theology of black women,” she explains. She then connects the theology of black women with a theology of the earth. “Justice for all is connected to environmental justice. The question is: What does the Divine intend for all of humanity and all of the earth?”

When John asks for her suggestions, she says: “Tell the story of Jesus well and truthfully. In truth, Jesus was a nonviolent person and deeply committed to compassion. Jesus was corrected by the Syrophoenician woman. For a male religious leader to be speaking with a woman was radical; this was a model of peace-giving and peace-building. It is important to recognize that the gospel of Jesus is a gospel of peace. Jesus was not one who stood for violence, hierarchy or domination.”

“All of us are interwoven and interconnected,” she concludes. “We have to come back to our own peace, and the truth that we have to have buckets and buckets of forgiveness and compassion. Find the spaces of hope for your spirit and nourish those spaces as much as possible. From now on, we need to seed peace from the time we wake up to the time we fall asleep.” Listen in and be inspired to be a peacemaker! God bless you all!

Upcoming Podcasts

April 27th. #69. John Dear on Daniel Berrigan, for the tenth anniversary of his death
May 4th. #70. John Dear in conversation with Bishop Marian Budde

To listen, click on any link below to hear past podcast.

To hear the latest podcast, click on the most recent link at the bottom of the list.

Below that, you will see some of the platforms which also host it, including Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and Substack, as well as on the National Catholic Reporter.

April 13th. #67 John Dear speaks with Prof. David Cortright on war and peace

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend Prof. David Cortright, a leading scholar on war, peace and nonviolent resistance. He is the former executive director of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy which under his leadership in the 1980s grew from 4,000 to 150,000 members and became the largest disarmament organization in the U.S. He also co-founded Win Without War in 2002. He is a visiting scholar at Cornell University’s Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and professor emeritus at Notre Dame.

David is the author, co-author or co-editor of 23 books, including Protest and Policy in the Iraq, the Nuclear Freeze and Vietnam Peace Movements; Civil Society, Peace and Power; Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for a New Political Age; and Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. He has written widely about nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and sanctions, and provided research services to the foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and has served as consultant or advisor to the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission, the International Peace Academy, the MacArthur Foundation and Catholic Relief Services.

On the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “It’s a war of folly and is completely groundless. It’s immoral, unjust and illegal. Half or more Israelis and American Jews oppose the war in Gaza and Iran. As Americans we have the responsibility to oppose the war, and push to cut off military aid to Israel until Israel agrees to follow the rule of law and UN principles.”

On nuclear weapons: “In the 80’s, we had massive movements against nuclear weapons. Now, we are rebuilding all our nuclear weapons to make them even more lethal. There are no guard rails of any kind, but the UN Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons is becoming a global reality.”

“We were put on this planet to serve God and follow the nonviolent Jesus. Peacemaking and peacebuilding are obligations of the faith. If we are believers, we are committed and obligated to peace. Jesus was a revolutionary and preached against violence… We have power. We are not helpless in front of these violent and evil forces. We have to speak out and work for justice and peace!” Listen in and be inspired to carry on the Easter work of peace! God bless you.

Upcoming Podcasts

April 20th. #68. John Dear in conversation with Prof. Melanie Harris
April 27th. #69. John Dear on Daniel Berrigan, for the tenth anniversary of his death
May 4th. #70. John Dear in conversation with Bishop Marian Budde