Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my friend Mike Farrell, actor, activist,
and longtime leader against the U .S. death penalty.
This is a project of www .beatitudecenter .org,
where you can find many other podcasts and regular
Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and
practicing nonviolence and working for a more
just, more nonviolent world. So let's begin with
a little short prayer, as we always do, and I'd
just like to invite everyone, wherever you are,
just to take a deep breath and to relax and recenter
yourself. And together, let's all just enter
into the presence of the God of peace who loves
you infinitely and personally and everyone everywhere
and welcome the nonviolent Jesus with us. Just
take a moment to ask for whatever grace you need.
to follow the nonviolent Jesus more faithfully
on the path of peace. God of peace, thank you
for all the blessings of life and love and peace
that you give us. Be with us now as we reflect
together on your call to be peacemakers in our
poor world, to follow the nonviolent Jesus and
work for a more nonviolent, more just world.
Bless us, inspire us. Heal us, disarm us, strengthen
us, and send us out to do your will, to do our
part to help end poverty, racism, greed, injustice,
the death penalty, gun violence, war, fascism,
nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction,
that we might be your holy peacemakers and welcome
your reign of universal love, nonviolence, and
peace on earth. In Jesus' name, amen. It's a
great blessing to welcome today my friend Mike
Farrell, actor and activist and longtime leader
against the U .S. death penalty. I think I met
Mike in 1990 protesting U .S. military aid to
El Salvador and also at the annual event for
Death Penalty Focus. Of course, he's best known
as one of the most beloved stars of our time
in the hit TV show MASH in the 1970s and later
Providence. TV films and has appeared in several
movies, and for three years he served as the
first vice president of the Screen Actors Guild
and later as a member of the Guild's National
Board of Directors. Mike is president of Death
Penalty Focus and also co -chair emeritus of
Human Rights Watch in California and serves as
a spokesperson for Concern America, which is
a great organization that does refugee relief
and development work. Mike has traveled the whole
world for 40 years on international peace and
human rights delegations. Many times, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, I'm going to read to you the places
Mike has been. Honduras, USSR, Paraguay, Chile,
Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Czechoslovakia,
Somalia, Kenya, Croatia, Bosnia, Cuba, Rwanda,
Zaire, Tanzania, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Samoa.
He's really been at it for a long time, folks,
working for justice and peace. During the Salvadoran
Civil War, He visited the region many times and
later testified against U .S. military policies
and war making there before the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. Mike helped establish the
California Committee on Human Rights Watch and
served as his co -chair for 10 years. Later in
his work to stop the U .S. wars in Iraq, he co
-founded Artists United to Win Without War. But
mainly, I've known Mike as a lifelong opponent
of the death penalty. As I said, he led death
penalty focus for 30, he's still leading it,
for 37 years, since 1988, I think, and speaks,
debates, writes, and campaigns across the country
in opposition to state killing. In particular,
I'm so moved that... He was involved in the campaign
to abolish the death penalty in California, which
has to be done by a statewide vote, and came
within 2 % of succeeding. And then later, I think
in 2021, barely lost again. Mike has written
a great memoir, which I recommend to everyone,
called Just Call Me Mike, A Journey to Actor
and Activist. So Mike Farrell, welcome to the
Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. Thank you. You're just
exhausting me. I know. I'm exhausted, too. I
don't know how you're doing it, man. So how does
such a big, beloved Hollywood star, one of the
biggest hits of all time, MASH, become a full
-time anti -war, anti -death penalty activist?
And as I told you, I think there's so few. And
I think of our friends Martin Sheen and Ed Asner,
who also did this. What happened to you, Mike?
You know, I think back about, I got married in
64 originally, and marriage lasted a very short
time. After three years, we split up, and I was
really fractured by it. I just saw the kind of
damage that I guess I had done to myself getting
into that relationship, but also to my then wife,
because I didn't know who I was or what I was
doing. And a dear friend who was involved in
a lot of things. told me about a place and he
said, I want you to come here. And it's a, this
was in the sixties. Um, um, they called it the
Manhattan project on Manhattan, uh, place in
Los Angeles. And it was a half halfway house
essentially. Uh, but it was a program, um, involving
people who had been in prisons and on the streets
and in and out of, uh, different aspects of.
trouble in our society and and they were just
kind of coming together to under the uh leadership
of um some former addicts and reformed people
had been in those situations and a really terrific
psychologist and and some people from the from
the salvation army of all places and uh i i just
was stumbled in there because i was cross -eyed
with fear and anxiety and not sure who I was
and where I was going and got into this program.
