The Nonviolent Jesus

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...

In this episode I speak with Charlene Howard, the executive director of the national Catholic peace movement Pax Christi USA, and I ask her about Pax Christi’s ongoing work for justice, disarmament and peace: Charlene describes herself as a "5th generation African American Catholic": She is also a catechist, and a longtime teacher in the Archdiocese of Washington Catholic Schools. She holds a mast...

Hi friends, I invited Robert Ellsberg, one of our best spiritual writers in the country, the publisher and editor of Orbis Books, and a legendary champion of Dorothy Day and many others saints, to speak about his latest book, Volume 2, Blessed Among Us, a massive collection of writings, two for each day of the year about a legendary saint, recently published by Liturgical Press. Robert Ellsberg is...

This week we have created a special one hour year end episode of highlights of just some of our guests that have contributed to The Nonviolent Jesus podcast this year. Our first year of weekly podcasts has been a whirlwind: so many great stories, personal experiences, deep spiritual (and theological) insights and most of all, words of hope and inspiration which we hope you have and will enjoy, man...

Dear friends, Next week we will be publishing highlights of our 52 episodes here on the first year of The Nonviolent Jesus podcast. Next year we will continue to explore and expand our dedication to nonviolence with conversations with inspirational thought leaders and icons of peacemakers and nonviolent activists. Thank you to everyone who listens and subscribes and shares the nonviolent Jesus in...

This week I reflect on what I call “Mary’s Advent Journey of Nonviolence,” from the Anunciation to the Visitation to the Magnificat. Luke tells her story as the three movements of the spiritual life--from contemplative nonviolence to active nonviolence to the Magnificat as prophetic nonviolence. How did Jesus learn his spectacular nonviolence? Luke tells us it is from his Holy Jewish mother, Mary...

This week I speak with my friend Mike Martin, a blacksmith and founder of RAWtools.org , one of the most creative Christian peacemaking projects in the country. To me, this is what the Advent work of "beating guns into garden tools" is all about: getting ready for the coming of peace on earth. Mike Martin is a former Mennonite youth pastor and licensed for this specialized ministry by the Mennonit...

This week I speak with Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the strongest voices and advocates for democracy and truth, about movements, democracy, and nonviolence. He represents Maryland’s 8th Con. District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Raskin was previously a state senator in Maryland where he helped abolish the death penalty and gain marriage equality. Before that, he was a professor of con...

This week I speak with my friend, filmmaker and author Gerry Straub about his life making films about extreme poverty around the world, and then his move to Haiti where he founded the Santa Chiara Children’s Center, an orphanage for children in war-torn Port au Prince. Last year, he had to flee Haiti because of the total violence and anarchy that has swept through the country. Since then, he’s bee...

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with long time social justice activist and church leader, Wes Granberg-Michaelson on his inspiring new book , The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action. Wes Granberg-Michaelson is a writer, speaker, and global ecumenical leader who worked in the 1970s and 1980s as the assistant to progressive US Senator Mark Hatfield, then...

Today I welcome Dr. Ivana Hughes, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation , and one of the leading advocates for nuclear disarmament. She is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Columbia University and serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for the United Nations to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a committee consisting of 15 experts from around the world who advi...