Peace Activist Discusses 'Creative Nonviolence'
John Dear, a Jesuit priest, peace activist, lecturer and writer of
25 books on nonviolence, will discuss “Disarm and Live: The Christian
Life of Creative Nonviolence in a World of Violence” in a presentation
at Alma College.
Dear’s talk at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 24 in the Alma College Chapel is free and open to the public.
An internationally known voice of peace and nonviolence, Dear will
share reflections about violence and war, the life of creative
nonviolence and peace, the spiritual basis for nonviolence, and how
people can be activists and prophets of peace.
John Dear
In
the course of his civil disobedience as a protester of war and
violence, he has been arrested more than 75 times and has organized
hundreds of demonstrations against war and nuclear weapons at military
bases. His longest period of incarceration lasted eight months, plus
nine months of house arrest, following his participation in the
Plowshares Movement disarmament action.
He is the author of an autobiography, A Persistent Peace. Other books include Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action, Transfiguration and Peace Behind Bars: A Peacemaking Priest’s Journal From Jail.
In 2008, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
From 1998 until December 2000, he served as the executive director of
the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace
organization in the United States.
After the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Dear
served as a Red Cross Chaplain and became one of the coordinators of
the chaplain program at the Family Assistance Center. He worked with
1,500 family members who lost loved ones, as well as hundreds of
firefighters and police officers, while at the same time speaking out
against the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan.
His peace work has taken him to El Salvador, where he lived and worked
in a refugee camp; to Northern Ireland, where he lived and worked at a
human rights center; and to Iraq, where he led a delegation of Nobel
Peace Prize winners to witness the effects of the sanctions on Iraqi
children. He also has run a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C.;
taught theology at Fordham University; and directed a community center
for disenfranchised women and children in Richmond, Va.
Dear has two master’s degrees in theology from the Graduate Theological Union in California.
Posted: Mon, March 16th, 2009 at 8:09AM