You have the capacity to edit this, I'm sure,
John, so I'll say what was said. I was in a group
therapy situation. And a guy said something.
He was a tough guy just out of prison and he
was really angry about something. And he said
something and I contradicted him. And he said,
who the fuck are you? And I said, I'm Mike. And
he said, what the fuck is a Mike? And I thought.
That's a good question. That's worth thinking
about. And I spent a year at this place and learned
from the people who've been in the streets and
in the jails and in the mental institutions and
in the places that they've been that how convenient
my life had been up to that point and how easy
it had been. And it kind of got me started on
being involved in stuff. um and i got involved
with a lot of things locally and then at the
same time i was trying to develop a career as
an actor and i was getting a little job here
and a little job there and things began to move
uh along um and when i i i did a couple of television
series before mash but um Once you do a television
series, the network wants to promote you and
they want to tell everybody who you are and why
you're their star, blah, blah, blah. I worked
with Brad Crawford on a show called The Interns
for a year and then with the great Tony Quinn
on a series for another year. These were not
long -lived series, but I had opportunities to.
you know, mix it up with some really extraordinary
talents. And then sort of out of the blue, MASH
happened and suddenly, you know, reporters wanted
to know who I was and why I'd done this and why
I'd done that. And I just figured, what the hell,
I'll just tell them who I am and what I've done
and stuff. So it kind of, it doubles on itself.
The press, you know, I got involved with in an
international discussion, debate with, I forgot
their name, the woman in Florida, the orange
juice woman in Florida. Anita Bryant. Thank you.
Yeah. And we had a sort of debate via television
interviews. And a guy I knew contacted me, and
at that point we had a proposition on the ballot
that was supposed to stop gay people from being
teachers in our schools. And I opposed it. He
contacted me and he said, look, I'm gay, this
guy. And he said, but if I have a straight man
with me that the public knows campaigning, it
will make the difference. And I said, okay. So
we got involved. I got involved in that campaign.
Before that, I'd been involved in things with
Barrio. black communities and stuff with some
of the organizations so i'd you know been kind
of blooded if you will um worked with operation
bootstrap in downtown l .a and stuff so uh but
you know television debates were kind of new
to me but i got involved in that and um one thing
tends to lead to another and you became an activist
then right yeah so let me ask you about i don't
We don't have to talk about MASH, but were you
always against war? And then suddenly during
the Vietnam War or after it, you're in the leading
show, which is about war. Do you think MASH helped
turn people against war and that films can do
that? How did your anti -war work lead to, I'll
ask you, Lynn, about anti -death penalty work
and human rights work? Or do you see it all as
one big mess, one big culture of violence? Maybe
say about some of those things. Well, to answer
the first question first, no, I was not always
against war. I grew up in West Hollywood and
thought that the Marine Corps, Marines were fighting
in. certainly in Korea, but I knew all about
the Marines. I thought the Marines were great.
So I joined the Marines right out of high school
and learned. I stationed in Okinawa for a while
and Japan for a while. You know, I learned that
it wasn't everything was cracked up to be. But
it came out of it a little more. educated about
the whole issue. You know, when I was in Okinawa,
we were stationed in an area that was near a
village that was a no -go village because they
were supposed to be communists. So I went over
there to engage in conversations and find out
that they were just people. And so the education
came slowly, I will say. There were a lot of
episodes in MASH like that. where you're just
meeting people. As I recall, when I was in college
watching MASH. Sure. So when MASH happened, you
know, and it was very much a show that was about
war and about against war. And Larry Gelbart
was one of the great spokespeople, I think, writing
the scripts he wrote and the rest of the writing
crew, of course. But the show was very clearly
anti -war, and we were all thrilled to be making
these statements. That's so great to hear, Mike.
Okay, I want to ask you about Central America,
because I think that's for you and for millions
of us activists across the country, when a lot
of us after Vietnam and all really deepened our
commitment. against war and into activism in
general because of what was happening, what the
U .S. was doing in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala,
Honduras, and still doing. We're recording this
just after we kidnapped the president of Venezuela.
