Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). Cannon holds an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary, an MBA from North Park University’s School of Business and Nonprofit Management, and an MA in bioethics from Trinity International University. She received her first doctorate in American History with a minor in Middle Eastern studies at the University of California (Davis) focusing on the history of the American Protestant church in Israel and Palestine and her second doctorate in Ministry in Spiritual Formation from Northern Theological Seminary. She is the author of several books including the award-winning Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World and editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land. Her work has been highlighted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Christianity Today, Leadership Magazine, The Christian Post, Jerusalem Post, EU Parliament Magazine, Huffington Post, and other international media outlets.Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) is a coalition of more than 30 national Church communions and organizations working to encourage U.S. policies that actively promote just, lasting, and comprehensive resolutions to conflicts in the Middle East. CMEP helps church organizations, leaders, and individuals nationwide advocate in a knowledgeable, timely, holistic, and effective way to express their concerns about justice and peace for all peoples in the Middle East.CMEP uses three primary strategies to encourage U.S. policies that promote a just peace: Educate; Elevate; and Advocate.

Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). Cannon holds an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary, an MBA from North Park University’s School of Business and Nonprofit Management, and an MA in bioethics from Trinity International University. She received her first doctorate in American History with a minor in Middle Eastern studies at the University of California (Davis) focusing on the history of the American Protestant church in Israel and Palestine and her second doctorate in Ministry in Spiritual Formation from Northern Theological Seminary. She is the author of several books including the award-winning Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World and editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land. Her work has been highlighted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Christianity Today, Leadership Magazine, The Christian Post, Jerusalem Post, EU Parliament Magazine, Huffington Post, and other international media outlets.Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) is a coalition of more than 30 national Church communions and organizations working to encourage U.S. policies that actively promote just, lasting, and comprehensive resolutions to conflicts in the Middle East. CMEP helps church organizations, leaders, and individuals nationwide advocate in a knowledgeable, timely, holistic, and effective way to express their concerns about justice and peace for all peoples in the Middle East.CMEP uses three primary strategies to encourage U.S. policies that promote a just peace: Educate; Elevate; and Advocate.

Rev. Mark Davidson is the Executive Director of Voices for Justice in Palestine. Mark was shaped for social justice work early in his life. His father was a person of moral courage whose faith led him to stand in solidarity with victims of injustice. His parents were professors at the Beirut College for Women in the 1960s. At the age of 7, he witnessed the squalor and desperation of the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, filled with those who had been ethnically cleansed from their homeland in 1948, and it left an indelible impression on him.Voices for Justice in Palestine (VJP) formed in 2020. They are an intentional merger of two predecessor organizations – the Coalition for Peace with Justice (CPWJ), 2005-2020, and the Abrahamic Initiative on the Middle East (AIME), 2006-2020. Each of these local organizations have been strongly committed to a just and lasting peace in Palestine/Israel, working on parallel tracks offering educational programs, public forums, legislative advocacy, bus ad campaigns, scholarship trips to Palestine/Israel, and a sustained media presence through letters to the editor and op-eds.

If you are anything like me, you like to think of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s & 60s as a movement that helped our country achieve, maybe not the entire dream that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described, but at least something that was closer to that dream, something that showed we were on the right path toward fulfilling that dream. After all, didn’t the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act get passed and implemented by the government? Haven’t we seen great strides in the implementation of fair housing and lending? Hasn’t segregation been relegated to the dark corners of our past? Unfortunately, this is a mythology that many of us would like to hold on to. The assassination of Dr. King in 1968 should have been enough to disabuse us of that mythology. And yet that mythology persists. In more recent years, it has been perforated and torn time and again by the abuse and murder of Black citizens by police and white supremecists: Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castille, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, Tamir Rice and so many more.These names represent our collective failure to realize King’s dream of justice, equality and equity. Perhaps, if nothing else, these names help those of us in the white community to understand just how frayed and fractured that mythology of progress really is. And there is no place that I can think of that reveals the stark contrast between our hopes and their unfulfilled promise than the city of Birmingham, Alabama.  My guest today is Clay Cornelius, the owner and guide of Red Clay Tours in Birmingham, AL. How do we get to know cities that we visit? How do we get the lay of the land and find out what really happened there? Of course, we can visit monuments and historical sites, but that doesn’t begin to fill in the canvas of a city. Clay is the sort of guide that will fill in that canvas with stories and historical detail that you can’t get anywhere else. And that detail is especially important for a city as famous and infamous as Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham, as we know, played a huge role in the era of the civil rights struggle. It was the place of confrontation with Bull Connor, of tragedy with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and the deaths of four Black children. It was where Dr. King was jailed and wrote one of his most extraordinary writings, Letter from a Birmingham Jail. As I mentioned on a previous episode, I was part of a wonderful civil rights pilgrimage with a group from Westminster Presbyterian Church here in Olympia, WA. And Clay was our guide when we were in Birmingham and as you will hear, he is a fount of knowledge about Birmingham and its history.Books Mentioned in this episode:“Carry Me Home” by Diane McWhorter  “But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle” by Glenn Eskew “A More Beautiful and Terrible History” by Jeanne Theoharris

My guest today is Wanda Battle, a Montgomery, Alabama native, great Jalimuso, female Griot, talented singer and master storyteller. She is the former tour director of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pastored for almost 6 years while he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She is now the founder and CEO of  Legendary Tours LLC. She has a passion for human and civil rights, and social justice. She is no stranger to the historical relevance of Montgomery. Being born during the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott and raised during the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, Wanda has grown up with a strong sense of community and she loves to share that with people through the art of storytelling. 

