*Note: Terry can sometimes be difficult to understand due to a medical condition: a written transcript of this episode is available for reading.

This week I welcome teacher, organizer and author, Terry Rynne, author of two important books, Jesus Christ Peacemaker, and Gandhi and Jesus” (Orbis Books).

Terry is a former priest from Chicago, who became a hospital administrator. Then from 1983-2003, he was President of Rynne Marketing Consulting Services which advised over 400 hospitals, in 48 states, over the 20 years.

In 2006, he received his PhD in Theology from Marquette University, and then in 2008, he co-founded, with his wife Sally, the Center for Peacemaking at Marquette University, which has gone on to make a huge difference in Milwaukee teach nonviolent conflict resolution skills in schools. For years, he has taught the Introduction to Peace Studies course at Marquette University. He is also chair of the Board of Beatitudes Center.

Terry speaks about the power of Gandhi’s salt march to mobilize the people of India to demand justice and independence, and in particular, the famous silent march to the Dharasana Salt Works, and how the world was shocked by the British response to the peaceful, unarmed, nonviolent movement.

“Jesus devoted his life to confronting the structures of oppression and violence and changing them,” he says. In the earliest Gospel, in one of his first public actions, Mark’s Jesus heals the man with the withered hand in the synagogue, and in the next sentence, we read that that the religious authorities met with the political leaders to plot the assassination of Jesus.

What did Jesus do? Terry asks. Why do they want to kill him? How are we to model his approach in our unjust world?

“Why did Jesus die?” Terry asks. "We, too, need to stand up, speak out and resist the structures of violence and oppression, even to the point of offending the powers that be".

Jesus also removed suffering from people; changed the culture's attitude towards violence; and turned enemies into friends. That’s his challenge for us.

“Nonviolence is at the heart of the gospel,” he concludes. “Nonviolence adds love even in the midst of conflict. These days, I have hope in the Catholic Church becoming a peaceful church that embraces nonviolence. We can get there.”

Listen in to this great teacher of nonviolence and be inspired!

For more information on the nonviolent Jesus: https://www.beatitudescenter.org

This week I share with you a Bible text that contains what I believe are the most profound spiritual teachings ever taught in human history.

They are the most radical, political, revolutionary words in the entire Bible, and we know historically that no one ever wrote these words. For the last 1,700 years, we Christians have done our best to pretend Jesus never said them.

If we want to follow the nonviolent Jesus, and these words are his bottom line, His fundamental teaching, then we need to spend time listening to them, taking them to heart, and figuring out how to apply them concretely to our own day to day lives in this terrible moment of permanent war and global destruction.

I explain how these words pertain to us as a nation, not just as individuals, and how the so-called Just War Theory is never mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount, the four Gospels or the New Testament. It is heresy and blasphemy.

Dive deep with me in these powerful, often ignored verses and how these words describe the nature of God in the simplest, clearest terms.

The image of a God of nonviolence is a breakthrough in human history. It is the heart of Jesus’ message and continues to be rejected. It challenges us to question our image of God.

Is our God violent or nonviolent?

Do we want the God of universal nonviolent love that Jesus tells us about?

If we want to be sons and daughters of the living God, are we willing to practice the same universal nonviolent love as God and to accept the social, economic, and political consequences for our public stand?

Any idea what this life-changing, all powerful verse is? This is my call to universal love and for you to be inspired as we follow the nonviolent Jesus together.

More can be found in my book The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence.

https://www.beatitudescenter.org

Episode #30 with Michele Dunne, on Monday, July 28th

This week I speak with Michele Dunne, director of the Franciscan Action Network. Michele is a professed Secular Franciscan (there are over 200,000 in the world) who has had a long career as a diplomat in the Middle East and then a scholarly researcher focused on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy.

From 2006 until 2021, she headed programs focused on peace, human rights, and democracy in the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Atlantic Council.

Over the years, she’s been a regular commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Before that, she served for nearly 20 years in the U.S. State Department, including assignments in Jerusalem and Cairo. She holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University and lives in Washington DC with her husband.

Michele shares with us what the Franciscan Action Network is, and does with its 17,000 members in the U.S., and why she is part of it.

“Today, we've got this broken relationship between humanity and creation." Michele tells how Franciscans have been celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Canticle of the Sun, St. Francis’ poem/prayer to ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon' and how it inspires her today:

"St. Francis had an incredible kinship with all humanity, with all humans as brothers and sisters, and with all creation. We all need to find that kinship today."

She asks the questions that make a difference to followers of the nonviolent Jesus: "‘What is God's will for me? What is mine to do?’ We all need to show up and find what's ours to do and do it.”

Visit www.franciscanaction.org and www.beatitudescenter.org