So you campaigned in the 1980s. We have Oscar
Romero killed, and you were going to El Salvador
and Central America and went many times and got
involved. in a lot of groups, and that led, I
guess, to Human Rights Watch and others. I wanted
to ask you, in general, just to talk about those
years, but in particular, I don't know if you
remember, but I had lived there in 1985 under
the direction of the six Jesuits who were later
killed. They were my friends, and they sent me
out into the war zone. And so I was going two
or three times a year for 15 years. Did you know
them? That's my little personal question for
them. I did. I met them. Yes, I met them and
was devastated when they were murdered. That
started because of... I had met the people running
Concern. You mentioned Concern, an American organization
I've been a spokesperson for. It's a great group,
Robert. Yeah, they're a terrific, fabulous group.
And they asked me if I would become their, I
was at that time one of the stars of MASH, and
you could get them press, if would I be willing
to be their national spokesperson. And I said,
yes, but I'd like to see the work you're doing
first. So I went to the Thai -Cambodian border
where the Khmer War was happening in Cambodia
at the time, the Khmer Rouge. And the concerned
people were working in the camps that the UN
had set up on the Thai -Cambodian border. And
I was able to go into Cambodia and see with a...
a couple of people from the organization and
not only into the camps and see the camps and
see the work that they were doing there, but
into, you know, see that there was a program
where workers, farmers from inside the state,
the country would come out because their products
had all been destroyed by the Khmer Rouge and
they would get food and get seed and get stuff
from the United Nations. It was quite extraordinary.
program to see wow and that and that um that
then sort of embedded me with concern and then
they asked me to go into central america where
what asked if i would they had a truckload of
equipment medicine and stuff that had to be distributed
to some of the refugee camps for salvadorans
in honduras And so I went down there and drove
the truck up to a number of the camps. I remember
we had two, a number of big bags full of stuff.
And one of the bags, as we parked and we were
distributing it to the people, two young men
grabbed one of the bags and just took off down
the road. And I looked at them, and I looked
at the person who was running the camp, and I
said, with my eyes, raised the question with
my eyebrows, and she nodded her head, and I said,
okay. Off they went to the border, and they were
taking the stuff to Charlie Clements, who was
the doctor. Oh, right, Charlie Clements. On the
other side of the border. So we were, you know.
It was just a great education. It sure was. And
then we drove down into Managua to see there
was a big thing going on in Nicaragua, obviously,
with the Sandinistas and the Reagan administration
was trying to destroy them. And we went out to
look at the Contra camps, took a helicopter out
to see the... the mosquito uh situation the mosquito
indians on the east coast anyway so and that
started my association with salvador and i was
back three or four times i don't know um for
uh human rights delegations um just to meet with
and talk to these incredible um people you know
go and visit people in the prisons listen to
the stories of torture and hideous behaviors
and anyway so yeah so i was there i don't know
how many times and thrilled to meet the uh the
priests and so so stricken to hear about their
murder it was just disgusting i remember when
we when we met with them and talked to them um
it had to be under cover we it couldn't be known
that we were there i'm sure you realize so it's
not the same thing many times yeah it it but
it it couldn't be known that they were meeting
people and giving information so so i felt kind
of complicit when they were murdered i thought
cat i hope on some level well you know you feel
you feel wounded by it, but you also feel responsible.
I was able to leave. I was able to fly out and
go back to the States. They chose to stay and
face what they faced. It kind of tears at you.
And it led to some of the most focused activism
in U .S. history that actually ended U .S. military
aid to El Salvador in 1990. And that's when I
met you. L .A. was having the week. I was traveling
the country every day. We had those weekly demonstrations.
But thank you for all that great work. Now, meanwhile,
you're traveling the country and you're still
acting and you're in and out meeting these mythic
people in Central America, not to mention around
the world. And there you are with Death Penalty
Focus from 1988 with our great friend who just
died, Father Chris Panette. And you've remained
a faithful leader and a voice calling for the
abolition of the death penalty for about 37 years.
How did you get involved in that? But tell our
listeners about Death Penalty Focus. Presume
they don't know about it. Sure. Well, DPF is
one of the largest abolition organizations in
the country. We are based in California and have
been focused on California's death penalty. But
it's really an nonprofit, 501c3, educational
organization that reaches out to people and lets
them understand. And we provide speakers and
we travel and we have demonstrations, had demonstrations
whenever there were executions in California.
We were always there at the gates. And inside
death row, meeting with the people when we could.
But it happened because I had always sort of
thought that death penalty didn't make any sense.
But I wasn't an activist per se. But when the
first execution in California in some dozen years,
I think, was a young man. Just a terrible situation.
I'm blanking on his name right now, of course.