Very few of us have asked ourselves what we believe about the use of violence and war. If we don’t take time to ask those questions, we will most likely adopt the values of our very pro-violence culture. That is why I wanted to talk with three very unique young adults about their decision to declare themselves to be conscientious objectors to war through the Presbyterian Church’s program for recognizing conscientious objectors. Without a doubt, I have found this conversation with these young adults to be one of the most inspiring conversations I have had in a long time. I hope you also find it inspiring. My guests on this episode are Chris Iyer, Abby Pugh and Joshua Ching. Please visit the Benders of the Arc blog for more information about these three inspiring young adults and for more information about how you can become a conscientious objector. 

Spencer Goldstein is a Military Police officer turned pacifist and conscientious objector. Spencer is a graduate from West Point and has his masters in biblical exposition. He began to think differently about peacemaking through the disability community who taught him that God's love for all people is grand and one centered on peace. Spencer began to read the words of Jesus who talks of peace, love of enemy, and forgiveness through the eyes of marginalized people and decided he could no longer serve in the military. He now is transitioning out of the Army and works for the Center on Conscience and War as the director of development and is working as an intern for RAWtools where they disarm hearts, forge peace, and cultivate justice.

For those of us who grew up in the age of Dr. King or during the Vietnam War, pacifism made a lot of sense. And even if you didn't grow up in that era, pacifism can still make sense, especially in light of the ever-expanding US military budget which takes up more than 50% of the federal discretionary budget. But in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, how can pacifism be justified? Join me in a conversation with three guests: Rev. Mark Davidson, Rev. Ben Daniel and Rev. Dr. David Ensign.

As I write this, another mass shooting has occurred in Nashville, TN. Three children and three adults were gunned down. In this episode we will be talking about guns, gun violence and most importantly, gun violence prevention. This episode was recorded on March 8th of 2023 and already, less than 3 months into the year, there have already been more than 100 mass shootings in our country. Statistics on gun violence seem to only go in one direction, up. For context, here are a few statistics to help us all understand the magnitude of this problem:Children in the US are 12 times more likely to die from firearms than children in the next 25 industrialized nations combined.In 2021, gun violence killed 48,830 people in the U.S., a nearly 8% increase from 2020's record-breaking magnitude of firearm deaths. Among those killed by gun violence in 2021, 2,571 were children (aged 0-17) – a 12.7% increase over the previous year.Firearm Suicide Deaths Increased by 8.4%Firearm Homicide Deaths Increased by 8.1%,  These statistics are shocking and disheartening. And what is even more infuriating is that most citizens across the political spectrum want to see sensible gun laws put in place, but our politicians don’t have the courage to legislate them into law. So, in light of this often disheartening news, I have two guests with me today to help us understand the spiritual and practical steps that they are using to empower communities and people and begin to make our communities safer for everyone.Be sure to check out our Benders of the Arc website for more information. My guests are The Rev. Deanna Hollas and The Rev. Erik Swanson.The Rev. Deanna Hollas is the Gun Violence Prevention Ministry Coordinator with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and a founding member of the Everytown for Gun Safety Interfaith Advisory Council. In her role with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Rev. Hollas empowers and equips individuals and congregations across the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination to embody Jesus’s call to love God and love neighbor by being informed and active in the prevention of gun violence. She holds a Master of Divinity from Perkins School of Theology as well as a Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary.The Reverend Eric Swanson has been the pastor at Westhope Presbyterian Church for the last 17 years, transforming it into an active contemplative community.  The mass shooting in Las Vegas spurred Erik to begin working on firearm safety at the local and state levels. He’s worked together with religious leaders from different faith communities to work to end this national tragedy.

This episode is a reprise of a webinar that the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship produced in March of 2022 in response to and out of concern for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As Christians we claim to follow the Prince of Peace and yet, we have to admit, the Christian church has been involved in and/or supported the Crusades and many wars throughout history. Ask almost any Christian and they will tell you they believe in peace and nonviolence. And yet, in times of war, especially when we see the suffering and death of innocent people, we are tempted to carve out exceptions to the use of war and violence. Nonviolence is often interpreted as passivity in the face of violence. So how do we avoid the saccharine solution of “thoughts and prayers” in times like this? None of us has all the answers, but we are seeking clarity and understanding while being faithful followers of the Prince of Peace. That is why we have two wonderful people to help us get this conversation started: The Rev. Deborah Lee and Rick Ufford-Chase.If you are interested in learning more about what it means to be a Peace Church, you can find information and the curriculum HERE.If you would like more information about the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, please visit us HERE.