Maria Stephan on Nonviolence, Political Violence, and the Fight for Democracy
From The Jim Wallis Podcast by District Productive
May 7, 2026 · 33 min · Season 6 · Episode 112
About this episode
Jim Wallis speaks with Maria J. Stephan about the effectiveness of nonviolence in confronting political violence and the importance of democracy.
On this episode of the Jim Wallis Podcast, Jim Wallis speaks with Maria J. Stephan of the Horizons Project about the effectiveness of nonviolence in confronting political violence, repression, and authoritarianism. Horizons Project and partners have developed an entire training curriculum focused on political violence and how to make political violence and repression backfire. You can go to the Harnessing Our Power to Make Political Violence and Repression Backfire (HOPE) website to learn more and to request trainings. Jim and Maria discuss the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, America’s long history of assassinations and assassination attempts, and why political violence has no place in a healthy democracy. Stephan makes a sustained case that nonviolence is not only more ethical and religiously grounded, but also more effective than violence in building durable change, shifting power, and making repression backfire. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
People in this episode
Host: Jim Wallis
Guest: Maria J. Stephan
Topics covered
- nonviolence
- political violence
- democracy
- repression
- authoritarianism
Keywords
- nonviolence
- political violence
- democracy
- repression
- training curriculum
- ethical
- change
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Horizons Project
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