But he was the first executed, I think, 15 years
after no executions had taken place for some
time. And I did a press conference or two with
some people and talked about... the wrongheadedness
of killing this fellow and how urgently important
it was that we stopped doing this. And as a result
of that, Leonard Bierman, a dear friend, and
George Regas, and Jim Lawson, who had started
Death Penalty Focus, asked me to become... a
member of the board which i did and then ultimately
became the president of the board just to be
a spokesperson for the issue but you know it's
one of those things um yeah when i was doing
when i was doing mash i got a call and this would
have been 1975 probably from a man minister in
tennessee and he said I had signed a petition
or something somewhere. He said, I understand
you're against the death penalty. And I said,
that's correct. And he said, I'm trying to stop
it here in Tennessee, and I need your help. Would
you come down here and meet with some people?
And I said, okay. And he took me to my first
visit to death row. So that was in the 70s. You
had been to death row long before death penalty
focused then. I didn't realize that. Wow. Because
it's no joke to go to Death Row. That was my
next question. Tell me about that and your other
many visits to Death Row. Did that change you,
that experience? Absolutely. It's life -changing,
isn't it? Sure. The first one was to Tennessee's
Death Row and just walking into the... They have
this garish yellow chair stationed as a kind
of throne to show you what we people of Tennessee
are capable of doing, strapping people into this
god -awful thing. And I went into and I met with
the guys on the row, and they were all men, and
mostly were people of color. And we talked, some
of us, I remember, God, you know, some were so
angry they wouldn't even look at me. Some were
grateful for my being there. Some wanted to talk.
This young man gave me, which I still have, a
crucifix he had made out of toothpicks and asked
me to take it, to keep it in his memory, which
I... Wow, Mark. And I went from there to Virginia,
where a woman who I met through Joe, the minister
who got me involved initially, she introduced
me to a guy, 20 -some -year -old kid in manacles
and chains and stuff that you just can't believe.
He came clanking into the room and sat down.
And she said, he's innocent in this case. And
we have to, we have to, the only person that
can save him is the governor. We have to launch
a campaign and I need your help with this campaign.
So we did a campaign in the state of Virginia
that ultimately succeeded in getting this man
commuted from death to life. Wow. Which is. You
know, he's still behind bars and I visited him
in I don't know how many prisons over time. But
I have to tell you a story. During that time,
I was also asked to go on a human rights visit
to the Middle East. You mentioned it to Israel
and the occupied territories. And I met a young
man, a lawyer. who lives in Baltimore. And I
said, I got a guy on death row in Virginia. Do
you feel like you want to give us a hand? And
he said, I'd like to know more about the case
and stuff. So he got very deeply involved. He
ultimately wrote the plea that got the governor
to sign. over and changed his sentence from death
to life, which was not satisfactory to us. We
wanted him freed, but at least he wasn't being
killed. But a garish story I'll tell you. We
were down in the death cell in Virginia. They
had a place where they would take prisoners who
were about to be executed to the death chamber.
And we were there the night before, the day before
he was to be killed. And we sat around a table
sort of talking strategy about we haven't heard
from the governor what will happen if we don't
and what will happen if we do. And one of the
lawyers looked at me and he said, Mike, Joe,
this kid, tell Mike about this table we're sitting
around. And I looked at him. I didn't know what
he was talking about. It's this wooden table.
And Joe said, oh, after I'm electrocuted, my
body will be too hot to touch. So the guards
wearing asbestos gloves will pick me up and carry
me out and lay me out on this table so the body
will cool. And I thought, honest to God. Yeah,
yeah. Honest to God, this is beyond my comprehension.
So that night, Rick, the attorney that I mentioned
that I'd met in the Middle East, they're on the
trip, went down. He said, I need Joe's signature
on this document in order to get the governor.
We've got the governor to agree, but Joe had
to agree to the terms. And Joe said, No, I won't
sign that. Of course, if he didn't, he was going
to die. And Rick said to the guard, he said,
who's in that cell over there? And the guard
said, that cell is empty. And he said, okay,
if this son of a bitch doesn't sign this thing,
I'm going to kill him, and you're going to have
to put me in that cell next door. You get into
this kind of morose. Yeah, I get it. I know.
