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 Sojourners magazine, and then the World Council of Churches.

During COVID, he reread the daily journal he kept for over 50 years, and discovered four key movements that transformed him over the course of his lifelong work for justice, which we discuss: self-sufficiency to belonging; rational certainty to spiritual connection; grandiosity to authenticity; and control to trust.

“Grandiosity is in the water in our culture, particularly our political culture,” he says. “It's so important to learn to keep asking ourselves, ‘Where am I discovering my true self, and really knowing that I'm beloved, not because of what I do, but because of God's action to love me?’”

He concludes by offering eight guideposts for activists. Check it out and be inspired to go deeper within so that your public work for justice and peace will be more rooted and grounded in God and God’s love.

www.wesgm.com

beatitudescenter.org

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 advise the states on scientific issues as they pertain to the treaty.

Dr. Hughes obtained her PhD from Stanford University, where she was an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellow. She has been a faculty member at Columbia University since 2008 and was awarded the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for 2020.

Her work on ascertaining the radiological conditions in the Marshall Islands has been covered widely. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scientific American, Truthout, Common Dreams, and elsewhere.

She tells about the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation' mission to educate and advocate for a just and peaceful world without nuclear weapons.

The Foundation also hosts events that centers around nuclear disarmament, the most recent of 2025 that honored Martin Sheen, an acclaimed actor, with the Daniel Ellsberg Lifetime Achievement Award for his lifelong commitment to peace, justice, and human dignity, and Pope Francis (posthumously) as a Distinguished Peace Leader for his moral leadership on nuclear abolition. This event took place on September 26, 2025.

Dr Hughes reminds us of how many thousands of nuclear warheads there are in the world, and how the dynamics have changed now that 9 nuclear arms states possess nuclear weapons.

She also encourages us to watch the Netflix documentary directed by Kathryn Bigelow, "The House of Dynamite": "When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond."

She emphasizes that now is precisely the time for disamament: "If you drop one bomb, it doesn’t stop there; it leads all the way to full blown nuclear war, through the explosion itself, and the aftermath of nuclear winter and environmental destruction, radiation and so on. We are continuing to play the game of nuclear roulette."

Learn more about the mission of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation that educates and advocates for a just and peaceful world free of nuclear weapons and how they work to help build the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Dr. Hughes explains this process will continue however long it takes to eliminate nuclear weapons, and that of the three weapons of mass destruction, both chemical and biological weapons have been internationally outlawed.

She emphasizes: "We’re working to get nuclear weapons treated the same way".

She is emphatic when speaking about how imperative it is that we stop investing in weapons and military warmaking: we can address these challenges: "We're not going to be able to address other challenges we have. Our elected representatives need to know that the general public cares about nuclear disarmament."

She also explains why it is important that we all get involved in nuclear disarmament:

"They don't have to hear from thousands of people; they need to hear from 10 people. So if you care, let them know. Write them. We need to tell our leaders 'enough is enough!'"

Listen in and be inspired! Learn more and get involved: wagingpeace.org

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend of 35 years, legendary folk singer Joan Baez. She’s a lifelong activist for peace, justice, civil and human rights, and an equally passionate believer in nonviolence. She has released over 30 albums, traveled the world singing for peace for over 60 years, published a great autobiography called “And a Voice to Sing With,” and recently published her first collection of poems, “When you see my mother, ask her to dance.”

Joan performed Woodstock, opened Live Aid, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. PBS did a spectacular biography of her which I recommend called “How Sweet the Sound,” and she was featured recently in the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” brilliantly played by actress Monica Barbaro.

I’ve always thought she should be awarded the Nobel peace prize for all the great good she’s done in the world. She was a close friend of Dr. King; arrested for protesting the Vietnam war; went to Hanoi, and was bombed by the US. She has been against all our wars and injustices because she has a lifelong commitment to nonviolence.

Listen as Joan reveals how her Quaker parents influenced her early childhood and the effect of living in Baghdad for a year and how a meeting with long time peace activist Ira Sandperl, and later hearing Dr. King speak at her high school, changed her life forever.

Joan is surprisingly candid when it comes to sharing her own failings and how meditation has become a crucial part of her daily routine. When I asked her about founding “The Institute for the Study of Nonviolence” in the 1960s, she talked about the one hour requirement of sitting in silence each morning. “Many people had their first acquaintance with nonviolence through that experience of silence,” she says. Her honesty is disarming and reflects how many of us feel today.

She also shares personal anecdotes about Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Dr. King and her experience with Vaclav Havel and the Czech Republic’s Velvet Revolution. Listen in as she quotes Gandhi and T.S. Elliot when encouraging me and all of us to be activists, and then reads me her new poem, “This Is Not Optimism.”

As a fan of Joan Baez since the age of five, I was thrilled when we concluded by reading together her brilliant 1960s essay, “What Would You Do If," a dialogue about the threat of personal assault.

