The Nonviolent Jesus

This week marks the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I plan to take part in several demonstrations in California as part of my ongoing penance, prayer and witness against nuclear weapons and God’s call for peace on earth.

I speak with my friend Jack Cohen-Joppa, who along with his wife, Felice, has published The Nuclear Resister newspaper since 1980.

With over 200 issues, they have chronicled over 100,000 anti-nuclear and anti-war civil disobedience actions and related prosecutions covering thousands of activists, and encouraged support for the women and men jailed and imprisoned for such nonviolent actions.

Their newspaper has tracked every public action that involved crossing a line against war and nuclear weapons, that is, every campaign, every local and regional grassroot effort, and the rise and fall of national movements. When you open its pages or study their website, you discover a whole world of peace activism that few know about.

It routinely documents nonviolent direct actions—including recent demonstrations at California's Vandenberg Space Force Base where activists protest the testing and modernization of nuclear missile systems.

Jack's nuclear education began in 1978 while participating in a year-long civil disobedience campaign at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant outside Denver, and standing trial with Daniel Ellsberg and eight others that autumn.

Theirs is a lifetime of steadfast resistance in campaigns at the Pentagon, Livermore Labs, Los Alamos Labs, the Nevada Test Site, the Trident submarine bases and the Plowshares

“We face a nuclear threat now that is comparable with the threat we faced during the Cold War,” Jack says. “Our challenge is to continue to delegitimize and stigmatize the building of nuclear weapons.

I am in touch with the people who believe that hope is a verb and take action. We believe that this is work worth doing.”

Listen in and discover an ongoing grassroots movement against nuclear weapons and get with the program.

Please visit their site at: www.nuclearresister.org

Supporters can sign up for action alerts, read chronicled histories of dissent, and find instructions on how to write letters of support to imprisoned peace activists.

For those of us who have spent time in jail and prison for civil disobedience against nuclear weapons, Jack and Felice are longtime faithful heroes.

He continues to study, write and speak publicly about nuclear issues.

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🌻, John

On this week's episode I reflect on the Gospel of John, chapter 11, the story of the raising of Lazarus, based on my book, Lazarus Come Forth!

I propose that John rewrote the Gospel story to portray Jesus as the God of life who calls humanity in the person of Lazarus out of the tombs of death, out of empire, violence and war, and command us to unbind humanity from the trappings of death and let humanity go free in the fullness of life and resurrection peace.

The message is: have nothing to do with death, with violence, injustice, war or anything that inflicts death on others. Instead, live life to the full, and help others live life to the full.

Possibly you'll recognize yourself in these scriptures:

• How the male disciples promise to walk with him but never show up;
• How the professional mourners weep over Lazarus, even though they just tried to stone Jesus to death;
• How Martha tries to stop Jesus’ nonviolent resistance;
• How Jesus announces, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever is fully alive here and now in the present moment of resurrection peace, and believes in me as I walk the way of life and nonviolence and confront the forces of death, will never die.” “Do you believe this?” he asks us.

As Jesus approaches the tomb, he issues three new commandments:

1. “Take away the stone!”
2. “Lazarus/Humanity come forth!”
3. “Unbind humanity and let him go free.”

Listen for my conclusion of this climactic call of John’s Gospel, and what our mission is today.

See what you think. I hope you like it.

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More writings from me: beatitudescenter.org

You can find me on Substack https://fatherjohndear.substack.com/

🌻, John

On today’s new episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend Dr. Catherine Meeks, a nationally recognized leader in racial healing and founder of the Turquoise & Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing.

Her latest book is .Bridging the Rivers of Difference: A Proclamation of Unity in Resistance

Her other books include The Night Is Long but Light Comes in the Morning: Meditations on Racial Healing, and The Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper’s Daughter. She spent 25 years as chair of the African American Studies program at Mercer University.

“I grew up poor and black in Arkansas, and my way in the world is to connect to the spiritual and God and the way people should be treated right,” she says. This country was founded on the notion that some humans were worth more than others, included black people and women. The Constitution wasn't talking about us. The Heritage Foundation has been working militantly with Project 2025, but we have to be willing to stop having a hierarchy of human value.

“Racism has injured us all,” she continues. “Everyone has been wounded by it. The culture in the US reinforces the notion that people of color are inferior to white people, but we're all made in God's image and we all deserve to be treated right. We have to create new narratives and trust each other enough to work for the general welfare that benefits everybody, not just one set of people."

“We need to recognize the nonviolent Jesus. To dehumanize another person is violent while Jesus was always respecting people. There is no Jesus for warmongers. War is never going to end other wars. We need to reimagine what nonviolence really is about. I see this moment as a time to come to grips with what kind of human we want to be.”

Listen in to hear the powerful words of Dr. Catherine Meeks!

www.turquoiseandlavender.com

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