Today I welcome Dr. Ivana Hughes, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and one of the leading advocates for nuclear disarmament. She is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Columbia University and serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for the United Nations to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a committee consisting of 15 experts from around the world who advise the states on scientific issues as they pertain to the treaty.

Dr. Hughes obtained her PhD from Stanford University, where she was an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellow. She has been a faculty member at Columbia University since 2008 and was awarded the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for 2020.

Her work on ascertaining the radiological conditions in the Marshall Islands has been covered widely. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scientific American, Truthout, Common Dreams, and elsewhere.

She tells about the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation' mission to educate and advocate for a just and peaceful world without nuclear weapons.

The Foundation also hosts events that centers around nuclear disarmament, the most recent of 2025 that honored Martin Sheen, an acclaimed actor, with the Daniel Ellsberg Lifetime Achievement Award for his lifelong commitment to peace, justice, and human dignity, and Pope Francis (posthumously) as a Distinguished Peace Leader for his moral leadership on nuclear abolition. This event took place on September 26, 2025.

Dr Hughes reminds us of how many thousands of nuclear warheads there are in the world, and how the dynamics have changed now that 9 nuclear arms states possess nuclear weapons.

She also encourages us to watch the Netflix documentary directed by Kathryn Bigelow, "The House of Dynamite": "When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond."

She emphasizes that now is precisely the time for disamament: "If you drop one bomb, it doesn’t stop there; it leads all the way to full blown nuclear war, through the explosion itself, and the aftermath of nuclear winter and environmental destruction, radiation and so on. We are continuing to play the game of nuclear roulette."

Learn more about the mission of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation that educates and advocates for a just and peaceful world free of nuclear weapons and how they work to help build the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Dr. Hughes explains this process will continue however long it takes to eliminate nuclear weapons, and that of the three weapons of mass destruction, both chemical and biological weapons have been internationally outlawed.

She emphasizes: "We’re working to get nuclear weapons treated the same way".

She is emphatic when speaking about how imperative it is that we stop investing in weapons and military warmaking: we can address these challenges: "We're not going to be able to address other challenges we have. Our elected representatives need to know that the general public cares about nuclear disarmament."

She also explains why it is important that we all get involved in nuclear disarmament:

"They don't have to hear from thousands of people; they need to hear from 10 people. So if you care, let them know. Write them. We need to tell our leaders 'enough is enough!'"

Listen in and be inspired! Learn more and get involved: wagingpeace.org

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” I speak with my friend of 35 years, legendary folk singer Joan Baez. She’s a lifelong activist for peace, justice, civil and human rights, and an equally passionate believer in nonviolence. She has released over 30 albums, traveled the world singing for peace for over 60 years, published a great autobiography called “And a Voice to Sing With,” and recently published her first collection of poems, “When you see my mother, ask her to dance.”

Joan performed Woodstock, opened Live Aid, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. PBS did a spectacular biography of her which I recommend called “How Sweet the Sound,” and she was featured recently in the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” brilliantly played by actress Monica Barbaro.

I’ve always thought she should be awarded the Nobel peace prize for all the great good she’s done in the world. She was a close friend of Dr. King; arrested for protesting the Vietnam war; went to Hanoi, and was bombed by the US. She has been against all our wars and injustices because she has a lifelong commitment to nonviolence.

Listen as Joan reveals how her Quaker parents influenced her early childhood and the effect of living in Baghdad for a year and how a meeting with long time peace activist Ira Sandperl, and later hearing Dr. King speak at her high school, changed her life forever.

Joan is surprisingly candid when it comes to sharing her own failings and how meditation has become a crucial part of her daily routine. When I asked her about founding “The Institute for the Study of Nonviolence” in the 1960s, she talked about the one hour requirement of sitting in silence each morning. “Many people had their first acquaintance with nonviolence through that experience of silence,” she says. Her honesty is disarming and reflects how many of us feel today.

She also shares personal anecdotes about Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Dr. King and her experience with Vaclav Havel and the Czech Republic’s Velvet Revolution. Listen in as she quotes Gandhi and T.S. Elliot when encouraging me and all of us to be activists, and then reads me her new poem, “This Is Not Optimism.”

As a fan of Joan Baez since the age of five, I was thrilled when we concluded by reading together her brilliant 1960s essay, “What Would You Do If," a dialogue about the threat of personal assault.

Finally, when I ask her for any parting thoughts for our listeners, Joan breaks into song, singing the Civil Rights anthem, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”, guaranteed to give you chills!

At 84, Joan Baez is still carrying her “shining light out into the shit storm,” as she puts it, and I feel blessed and grateful to know her even better from this podcast.

Please share it with all your folk music loving, peace activist, and nonviolent Jesus following friends, and take heart once more! www.joanbaez.com

“To be hopeful Is to touch the pain of the world”

This week we hear part 2 of my conversation with Sr. Simone Campbell, one of the strongest voices, organizers, and leaders for social and economic justice in the United States.

Sister of Social Service, Sr. Simone is a religious leader, attorney, author and recipient of the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For 17 years she was executive director of NETWORK, the national Catholic Lobby for Social Justice and the leader of “Nuns on the Bus.”

Her healthcare policy work was critical in the passing of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Before that, she spent 18 years working at the Oakland Community Law Center which she founded.

I ask her about the section in her newest book, Hunger for Hope, where she writes about the importance of “prophetic imagination.” For Simone, community is the best way to nurture prophetic imagination.

She recites Walter Bruggemann’s five characteristics:

1. Long and available memory;
2. Touching the reality of the pain;
3. Living in hope;
4. 4. Effective discourse across generations and cultures;
5. The capacity to sustain long term tension with the dominant culture, and the potential for insight and imagination.

She shares with us about the connection between hope and community, and her daily Zen practice which she calls "deep listening":

"My practice begins every morning. I have a half hour of Zen sitting, being quiet and opening myself. I call it, ‘Deep listening to the divine.’ There, things can bubble up.

I follow this with a half hour of spiritual reading. I have to feel secure in myself to be willing to open myself to other peoples’ points of view.

If I'm riled up, I can't do this work, so I need my practice. If we're going to create change, it's required that we understand what’s going on inside us if we want to understand others.”

She gives us insights into her religious community that is dedicated to the Holy Spirit and what Pentecost means to her:

"I need to be able to listen well enough so that what I might say will touch the other. I love being on fire. It's so exciting.”

“Hope,” she concludes, “is critically connected to touching the pain of the world as real. It demands a response.”

Listen in and be inspired by this legendary voice of social and economic justice!

Visit www.networklobby.org

beatitudescenter.org