A demonstrator is detained by law enforcement during a protest near the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago Nov. 1, 2025. (OSV News/Reuters/Leah Millis)
by John Dear
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On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," I continue my conversation with Scripture scholar John Dominic Crossan along with Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, about their new book, Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God's Reign on Earth Then and Now.
Okinczyc-Cruz is the executive director and co-founder of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership in Chicago where he is a community organizer. He is also a professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University of Chicago.
"One cannot look at our current political moment and not think about Jesus," Crossan said. "Jesus' teaching had to do with the lived realities of the oppressed people of his time. Jesus did faith-based community organizing and his nonviolent movement has ongoing relevance for today."
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Jesus and Justice reflects on Jesus as a grassroots movement organizer of nonviolent resistance, and combines Crossan's scholarship with Okinczyc-Cruz's organizing work on the streets of Chicago.
"In Chicago," Okinczyc-Cruz said, "you could encounter Border Patrol and ICE agents roaming the streets, arresting people based on the color of their skin. Conditions were so horrific in detention, one local judge described it as a concentration camp. We organized thousands of people to protest these conditions, and our grassroots movement has made some progress. The distinctive nature of our work is nonviolence in all our actions and our words. This is how we follow Jesus."
"This path of nonviolence is the only path to an approximation of God's reign," Crossan said. "What's happening in our country is a revelation of who we are. We have a savage culture. We need people of good faith to be engaged, organize nonviolently and take risks and action to pursue and live out God's reign in our hearts and here on earth."
