#20 John Dear speaks with political scientist, author, teacher, advocate and organizer Maria Stephen on how ordinary people can bring about extraordinary change: “The resistance is alive and well across the United States today."

This week, I speak with Maria Stephan, a political scientist, teacher, advocate, and organizer, who has dedicated her life to the proposition that ordinary people, when organized and inspired, can bring about extraordinary change.

She is the co-author with Erica Chenoweth of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, one of the most important books in decades, which documents how nonviolent resistance campaigns over the last century have been twice as effective as armed struggles, and been major drivers of democratization and civil peace.

“The resistance is alive and well across the United States today, with over 1300 protests with 3.5 million participants at the recent ‘Hands Off’ Day of Action… Faith communities are a glue that give people hope, and promote unity throughout these protests.”

“On the one hand, we have more regimes taking away rights and abusing power, but on the other, there's an explosion of nonviolent campaigns and mass mobilizations of ordinary people around the world,” Maria Stephan tells me.

Maria works with www.Horizonsproject.us focusing on the role of nonviolent action and peacebuilding in advancing human rights, democracy, and sustainable peace in the US and globally. Before joining Horizons, Maria founded and directed the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace, overseeing global programming, applied research, and policy engagement.

She was the lead foreign affairs officer in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and also worked at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. She has taught at Georgetown University and American University.

“Nonviolent resistance is a skill based activity; you can learn how to do better and how to build broad-based coalitions… We need to think big, both globally and locally. We need a more interconnected ‘movement of movements.’ We need to change the popular consciousness so that movements and campaigns are seen as a cool form of activity.”

KEEP THE MOVEMENT MOVING

www.horizonsproject.us

www.beatitudescenter.org

Check out her recent article, "We Are Stronger Than We Think," at https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/02/we-are-stronger-than-we-think/

#19 Fr. John Dear Talks with Legendary Environmental Activist Bill McKibben

This week, Fr. John Dear speaks with best-selling author and environmental activist and organizer Bill McKibben about catastrophic climate change and how to respond by joining movements, taking to the streets, and building political will. It will be jam packed with inspiration for anyone who supports environmental activism.

“I started life as a writer, I still am a writer. But to win the fight, we're gonna have to take on money and power, that's why we have to organize, and build a movement to change hearts and minds and change power. We keep our humor, our love for each other and our eyes fixed on the future, and on we go!”

He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal.

He’s one of the world’s leading environmental activists and founder of 350.org, a global grassroots climate campaign which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action.

Bill’s 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change and was published in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament.

Hear more about his newest book Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization will be available in August 2025.

Recently, Bill also founded www.ThirdAct.org, a global grassroots movement of people over the age of 60, which has taken off.

During this podcast also he announces the upcoming global day of action for solar power, “Sun Day,” September 21st. "The sun is willing to provide us with all the power we could ever use, but that great gift is a threat to powerful interests." Go to sunday.earth for more about resources, events, organizations and creative partners.

BE PART OF THE MOVEMENT.

Check out:

www.sunday.earth

www.thirdact.org

www.350.org

www.BillMcKibben.com

🔥This week, John Dear speaks with Kazu Haga, a brilliant young author and teacher of Kingian nonviolence about his new book, Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse.

Kazu Haga shares with us the six principles of Kingian nonviolence, how to build the Beloved Community and that "we are in a polycrisis and we are not crazy for thinking the world is burning all around us."

He is the founder of the East Point Peace Academy, a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and the Fierce Vulnerability Network and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm.

He is a practitioner, trainer and teacher of nonviolence, restorative justice, organizing and mindfulness and works with incarcerated people ("incarcerated people are some of my greatest teachers"), youth, and activists from around the country.

He has over 20 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work, and has been an active trainer since 2000. He resides in Oakland, CA, with friends at Canticle Farm, an inner city community of nonviolence that has a public garden right there in the neighborhood.

In his new book, Kazu suggests that the "real issue behind humanity’s violence and insanity is trauma", and that our goal really is healing on a personal, social, and global level.

He calls to get beyond “us vs. them” and “right vs. wrong” thinking, to pursue our interdependence and interrelatedness, as Dr. King and Thich Nhat Hanh taught.

👉Learn more about Kazu Haga:

kazuhaga.com

canticlefarmoakland.org

👉🏽More information on Fr. John Dear and The Nonviolent Jesus:

beatitudescenter.org