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 helps Palestinians in the day to day struggle for justice and peace (www.alaslah.org)

For the last few years, he has also served as the president of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, which is the oldest peace group in the world (www.ifor.org).

Whenever you think you are working too hard for justice and peace, remember Zoughbi!

“This is the first time in history that Bethlehem and Jerusalem are separated, that you cannot travel between them,” he says. “We are living in reservations, separated from each other. Bethlehem is becoming a smaller reservation surrounded by 23 settlements and many outposts.

The West Bank is a prison; Gaza is a concentration camp. Every day, we see more prisoners, houses being demolished, state violence, settler violence, environmental violence. The situation is moving from worse to the worst.”

“I want my people to live their life and know their rights, to work for a culture of acceptance, to resolve conflict nonviolently. We are exposing the atrocities of the Occupation, and ask people to be in solidarity for us.

We are all global citizens of a global world. I want all Christian brothers and sisters to walk in our shoes. Come and visit! Stop aiding and supporting Israel, its weapons, wars and occupation.

"I don't want the Holy Land to become a museum without people.”

When asked about the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, he says, “Our dream is to educate all children in the world in peace and nonviolence, to get all religious leaders to preach the refusal of war, terrorism and violence, to get everyone to work for a world without war and nuclear weapons.”

Zoughbi reminds us of how Jesus was during Roman occupation: “Jesus was soft on people, but hard on the system,” he concludes.

“He asks us to love each other and to struggle against injustice…. Be the salt, the yeast and the light… Hope for me is a form of nonviolent struggle. We are going to become the Beloved Community one day!”

Listen to the voice of a Palestinian peacemaker in Bethlehem speaking words of encouragement for all of us and be transformed!

beatitudescenter.org

https://substack.com/@fatherjohndear

🌻, John

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 northern border in 1984 during the Contra war. In 2002 along with David Hartsough and Mary Lou Ott he co-founded Nonviolent Peaceforce nonviolentpeaceforce.org

Nonviolent Peaceforce’s “nonviolent civilian protectors” provide direct protection to civilians caught in violent conflict and work with local groups to prevent further violence and sustain peace in a variety of conflict areas including South Sudan, Ukraine, the Philippines and the United States.

Mel has represented Nonviolent Peaceforce at the United Nations where the group has been granted Consultative Status. Recent UN global reviews as well as Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions have cited and recommended unarmed civilian protection. The American Friends Service Committee nominated Nonviolent Peaceforce for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2018 Nonviolent Peaceforce received the Luxembourg Peace Prize.

Since retiring in 2023, Mel has helped organize a team of unarmed civilian protectors who are now working in Palestine as “Unarmed Civilian Protection.” He worked there for six months in 2025. For the past few months during the ICE occupation, he has been providing protective presence in St. Paul where he lives.

When I asked about Palestine, he said, “The violence has intensified greatly since the attacks on Iran and Lebanon. It's provided a cover for Israelis to brutally attack Palestinian civilians.

What can people do? As Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, we pray with our feet. Know that the Kingdom of God is here and now; it's a consciousness in all of us. Even when it's hopeless, we can continue on.”

Mel tells us how thousands of people over the last 25 years have learned Nonviolent Peaceforce skills to take back to their own communities.

There are now over 60 other civil society groups now doing this kind of work in 24 areas of the world.

Mel says: "We stress the two hand approach: we resist the injustice with one hand while we reach out to the humanity in every one of us with the other.”

Listen in and be inspired to step up your Gospel nonviolence!

ucpip.org

beatitudescenter.org

🌻, John

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 Life; Constant Hope; Dear Heart Come Home; Praying Our Goodbyes; Inviting God In; and Walk in a Relaxed Manner. Orbis Books also published Joyce Rupp: Essential Writings.

She is a member of the Servite community (Servants of Mary), was a volunteer for Hospice for fifteen years, and lives in West Des Moines, Iowa.

“Elderhood is really all about surrender,” she tells me as we discuss her new book, The Years of Ripening. “But I like the word ‘acceptance’ better."

She shares with us her thoughts on the aging process, self-compassion, surrender and vulnerability.

Be encouraged, inspired and lifted up, you can also order her 2026 Nautilus Award winning book The Years of Ripening: Reflections on Aging in the Later Years" here

"Acceptance and being with the process of surrender and letting go lead us to being at home in the heart of God. We can't give in to discouragement,” she concludes. “It doesn't get us anywhere!”

You can find me on Substack @FatherJohnDear

beatitudescenter.org

joycerupp.com

IG: @joyceruppauthor

🌻, John

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 at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University of Chicago.

“One cannot look at our current political moment and not think about Jesus,” Dom Crossan says. “

Jesus’ teaching had to do with the lived realities of the oppressed people of his time. Jesus did faith-based community organizing and his nonviolent movement has ongoing relevance for today,” he says.

Their new book, Jesus and Justice, reflects on Jesus as a grassroots movement organizer of nonviolent resistance, and combines Dom’s scholarship with Michael’s organizing work on the streets of Chicago.

“In Chicago,” he says,“you could encounter Border Patrol and ICE agents roaming the streets, arresting people based on the color of their skin. Conditions were so horrific in detention, one local judge described it as a concentration camp. We organized thousands of people to protest these conditions, and our grassroots movement has made some progress. The distinctive nature of our work is nonviolence in all our actions and our words. This is how we follow Jesus.”

“This path of nonviolence is the only path to an approximation of God's reign,” Dom concludes.

