What will it take to address gun violence in America, and what might peacemaking have to say about it? These next few weeks, we’re taking some time to hear from visionary peacemakers addressing the issue in creative, imaginative ways.

Our second guest is Michael Allen, co-founder and co-CEO of Together Chicago, a cross-sectional organization that exists to be a catalyst for lasting change by reducing gun violence and increasing thriving communities. Together Chicago works through a Christian faith lens and focuses on five areas: economic development, educational achievement, violence reduction, gospel justice and faith-community mobilization

While this conversation was recorded over a year ago, we think it remains a helpful resource for folks looking for accessible entry points into the conversation of gun violence.

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Telos’ Co-founder and President Greg Khalil is spending the rest of 2024 on a sabbatical from Telos. In this conversation, we get the chance to hear from him one last time before the long break.

He speaks honestly about the crisis continuing to unfold, its risk of escalation, and the horror that it has brought on everyone in the region, particularly on those in Gaza. He also inspires us to be a people of action, to be people who don’t wait for charismatic leaders to take the helm to get to work, but to steer the ship ourselves toward greater justice, freedom, and peace for all of us.

We will miss Greg’s leadership on this show and on our team, but we know he is inviting each and every one of us to own our power in this moment to build a world where all of us can flourish. So let's get to work alongside him.

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What will it take to address gun violence in America, and what might peacemaking have to say about it? These next few weeks, as we close out Gun Violence Prevention Month this June, we’re taking some time to hear from the visionary peacemakers addressing the issue in creative, imaginative ways.

Our first guest is Mike Martin, the Founder and Executive Director of RAW Tools. RAW Tools turns guns into garden tools (and other lovely things), resourcing communities with nonviolent confrontation skills in an effort to turn stories of violence into stories of creation. As they say it, they disarm hearts to forge peace. Mike is also the co-author of Beating Guns with Shane Claiborne, which discusses how our nation, and especially communities of Christian peacemakers, can transform the violence of guns into healing, generation, and life.

While this conversation was recorded over a year ago, we felt the time was finally right to share, and we didn’t want to sit on it any longer. This conversation is rich with policy analysis, theological framing, and personal stories, and we think you’ll be powerfully inspired by it.

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Read “Beating Guns: Hope for a People Who Are Weary of Violence”

On June 11th, many of us from the Christian tradition gathered together for an evening of lament and repentance in Washington, DC. A night to grieve, but also to transform our grief into the work of imagining a new world and beginning to build it together. We heard prayers of lament, participated in a corporate confession, and opened our hearts to hear an important message from Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, Palestinian Lutheran pastor and academic. Ultimately, we ended the service with a commissioning to live and act in hopeful ways, to begin the work of “praying with our feet,” as Frederick Douglas said. In this episode, you'll find the major portions of the service.

Lament and repentance is not easy work. But it’s healing work. And it’s the beginning of honest and effective action. We hope you’ll join us in it.

Watch the full show on YouTube

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Nearly 8 months after October 7, what message do the Palestinians and Israelis living in the land have for those of us watching from the US?

A group of about a dozen faith leaders traveled with Telos last week to meet with our partners on the ground—to mourn with them, to stand in solidarity and compassion with them, and to return with fresh courage to embrace the work of peacemaking and bring their message back to us.

In today’s episode, we hear from two of the participants on that trip, Todd Deatherage and Amy Graham, Pastor of Spiritual Care at The District Church in Washington, D.C. They share what they saw and heard, how they’re carrying it with them, and what we need to know about how best to support an end to the atrocities ongoing today.

We need the new imagination they’re offering us in this episode if we are to do the work of peace in our neighborhoods, and in our nation, in this critical moment. Lean in and imagine with them.
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With the nation embroiled in debates over the campus protest movement, we sat down with a few experts and eye witnesses to discuss: what are our misconceptions about the protests, how can we become better advocates for the flourishing of all (including our local neighbors), and how might we respond to our own communities’ divisions while keeping our focus on what’s happening in the region?

This episode has two parts: In the first, we speak with internationally renowned expert Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. Rabbi Jacobs provides an important perspective on understanding Zionism from the Jewish context, and how to identify and resist antisemitism in our communities. It is a helpful conversation to ground us as we discuss the protests.

The second part is a conversation with Greg Khalil, Sarah Sturm, and Marina Klimchuk, a former Telos team member who’s spent time living in Israel and journalist who reported from the encampments at Columbia and UCLA. We discuss misconceptions of the protests, inclusive and exclusive language, discursive policing, and how we might keep our focus on the very urgent matter of the events in Gaza today.

It’s a long one, but we think you’ll enjoy the extra time to dive into the topics of today’s episode.
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Welcome to the Learning Corps podcast, the newest show on the Telos Channel! Together, we’ll excavate the core issues of conflict with experts from around the world, to uncover the path forward toward creative action in our communities.

In this Learning Corps conversation, we were joined by Dr. Joy Banner, the Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Descendants Project. The Descendants Project is a nonprofit foundation founded to preserve and protect the health, land, and lives of the Black descendant community located in Louisiana’s River Parishes. Many of the folks on our ReStory US experience visit these parishes and hear from Dr. Joy Banner, who is the former Director of Communications and descendant of people enslaved at Whitney Plantation, the only plantation museum in Louisiana that centers the lives of the enslaved.

We explore who these descendant communities are, as well as how they’ve been disproportionately impacted by environmental policies that have their legacies in slavery. But we also center the resilience and resources of this community, the strategic actions they are taking to advocate for themselves, and how we can come alongside them in their healing and flourishing.

Links:

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Join the Telos Learning Corps for more of these conversations and community collaboration calls with the Telos network

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Massive student protests at Columbia University in solidarity with Gaza were met with swift and intense repression by university administrators and NYPD over the weekend, leading to the arrests of more than 100 students.

Greg Khalil, President and Co-founder of Telos, was present for some of the events over the weekend as an adjunct professor at Columbia. He shares what he saw, what he has heard from students leading and participating in the protests, and what it means for our nation as we struggle to reckon with our part of what’s happening in Gaza.

*Note: This conversation was recorded on Tuesday, April 23—the situation on college campuses across the country is evolving quickly. Protests and student encampments have grown on dozens of campuses. Police on campuses at the University of Texas, Cal-Poly University, Emerson College, and others have cracked down on these protests with violent measures, arresting hundreds of students. Our conversation hopefully offers a way forward to know how to engage these protests with a vision of mutual flourishing.

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