Finally, when I ask her for any parting thoughts for our listeners, Joan breaks into song, singing the Civil Rights anthem, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”, guaranteed to give you chills!

At 84, Joan Baez is still carrying her “shining light out into the shit storm,” as she puts it, and I feel blessed and grateful to know her even better from this podcast.

Please share it with all your folk music loving, peace activist, and nonviolent Jesus following friends, and take heart once more! www.joanbaez.com

“To be hopeful Is to touch the pain of the world”

This week we hear part 2 of my conversation with Sr. Simone Campbell, one of the strongest voices, organizers, and leaders for social and economic justice in the United States.

Sister of Social Service, Sr. Simone is a religious leader, attorney, author and recipient of the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For 17 years she was executive director of NETWORK, the national Catholic Lobby for Social Justice and the leader of “Nuns on the Bus.”

Her healthcare policy work was critical in the passing of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Before that, she spent 18 years working at the Oakland Community Law Center which she founded.

I ask her about the section in her newest book, Hunger for Hope, where she writes about the importance of “prophetic imagination.” For Simone, community is the best way to nurture prophetic imagination.

She recites Walter Bruggemann’s five characteristics:

1. Long and available memory;
2. Touching the reality of the pain;
3. Living in hope;
4. 4. Effective discourse across generations and cultures;
5. The capacity to sustain long term tension with the dominant culture, and the potential for insight and imagination.

She shares with us about the connection between hope and community, and her daily Zen practice which she calls "deep listening":

"My practice begins every morning. I have a half hour of Zen sitting, being quiet and opening myself. I call it, ‘Deep listening to the divine.’ There, things can bubble up.

I follow this with a half hour of spiritual reading. I have to feel secure in myself to be willing to open myself to other peoples’ points of view.

If I'm riled up, I can't do this work, so I need my practice. If we're going to create change, it's required that we understand what’s going on inside us if we want to understand others.”

She gives us insights into her religious community that is dedicated to the Holy Spirit and what Pentecost means to her:

"I need to be able to listen well enough so that what I might say will touch the other. I love being on fire. It's so exciting.”

“Hope,” she concludes, “is critically connected to touching the pain of the world as real. It demands a response.”

Listen in and be inspired by this legendary voice of social and economic justice!

Visit www.networklobby.org

beatitudescenter.org

“Everyone has a piece of the work of justice to do, so what’s yours?” Sr. Simone Campbell asks.

This week I speak with Sr. Simone Campbell, one of the strongest voices, organizers, and leaders for social and economic justice in the U.S.

A Sister of Social Service, Sr. Simone is a religious leader, attorney, author, and recipient of the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For 17 years, she was executive director of NETWORK, the national Catholic Lobby for Social Justice and the leader of “Nuns on the Bus.”

Her healthcare policy work was critical in the passing of the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.” Before that, she spent 18 years working at the Oakland Community Law Center which she founded.

She also has served as the leader of her religious community and now serves on their governing Council. Her two award-winning books are A Nun on the Bus (2014) and Hunger for Hope (2020).

In part 1 of this 2 part conversation, I ask her about the growing authoritarianism and fascism under Trump, and her journey to the Oakland law center, to NETWORK, and to organizing for the Affordable Care Act.

“We have a two party system, and what we’re experiencing is the end of the Republican party,” she says at the beginning. Now, in this crisis, “we have to learn how to talk to each other and find the best practices to be engaged and talk to each other, and listen to one another. We have a lot of work to do!”

She was radicalized with her younger sister in 1965 while watching TV when the children in Birmingham were fire-hosed and attacked by dogs for marching for an end to segregation.

“I was horrified but motivated by that. From then on, the gospel and Jesus were always connected with justice. After my sister died of cancer, I picked up her spirit and decided to carry on the journey for justice and have her with me along the way.

She shares with us how NETWORK has grown in the more than 50 years since it was established in 1972:

"It was founded by Catholic sisters in 1972 to be a network of Catholic sisters around the country to do advocacy for economic justice and environmental issues, to bring the voices of real people to inform pending legislation.”

She tells how the work of the sisters became the tipping point to pass the Affordable Care Act, which is under assault right now by the Republicans in the current government shutdown.

When asked how she has maintained her work for justice over decades, she tells of her contemplative practice which she calls "deep listening".

"With curiosity, deep listening, and sharing stories, we can build community and new connections. The gospels are full of Jesus' curiosity,” she says. “It's the invitation that creates the weaving of community.”

Listen in to part one of this conversation and be inspired to carry on the work of justice with Sr. Simone! See: www.networklobby.org

www.beatitudescenter.org

“What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach reading and writing?” asks Paul Chappell

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with Paul Chappell, an international peace educator and founder of Peace Literacy.

