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.” For more info, click here

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

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.

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

July 14th, 2025

Episode #28, Art Laffin on the Catholic Worker, Plowshares, and the command to love

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with Art Laffin, long-time peace activist, author, and Catholic Worker.
When I was young, I asked the question: “What would Jesus have me do?” he says. I realized Jesus is commanding us to embrace his command of unconditional love, including our enemies, and to renounce all forms of violence and killing.
Art was a member of the Covenant Peace community in Connecticut in the 1970s, then joined the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C. in the late 1970s, where he still lives with his wife and son. He has been active in the faith-based nonviolent movements for peace, social justice, disarmament, and human rights. He has been imprisoned for his involvement in two plowshares-disarmament actions, as well as other nonviolent actions. He is author of a new edition of The Risk of the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age, co-editor of Swords into Plowshares, and co-editor of Arise and Witness: Poems by Anne Montgomery, About Faith, Prison, War Zones, and Nonviolent Resistance.
He talks about his mentors and friends, Fr. Richard McSorley, Dan and Phil Berrigan and Henri Nouwen. “They were all doers of the Word that led by example; they kept their eyes on the prize. I learn from them that life is a long haul made up of a lot of short hauls, and everything makes a difference.”

He speaks about the Plowshares movement, his actions and time in prison, as well as keeping a peace vigil every Monday morning at the Pentagon—since 1990! We advocate for all victims of war and injustice. People ask, “What difference does it make?” We ask, “What happens if we’re not there? No one thinks about a nonviolent alternative. I view the weekly vigil at the Pentagon as a prayer of intercession. I believe miracles have occurred during our protest actions.

Speaking about the upcoming 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th, he says, We need to heed the cry of the Hibakusha: “Humanity and weapons cannot co-exist. We need to heed Jesus’ gospel call to nonviolence. We need to hear Dr. King’s message just before he was killed: “The choice is no longer violence or nonviolence; it’s nonviolence or non-existence.”

“Genocide has become normalized,” he says, “so we have to stand for life wherever it is threatened. I keep coming back to the command that we have to love one another, including our enemies.” He quotes Dorothy Day: “The only solution is love.”

“On the cross Jesus is showing us how to live and die,” he concludes, “and opens up a new nonviolent history, so we don’t lost heart. Christ is risen!
All things are possible if we act with the belief that God can enact miracles through us.”
Listen in to Art Laffin, take heart, and be encouraged to be a doer of the Word, and to carry on the long haul of Gospel nonviolence and universal love!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Rev. Charles McCarthy! For more information, visit here.

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
 

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
 
The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast, a free weekly podcast with John Dear
click here

Recent Books

“The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience”
Revised 2022 Edition, with new foreword by Shane Claiborne,
Available on amazon, in the U.K.  To order, visit: https://labora.press/product/the-sacrament-of-civil-disobedience/

Recent Articles

A few years ago, three French peace activists met with Pope Francis and asked him for advice. “Start a revolution,” he said. “Shake things up! The world is deaf. You have to open its ears.” That’s what Pope Francis did — he started a nonviolent revolution and invited us all to join. 

I’m grateful for him for so many reasons, but mainly because he spoke out so boldly, so prophetically in word and deed for justice, the poor, disarmament, peace, creation, mercy and nonviolence. It is a tremendous gift that we had him for 12 years, that he did not resign or retire, but kept at it until the last day, Easter Sunday.

Daniel Ellsberg, Prophet of Truth and Disarmament

A few months before he died on Friday, June 16th, famed whistle blower and peace activist Daniel Ellsberg sent an email letter to hundreds of friends announcing that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three months or so to live. After reflecting on his life’s work for peace, he announced that he was full of “joy and gratitude” and wished the same for all of us who work to end war.

My Long Lost Conversation with John Lewis

Last summer, after Congressman John Lewis died, I posted a photo on social media of me and John from a memorable afternoon we spent together in his congressional office. It was 26 years ago. We had talked for a while, and then filmed a formal conversation on nonviolence.

Needless to say, it was one of the greatest days of my exciting life.

Recent News

“Nonviolence,” a new 147 page special edition
of Richard Rohr’s journal Oneing, now available from www.cac.org

John Dear on “Democracy Now” talking about Thich Nhat Hanh and Archbishop Tutu 

“Jesus was totally nonviolent and calls us to practice and teach Gospel nonviolence and welcome God’s reign of peace and nonviolence, which means from now on, we work for the abolition of war, poverty, racism, gun violence, the death penalty, nuclear weapons, environmental destruction, and all violence.” – Fr. John Dear

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