“What's happening in our country is a revelation of who we are. We have a savage culture. We need people of good faith to be engaged, organize nonviolently and take risks and action to pursue and live out God's reign in our hearts and here on earth.”

beatitudescenter.org

Welcome to my Substack https://fatherjohndear.substack.com

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’s École Biblique. He has been a Catholic priest, a Co-Chair of the Jesus Seminar, and a President of the Society of Biblical Literature, and is professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul university in Chicago.

His many books include:

*God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome;

*How to read the Bible and Still Be a Christian;

*Resurrecting Easter;

*Excavating Jesus; The Birth of Christianity;

*Who Killed Jesus?

* The Historical Jesus

*The Essential Jesus

Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

A Memoir: A Long Way from Tipperary.

In our conversation, he tells his fascinating journey to “the historical Jesus,” and how this became a global movement.

“I can't not think of Jesus while living in this country and what's happening today,” he says.

“What is hopeful now for the first time is that we are asking the right question: the historical Jesus is not just for Christians. The story isn’t just Jesus against Rome; it’s about God's creation against our civilization which is based entirely on violence.”

At 92, after a lifetime of writing about the historical Jesus, he wonders about the fate of humanity. “Are we a sustainable species?” he asks. “That's the question. Or has God given us the freedom to destroy ourselves and our world?”

Part Two will discuss his next book with Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God’s Reign on Earth Then and Now.

For more interactive Zoom teachings and podcast episodes: beatitudescentrum.org

Follow along @FatherJohnDear on Substack

🌻, John

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 policy, and marriage equality.

Bishop Curry is the author of five books, including the best-seller, Love Is the Way, as well as, The Power of Love; Crazy Christians and Following the Way of Jesus.

He captured the world’s attention when he preached at Harry and Megan’s wedding at Westminster Abbey and called the whole world to love.

“A Christianity that doesn't take the way of Jesus, his way of radical unconditional love, his way of nonviolent living,” he says, “always goes wrong. Sacrificial love is the way of God and the way of life!

As Duke Ellington said, ‘It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!’”

Bishop Curry talks about Jesus as an organizer, and what he asks us to do when we join the movement of God, and what that movement means. His enthusiasm is infectious and his words run deep.

When I asked for his parting words of encouragement, he said this is “a long distance walk, so we need each other, we need community.”

Then he sang the old spiritual: “Walk together children, and don't you get weary; there's a great camp meeting in the Promised Land!”

If you need encouragement, inspiration, and want to "hold on to hope in troubled times", you want to listen to this episode with Bishop Michael Curry today (and it's worth a repeat).

For more information on the work we do, and to sign up for our newsletter and interactive Zoom conversations go to beatitudescenter.org

Come join me on Substack @fatherjohndear.substack.com

Onward in peace with the nonviolent Jesus!

🌻, John

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-Residence at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Northampton, MA. (katecommon.com)

“In the battle of Jericho, in the book of Joshua, Israel’s army kills everyone-- men, women, children and livestock. Suddenly, human violence—genocide--is condoned by God,” she explains. But decades of archeological evidence from the “highland settlements,” she reports, now prove there was no genocide as Israel entered the promised land.

Instead of conquest and genocide, the Hebrews originated from a peaceful, nonmilitaristic movement of indigenous people who formed egalitarian communities living outside the reach of the Egyptian empire.

“These people never had a conquest story until 500 years later in 722 BCE when Israel was terrorized and conquered by the Assyrian empire. Later, they wrote their origins story as a conquest of the promised land, portraying themselves like the brutal, genocidal Assyrians!”

That false narrative has been used ever since to justify violence and has led us to two of the great heresies of our time.

White European colonists who killed millions of indigenous people and enslaved millions of Africans invoked this image, as did the white racists who created South Africa’s apartheid, and the Israeli warmakers and Christian Zionists who justify the recent genocide in Gaza.

Secretary of War Hegseth recently invoked the genocide described in Joshua to defend the US and Israeli war on Iran.

Jesus, Kate Common concludes, was calling us back to the Hebrew ideals that renounced empire and created egalitarian communities of peace and

Listen in and discover new insights in the biblical origins of Hebrew and Christian peacemaking.

beatitudescenter.org

Welcome to my Substack https://fatherjohndear.substack.com

...

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 have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now(...)."

"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honour the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. The good of all people in this nation and the world."

Mariann Budde is the first woman elected to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC and the National Cathedral. Before that, she served for 18 years as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. She is the author of three books, most recently, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith.

“I knew for months that I would be preaching at an interfaith service,” she tells me. “We didn't know if Trump would come. I felt two things. I had to speak the truth about the dangers of praying for unity as a country when we were as a people and our elected officials had no intention of working toward that unity. I knew, too, there were many people who were terrified and wondered if there was a place for them with his return, so I took the opportunity to remind the most powerful person in the country that he could afford to be generous and merciful.”

One year later, this past January, she returned to Minneapolis and spoke at rallies denouncing the ICE raids and killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. “There was a sense of resolve, horror, exhaustion, fear and defiance. I've never been part of anything like it.”

She tells me why speaking with dignity is so important, and what it does to expand our options when meeting hatred. She reminds us of what Jesus did when confronted with resistance while moving deliberately into Jerusalem, and what he never did, not even once when confronted with violence.

We are called to live out the grace and love of God revealed in Jesus. Be encouraged. Hold fast. Trust that there is more at work in the world than the evil we are witnessing. It's not all up to us, but we are needed.”

beatitudescenter.org

mariannbudde.com

Listen in to this wise and brave Christian leader and take heart!

🌻, John