A former military captain, he realized that we all need to as well-trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war, so he created Peace Literacy to help students and adults from all backgrounds work toward their full potential and a more peaceful world.

Paul is the author of a six books: Will War Ever End?; The End of War; Peaceful Revolution; The Art of Waging Peace; The Cosmic Ocean; and Soldiers of Peace. He focuses on three questions: What if people were as well trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war? What if people were trained to address root causes of problems rather than symptoms? What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach reading and writing?

“Peace Literacy teaches that peace is not merely as a goal, but a practical skill-set – a literacy like reading and writing – that needs to be taught and practiced from pre-K through higher education.

“Humans have a natural aversion to hurting and killing others,” he says. “Military history shows us that dehumanization is used to keep the mind from feeling guilty or remorseful. Nonviolence refutes all the stereotypes of dehumanization.

We try to help rehumanize people with social interaction, storytelling and art, and nonviolence skills. We offer new curriculums about peace for every grade; skills to teach peace by our example; and how to use one’s culture to create a new culture of peace and nonviolence

“People don't know the basic skills of nonviolence that will help them in their daily lives--at work, home, school, with addiction, and every other situation. If we don't teach people peace literacy and nonviolence, then we're actively teaching people the opposite.

“The idea that peace is inevitable is dangerous,” he adds. “We have to do something to help push humanity in that direction. Teaching peace is necessary for human survival. The education and practice of nonviolence has to involve a deeper knowing, a deep knowing down to our bones, and that process takes a lot of effort.

“I think there are explainable causes for why we're doing what we're doing and that there is a path that can lead us out of that. If we can teach the building blocks of peace to young children, we can help people internalize peace and nonviolence and live the ideals of peace.” Listen in to this true peace educator, and be inspired by his campaign to teach peace!

Check out www.peaceliteracy.org

beatitudescenter.org

What is "peace literacy"?

Did you know that there is a peace curriculum available to all ages starting K-12? What if we were to teach our children about nonviolence and peace making skills?

This week I speak with Paul Chappell, an international peace educator and founder of Peace Literacy. A former military captain, he realized that we all need is to be as well-trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war, so he created Peace Literacy to help students and adults from all backgrounds work toward their full potential and a more peaceful world.

Paul is the author of a six books: Will War Ever End?; The End of War; Peaceful Revolution; The Art of Waging Peace; The Cosmic Ocean; and Soldiers of Peace.

He focuses on three questions:

1. What if people were as well trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war?
2. What if people were trained to address root causes of problems rather than symptoms?
3. What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach reading and writing?

“Humans have a natural aversion against hurting and killing others,” he says.

He explains that history shows us what the military does to keep the mind from feeling guilty or remorseful. And that nonviolence refutes all the stereotypes of dehumanization.

"{At Peace Literacy} we try to help re-humanize people with social interaction, storytelling and art, and nonviolence skills. We offer new curriculums about peace for every grade; skills to teach peace by our example; and how to use one’s culture to create a new culture of peace and nonviolence."

“People don't know the basic skills of nonviolence that will help them in their daily lives--at work, home, school, with addiction, and every other situation. If we don't teach people peace literacy and nonviolence, then we're actively teaching people the opposite."

“The idea that peace is inevitable is dangerous,” he adds. “We have to do something to help push humanity in that direction. Teaching peace is necessary for human survival. The education and practice of nonviolence has to involve a deeper knowing, a deep knowing down to our bones, and that process takes a lot of effort."

Paul explains why he thinks there are “explainable causes for why we're doing what we're doing and that there is a path that can lead us out of that."

How different would our world be if we can teach the building blocks of peace to young children, and help people internalize peace and nonviolence and live the ideals of peace?

It is possible and there is a foundation dedicated to teaching peace and nonviolence!

Listen in to this true peace educator, and be inspired:

Check out www.peaceliteracy.org

beatitudescenter.org

I can imagine Jesus lamenting today: "America, America, you who bomb children, execute people, and prepare nuclear warfare, how many times I yearned to gather your children together…but you were unwilling. If this day you only knew the things that make for peace!"

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I reflect on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem (Luke 19) where he breaks down sobbing saying, “If this day you only learned the things that make for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Luke describes how everyone had been blinded by violence and hatred, and how it led to their complete destruction by the empire.

Had they taken Jesus’ teachings to heart, loved their enemies, turned the other cheek, and joined his grassroots nonviolent revolution, Jerusalem and its inhabitants would have survived.

We too have not learned the things that make for peace: Jerusalem has now become the whole world. We cut funding for schools, jobs, housing, healthcare, poverty relief, and environmental cleanup, but spend billions—trillions!—for permanent warfare and nuclear weapons. We support warfare in Gaza, Ukraine and Africa, but with our 13,000 nuclear weapons and catastrophic climate change upon us, we are closer to total destruction than ever.

