The Nonviolent Jesus

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend scripture scholar Wes Howard-Brook, author of several great books, including his commentary on the Gospel of John, Becoming Children of God. He also has a free YouTube channel “The Radical Bible,” 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 also...

Today I speak with my friend 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...

Today I speak with one of the great peacemakers of our time, my friend Zoughbi Zoughbi of Bethlehem, Palestine. Zoughbi is a lifelong Catholic Palestinian activist, organizer and teacher of Gospel nonviolence. Long ago he founded the Wi’am Center, the Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center in the center of Bethlehem. Wi'am is widely recognized as a place of nonviolent conflict resolution that...

Dear friends, This week I speak with one of the great peacemakers of our times, my friend Mel Duncan about unarmed civilian protectors and the Nonviolent Peaceforce that has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. Mel has been a leader in developing the practice of unarmed civilian protection for over two decades: He started providing nonviolent protective presence along Nicaragua’s nort...

This week I speak with the beloved spiritual writer Joyce Rupp. An international retreat leader and conference speaker, Joyce is the author of three dozen bestselling books on compassion, grief, aging in midlife and in the later years, prayers and poems for every occasion, reflections on nature, and a memoir. Among her bestsellers are Boundless Compassion; Return to the Root; Jesus Guide of My Lif...

Today is Part 2 of my conversation with scripture scholar John Dominic Crossan along with Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, about their new book, Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God’s Reign on Earth Then and Now. Co-author Michael Okinczyc-Cruz is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership in Chicago where he is a community organizer. He is also a professor a...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend author and theologian John Dominic Crossan, perhaps the most widely read scripture scholar in the world. This is the first of two episodes with Dom. John Dominic Crossan is an Irish-born biblical scholar with post-doctoral diplomas in exegesis from Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute and in archeology from Jerusalem’...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with legendary Bishop Michael Curry who served as the 27th presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church. Elected in 2015, he retired in 2024. Throughout his forty years of ordained ministry, Bishop Curry has been a prophetic leader, particularly in the areas of racial reconciliation, climate change, evangelism, immigration p...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with Kate Common on the nonviolent origins of the Hebrew community as she describes in her new book, Undoing Conquest: Ancient Israel, the Bible, and the Future of Christianity ( Orbis ). Dr. Kate Common is the Assistant Professor of Public and Practical Theology at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, and the Theologian-in-Residen...

This week I speak with my friend Bishop Mariann Budde of the National Cathedral. She received global attention last year during the interfaith prayer service at the National Cathedral when she called upon Trump to show “mercy” to people. Here is that excerpt of her sermon: "Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you ha...

In this episode I offer reflections on the life, witness and teachings of my friend and mentor, the legendary peacemaker and war resister Rev. Daniel Berrigan who died ten years ago this week on April 30, 2016, just before his 95th birthday. www.danielberrigan.org This special episode begins and ends with my friend Dar Williams singing her great song “I Had No Right” about Dan, and features record...

On today’s episode I speak with Prof. 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, 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 C...

Today I speak with my friend Prof. David Cortright, author and 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 visiti...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend Kerry Kennedy, President of the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Center for Human Rights kennedyhumanrights.org . A lifelong human rights activist and lawyer, she authored Being Catholic Now , as well as Speak Truth to Power , Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope , and the forthcoming Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and B...

This week I speak with my friend Jim Finley, the beloved teacher of contemplation and mysticism. When he was a teenager, Jim entered the Abbey of Gethsemani and was a novice and later a friend of Thomas Merton. Eventually, he left the monastery, became a clinical psychologist, and opened his practice in Los Angeles, where he still lives. He wrote the first serious book about Merton’s spirituality,...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with writer and scholar of nonviolent resistance, Daniel Hunter. He coaches and trains movements across the globe; is a founder of ChooseDemocracy.us which organizes against authoritarianism; and is currently the director of Freedom Trainers. freedomtrainers.net His books include "What Will You Do If Trump Wins,” "Climate Resistance...

Today I speak with Jonathan Kuttab on Palestine. He is the executive director of FOSNA, Friends of Sabeel North America, the best Christian solidarity group working with Palestinians for peace. Jonathan is also co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and co-founder of Nonviolence International. A well-known international human rights attorney, Jonathan practices in the US, Palestin...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise of Greenfaith.org , a global, multifaith, grassroots network working to protect creation and resist environmental destruction around the world. She previously served as the Education Director for the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network in Charlotte, NC and also as the Pastor for the UU Fellowship of Lake N...

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I offer part 2 of my reflection on my new book, Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace . If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, it will be helpful to listen to last week's podcast first. There I tell how the book came about, and why I wrote it. I conclude the first episode with the story of my visit with Archbishop Tutu in Cape To...

This week I reflect on my new book, Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace . This is Part 1 of 2 episodes. In this first episode, I tell how the book came about. When the pandemic began, I joined the local gym and the young person who taught the class, whom I call Will, asked me to be his guru, so I started teaching him meditation. He called God, “Universal Love” and one day, Universal L...

This week my guest is my friend peace activist Ann Wright. She is a retired US Army Colonel who worked in the military for 29 years, 13 on active duty and 16 in the Army Reserves, as well as a retired US state department official. In March 2003, when the US started massively bombing Iraq, she was one of three state department officials to publicly resign in protest of the US war on Iraq. Since the...

This week I speak with Ched Myers, one of the world’s greatest scripture scholars, about his new book on the Gospel of Luke, called Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics . Many of us consider Ched’s great commentary on Mark, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Orbis Books, 1988), the greatest book on scripture ever written....

This week 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 Feb. 17th from 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 hi...

This week I speak with Mike Farrell, best known as "Captain B.J. Hunnicutt", one of the stars of the hit TV show "M*A*S*H" in the 1970's, and later "Providence". He is also a writer, director and producer of TV films and has also appeared in several movies, and many, many other television roles. For three years he served as first vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, and as a member of the Gu...

This week I speak with legendary Civil Rights activist, author, pastor, politician, and diplomat Rev. Andrew Young to mark Dr. King's holiday. Born in 1932, Andrew Young was Dr. King’s right-hand man, his number one lieutenant, who was later elected to Congress, named Ambassador to the United Nations by President Carter, and then elected Mayor of Atlanta for 2 terms, when he brought the Olympics t...