They Will Inherit the Earth

Overview

"This is a remarkable testimony summing up a remarkable life: nonviolence is our greatest tool, and here you see it wielded with kindness, firmness, and skill."--Bill McKibben

John Dear is an extraordinarily lucid writer on peace and nonviolence. If we are to save this world from destruction, we need to wake up and start building peace and nonviolence." --Arun Gandhi, author, activist, and lecturer on Gandhian nonviolence

"In these heartfelt essays, John Dear navigates our most challenging environmental issues with simple decency, purposeful compassion and an unswerving commitment to justice." --Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club

"Invites us to consider ways to incorporate this gentle and environment-renewing mind-set in our own lives." --St. Anthony Messenger

“This remarkable book’s message is a well-defined and heartfelt guide to a way of passionate and compassionate living and being in solidarity with one another and Mother Earth. I consider it yet another must-read for everyone, particularly Christians, and immediately embraced and put into practice. We drastically need, and are mandated to implement, radical systemic change NOW!”- Mike Wisniewski, coeditor of the Catholic Agitator.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus says of the meek, "they will inherit the earth." Meekness, John Dear argues, is the biblical word for nonviolence. He makes the connection Jesus makes at the start of his Sermon on the Mount between our practice of nonviolence and our unity with creation: our rejection of nonviolence is inevitably linked to the catastrophic effects of climate change and environmental ruin.

Drawing on personal stories of his life in the desert of New Mexico, his time as a chaplain at Yosemite, his friendship with indigenous and environmental leaders, his experience at the Standing Rock protests, as well as his work with the Vatican on a new stance on nonviolence, John Dear invites us to return to nonviolence as a way of life and a living solidarity with Mother Earth and her creatures.

John Dear is a priest, activist, and lecturer, who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of peace. His many books include Thomas Merton, Peacemaker (2015) and Lazarus, Come Forth! (2011), both Orbis. He was nominated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the Nobel Peace Prize. He lives in California.