The Sermon on the Mount catalogues a long to-do list for peace, love, nonviolence, and justice.

These days, that also means we must unlearn the things that make for war. If the world is to survive, the days of war have to come to an end.

You and I want to do what others were not able to do, to learn from the nonviolent Jesus the things that make for peace. If we learn the things that make for peace and unlearn the things that make for war, then we can be a leading force in the global grassroots movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons, war, and the causes of war.

We want to be people who learn the things that make for peace and teach them far and wide. That means we have to learn how to weep with Jesus over the world and then go forward and take action.

We grieve over our wars, weapons, corporate greed, injustice, and environmental destruction. And with Jesus, we walk into our own modern-day Jerusalems and act and speak for disarmament, justice, and peace.

May we all choose to learn from Jesus the things that make for peace and join his never-ending peace movement.

Weep. Grieve. Mourn. Then go forward! Take action!

Let us follow the nonviolent Jesus as we learn the Things that Make for Peace!

beatitudescenter.com

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with John Fugelsang, actor, comedian, talk show host, and author of the new book, Separation of Church & Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds (Simon and Schuster).

The son of a former Franciscan brother and a nun, John Fugelsang acted on CSI, has appeared on MSNBC and CNN, and has hosted many TV shows and podcasts, including VH1 shows with Paul McCartney and the final public appearance of George Harrison.

He has debated Jerry Falwell and David Duke, been picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church, and hosted the radio series Tell Me Everything on SiriusXM (where he once welcomed John Dear). His PBS road trip film on the American Dream, called Dream On, was named Best Documentary at the New York Independent Film Festival. He currently hosts the John Fugelsang podcast.

John explains why he wrote this book and who it is for; "I’ve learned that we don't have to hate or fight Christian nationalists; share the words of God and Jesus with them and let them argue with God and Jesus".

"Tele-evangelists didn't tell me to love my enemies; instead, they told me who my enemies are. Christian nationalism is just about power. It’s about their club being on top and imposing their version of Christianity on us all. They use Jesus as camouflage. Why should I listen to Trump and Stephen Miller and reject the words of Jesus?"

He exposes prosperity gospel as dangerous, victim blaming junk theology that has nothing to do with Christ's teachings, and explains how we can go forward in the age of Trump.

At one point he reflects with great empathy and compassion on Charlie Kirk, the far right Christian nationalist who was recently assassinated in Utah, who had challenged him in the past: "I made so many mistakes, I said so many things i thought were righteous, and powerful, and strong, that were actually cruel and stupid, Charlie Kirk never got to grow old, see how wrong he was, and change his position. I have.”

John compares so-called "Jesus fans and followers" without being "Christ followers" with a Rolling Stones cover band, and explains what Jesus' favorite issue was and why it is like Eric Clapton's "Layla" in his setlist.

John takes the words of Jesus seriously, and he concludes with a powerful message: Jesus is breaking every cycle of violence. Love is the only religion that works. That’s what we have to do, he says: "practice the teachings of Jesus, love our enemies, make peace and reconcile with one another."

"We need people willing to take a punch in the name of love".

Listen in to this thought-provoking conversation and learn more at www.johnfugelsang.com

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Archbishop John Wester of New Mexico about his pilgrimage of peace last month to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, for the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombing, and his ground-breaking work of reconciliation with the bishops and church in Japan.

Archbishop John Wester became Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2015 after serving as bishop of Salt Lake City, and before that, auxiliary bishop of San Francisco. His January 11th, 2022, pastoral letter called, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament” is the first official document in US Church history calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. To read it visit www.archdiosf.org

He tells about his first visit to Hiroshima a few years ago, and returning home to Santa Fe and seeing the place where the scientists worked on the actual Hiroshima bomb.

“We commemorate this anniversary,” he continues, “so that it will never happen again. We’re not just commemorating the past but trying to preserve the future.” During his meetings with the Japanese bishops and other church leaders, he and others launched a new organization, “A Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” www.pwnw.org to promote solidarity and cooperation between the Japanese and American church for nuclear disarmament. This is something that has never happened until now. It’s a real sign of hope.

He quotes Omar Bradley: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”

Wester shares with me who he thinks changed the whole discourse on nuclear weapons in the Catholic Church, and even said that possessing nuclear weapons is immoral.

And he says in no uncertain terms how we have "become inured to war, violence and starvation. Over 60,000 have died in Gaza; we read about, sip some coffee and go on with our daily business. We have to join our voices with others to get rid of nuclear weapons and end our wars.”

He recalls some statistics that should give us pause regarding what the results of a nuclear war would be and how our nuclear arms race is worse than ever.

There is hope as Wester explains who is behind all the peace movements. Listen in and be inspired by this prophetic leader for nuclear disarmament!

www.pwnw.org

archdiosf.org

beatitudescenter.org