It's amazing. But so Joe finally signed it. And
Joe was then another 20 years in jail. And we
finally got him out a few years before he passed
away. That's great. Thank you for telling me
that. I used to visit Death Row in the 80s a
lot. I probably met. Dozens and dozens of men
who've all were killed. But I can't go. All over
the country. But I can't go because, you know,
I'm an ex -con now from doing the plowshares,
actually. Oh. I have so many. convicted felonies
as you do. And that's because I knew the Jesuits
were killed. Like they were my friends and they
had their heads blown off. Well, after that,
you're happy to go hammer on a nuclear weapon
as I did with Philip Marion. But Mike, I've had
on our program, our friends, Sister Helen Brajean
and Brian Stevenson talking about this. And recently,
a couple of weeks ago, I get all your materials
and you wrote in your Christmas greeting about
2025, you know, Florida executed 19 people, Alabama,
South Carolina, Texas, each killed five. So in
2025, 47 human beings were killed in 11 states,
the highest number in America in 15 years. Yet
you said in the title of your Christmas message,
the tide is turning. Tell me more. Well, I think
it is. I think what we've seen is that more juries
have refused to sentence the people that they're
judging to death than have sentenced them to
death. That's a new statistic. So juries are
beginning to hear it. And the studies show support
for the death penalty. 20 years ago was in the
70s, 75%. Today, it's, according to the last
poll, 52%. It's amazing. And if you add in the
question, and it's one that's a little difficult
for us, but if you add in the question of life
without parole, life in prison without the possibility
of parole as an option, then death goes below,
down into the 40s. i don't champion that because
i don't believe in life in prison without the
possibility of parole either so it's just important
to know that we have brought the death penalty
pro -death penalty vote down to just above 50
and if we keep struggling at it and the the youth
in this country are very very much opposed to
the death penalty and are becoming more active
as we now know due to the stresses and strains
on the system provided by this new craziness
in Washington. We're going to be seeing much
more activism on the part of young people. And
much more awareness in the part of young people.
That's so great. Mike, and that's all the fruit
of campaigning, organizing, speaking out. Thank
you. Now I want to ask you a question. I just
want to ask you to bear with me like everybody
has to. I want to throw in or add in Jesus to
the mix. And I want to do it in a roundabout
way about my story of Mother Teresa, which I
don't know if you know. I don't know if you remember
it. But in my work over the years, I've always
been teaching nonviolence and promoting the nonviolent
Jesus. That's how Chris and I knew each other
so well. But right after the Jesuits were killed
and we were having the Wednesday morning meetings,
Governor Dumanjan in California, I was at the
Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, announced
the execution of Robert Harris on death in San
Quentin. And I had access to Mother Teresa. And
I had this crazy idea. Oh, I'm going to call
her. And I'm going to call Governor Duke Magin.
And I'm going to ask if he'd talk to her and
let her try to talk him out of it. And then I'll
hold a press conference. And ha, ha, ha. And
it was a Monday night. And I called Mother Teresa.
And she picked. up the phone. In March 1990,
it was the scariest moment of my life. And I'm
a goofball, as you know. And I said, hi, Mother
Teresa. I'm John. I'm a Jesuit in California.
Would you talk to Governor Duke Magin and ask
him not to kill somebody? And she said, what
did he do? Which was, first of all, very interesting.
In other words, she wanted to know all about
Robert Harris. Yes, right. Who had killed those
two kids in San Diego. Right. Remember all that?
They say eating the hamburgers and all that stuff.
Oh, that's awful. Yeah. And she said, of course,
John, I will call him. And I said, can I call
you back and then get a statement from you and
release it to the press? Yes, of course you can,
John. And you tell him, I will get all the nuns
in the planet to pray for you and for the governor.
Oh, great. Okay. So I call the governor. Well,
he's kind of screwed either way. If he takes
the call, he's got to talk to her. And if he
doesn't, he's got to deal with that. And, you
know, she went on. Prevent it. We stopped eight
executions. So I call her back. And I said, Mother
Teresa, is John calling again? What? Did you
talk to Governor Duke Mays? Yes, John, I talked
to the governor. Did you? What did you tell him?
And she goes, Mike, this is my question. I never
recovered. She goes, I told him to do what Jesus
would do. And long pause, Mike. And I said to
her. Did you tell him not to kill the guy? I
got mad at Mother Teresa. She goes, no, John,
I told him to do what Jesus would do. To which
I said, well, why didn't you tell him not to
kill the guy? I started yelling at Mother Teresa.
And then we kind of became friends because we
talked. Not because I told him to do what Jesus
would do. I thought she was nuts. And it was
such a mistake. And so I go outside and there
were 30 press people there. And it was live on
CNN because Mother Teresa had never done this
before. And the next morning, the L .A. Times,
Conrad, the great art cartoonist, had that cartoon
with Mother Teresa on the phone on the left side
saying, do what Jesus would do, and Duke Magian
on the phone going, yeah, but what would Pilate
do? Oh. And Duke Magian's number two guy called
me and yelled me, called me every name in the
book, and the execution was canceled. And she
did that many, many times and was great fun and
used to laugh at me and tell me all kinds of
things. Mike, what would Jesus do? Isn't that
great? Actually, what she said was brilliant
because it just opened the whole thing. Tell
me about it. God bless her. Yeah. She was terrific.
Oh, man. So tell me about what would Jesus do?
I want to hear in your words. I've talked a lot
about this, but I want to hear you say the obvious
answer. Clearly, Jesus would lift up his hands
and say, stop this. Put me in front of him, please,
and then do what you would do. Wow. I still thought
you were going to say, he would say, don't kill
the guy. But he would say, let the one without
sin be the first to throw a stone. And he's the
only one without sin. You see what I mean? He
prevented the execution of that poor woman in
the temple. I always think of Jesus as siding
with the condemned and then becoming the condemned.
He's a victim of the death penalty. How can any
Christian, Mike, in the U .S. support the death
penalty? Well, I don't understand. I must say,
I don't understand how anybody, but anyone who
believes in Christ in the Christian philosophy.
could support the death medley is simply beyond
me. Mike, what sustains you in this work, this
great work over these many decades? How do you
keep going? Did you have a practice of meditation
or friends? I don't know, I'm asking. No, you
know, I have a deep sense that everybody really
needs to be loved. I learned at that house I
told you about many years ago, I learned that
All human beings want three things, love, attention,
and respect. And that has stayed with me all
the decades since that time. And I've always
come to the understanding, no matter who I faced,
no matter what had been done, no matter what
the issue was, that we were talking about people
who had not received love and attention and respect
in their lives. There is a way to provide that,
to model that, to be that. And it can, it seems
to me, make all the difference in the world if
we recognize that those broken people, you mentioned
Bryan Stevenson, my dear friend. Broken people
are people who have never had love and attention
and respect in their lives. Well, thank you,
Mike. So we're at the end of our time. As we
close, is there anything else you'd like to add
or say? Maybe a word of encouragement to all
our listeners about carrying on the work of justice
and peace? Yes. Love people. People want to be
loved. And they want to be respected and they
want attention paid. And I adore what you're
doing with this show, John. And I listened with
great love to your interview with Joan Baez.
Wasn't that fun? Oh, God. She read a poem and
then sang me a song. Life is good. And she's
all concerned about it afterwards. I know she's
not listening, so I'll say this. I hope I don't
think I supported nonviolence enough. I said,
no, you were great. You shared with us your struggle.
Remember when she said she has a short temper?
It was great. It was great. Well, you must know
her. She's just an incredible human being. She
is. So many of our friends, you know. One thing
people don't know, I mean, you and I have met
the greatest people in the country in this world.
It's just. I mean, Thomas Merton was right. You
get involved with this, and it's the relationships.
Like Alain Gréjean, I mean, Bryan Stevenson.
Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. These are saints that'll
live on in history. Absolutely. And they're our
friends. Absolutely. Like Chris Panette, too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You remember what I said when
you were there, when we had this small meeting
around Jim's passing, Jim Lawson's passing? And
I said, I'll never forget. We were in a situation
where Jim was talking to a man who was just intent
on supporting the death penalty because death
for this particular person was appropriate. And
Jim said, this person behaved in a manner that's
unacceptable. Does that suggest you mean that
God made a mistake? Yeah. I thought, that's pretty
good. Yeah, it is. Jim Lawson and all our great
friends. That's reason enough to keep going.
Mike Farrell, thank you so much for speaking
with me today, and maybe we can do it again someday.
Let me just conclude here and just say thank
you to all our listeners for being... on this
episode of the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. You
can hear many other podcasts and find other upcoming
Zoom programs at BeatitudesCenter .org and there
also offer a donation to support this free work
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feedback or at least tell everybody you know
about the Nonviolent Jesus podcast. May the God
of peace bless you all. Keep on following the
Nonviolent Jesus and see you next time. Thanks
again, Mike Farrell. Mike, great pleasure, John.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you. Thank you.