This week’s episode is a heartfelt one. After six transformative years, Telos’ Director of Communications and Christian Engagement, David Katibah, joins us for one final conversation before he steps into a new chapter.

David has left an indelible mark on Telos—shaping our mission, growing our story, and living out the work of peace and justice with clarity and conviction. In this farewell episode, he reflects on the journey: what he’s learned, what he’s holding onto, and what it means to stay rooted in hope amid uncertainty.

Though we’ll deeply miss his presence on this show and on our team, David leaves us with a call: to continue to work toward a future of mutual flourishing, interdependence, and peace.

His work is only just beginning. Show your support on social media as he enters this new season!

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Stay in touch with David on Instagram or via his Substack, Awakenings

This month marks five years since 2020 and a summer of protest across the world for Black lives, dignity, and justice. There was a lot of hope during that summer—hope that our communities would begin to ask questions about our history; pursue lasting, structural changes to our society; and begin to take serious steps towards true repair.

In the years since, we’ve worked hard at Telos to create space for this work through our ReStory US Program. In this episode, we have a conversation in review of what the past 5 years have meant for that program and for our nation: Where have we seen it work, how has the world changed around it, and what might be its future as we continue to face mounting challenges to honest conversations about race, history, and justice in this country.

We were delighted to have Director of US Programming, Dr. DeSean Dyson, Telos' co-founder and Executive Director, Todd Deatherage, and former Director of ReStory US and current Sprout NOLA Co-Executive Director, Administration and Operations, Yvonne Therese Holden, with us for this important conversation.

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Sprout NOLA

Yvonne’s Video Game Recommendation: South of Midnight

We have a new ambassador in town. Earlier this month, the US Senate confirmed former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, as US Ambassador to Israel.

As Ambassador, Huckabee is expected to endorse policies that forcibly promote Israeli government priorities. He has been quoted saying, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” and that the West Bank is “Judea and Samaria,” a term used by Israeli settlers (and increasingly American Christian leaders) who claim ownership of the land based on their Biblical interpretations.

Huckabee, and millions of American Christians like him, champion a theology of Christian Zionism, which prioritizes Jewish ownership of the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea by any means necessary.

This week, we discuss what that means, especially for the future of the millions of Palestinian in the West Bank, who are facing the most extreme circumstances of violence and displacement seen for decades. And we hear a special, bittersweet update from our colleague Sarah Sturm at the end of the show.

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Read Greg’s op-ed on the embassy move to Jerusalem circa 2016

What does US history have to tell us about what's happening in Israel/Palestine?

Last month, a cadre of four Palestinian theologians—the next generation of scholars and activists and social scientists—joined us in an exploration of US history and how its legacies carry us to the present. These legacies exist as both currents of deep injustice, and as the wellsprings of joy that sprung out of the communities who resisted that injustice and emerged with their humanity intact.

In this episode, we hear from ReStory US Director Dr. DeSean Dyson and participant Daniel Bannoura, co-host of the Across The Divide podcast, about the experience. We chart some of the connections between the forces of oppression and dehumanization across both contexts. We discuss how understanding history in context actually makes us better prepared to promote human flourishing and be more "fully human." And we celebrate the solidarity, connection, and humanity that emerges out of this work.

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Listen to Daniel's podcast, Across the Divide

Learn more about and register for the Church at the Crossroads conference

In the past year, Telos has launched a new peacemaking travel experience in Ireland & Northern Ireland, to see what we can learn from the history, movement, and current reality of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and how we can support the work of true justice and peace in the area.

While we’re still in the early stages of this program, we traveled with 5 different groups in 2024—and there’s already a lot we’ve learned. In this episode, we hear from Eli Philip, our staff member who runs these trips, on what you might expect from the trip as far as itinerary and locations.

Then we hear from two of our board members who have both recently traveled with us to Ireland & Northern Ireland, Bretta Warren-Kim and Ainka Jackson, about their experiences—what they saw and felt, how it changed their perspective of peacemaking, and why they believe it's important to engage this story as Americans.

If you are interested, we have open spots on our upcoming Ireland & Northern Ireland trip, September 5th - 13th. Go to our website to get all the details. You can register there, or click on “Ask a Question” to contact us and find out more.

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Join us in September in Ireland & Northern Ireland

Mahmoud Khalil, a legal resident and green-card holder, was arrested without charge or warrant on private grounds for his activism during last year’s encampments in protest of the genocide in Gaza. He is currently detained in Louisiana, alongside a number of other legal residents and foreign national scholars who have also been arrested and detained without charge—including Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student of Tufts University who was arrested by plain clothes officers in plain sight over the weekend.

On what legal grounds are his, Rumeysa, and others’ arrests—or rather their abductions, as Greg puts it—sitting on? What does it mean for the status of free speech in our country and the protection of our constitutional rights? And what is our job right now as peacemakers to uphold the constitutional and human rights of all in the interest of our democracy and freedoms? We discuss some tangible next steps, essential talking points, and joint strategies for what to do. These are urgent times—yet they are full of opportunities for peacemakers to show up for justice, peace, and human rights.

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Read Mahmoud Khalil’s letter from his detention center in Louisiana and watch his arrest.

Watch Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest in Boston.

Since January 19th, when the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, a lot has continued to unfold on the ground. While for the first time in 15 months a path out of the horrific violence seems possible, we know it is far from the end of the road towards a sustainable future of peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians.

Since the ceasefire we’ve seen violence expand across the West Bank, a new US Administration take power, and laws negatively impacting humanitarian aid take effect. We’ve also seen Israeli hostages being reunited with their loved ones, and Palestinian families across Gaza returning to their destroyed homes. It’s been an emotional few weeks.

Join the Telos team as we discuss state and settler violence across the West Bank, the current threat to UNRWA, and the actions and implications of the new Trump Administration and American rhetoric and power shaping the region.

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Telos recently led a ReStory US trip to the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Through our ReStory program we are working together to repair our home by knowing, owning, and writing a more honest American story. This conversation with Dr. DeSean Dyson and Dr. Otis Pickett unpacks some of the unique history of Charleston, and lessons, insights, and stories that can help our work of ReStorying our own communities, regardless of where we live.

Our conversation touches on the history of Christian implication in injustice as well as Christian resistance to it, the importance of seeking out diverse historical narratives, and why history is critical to understanding the context today. With it, we can own our agency to act in imaginative and creative ways in pursuit of true and lasting peace.

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Join the Telos Learning Corps

From DeSean and Otis:

40 Acres and a Lie

Purpose That Prevails (Dr. Otis' podcast)

Liberia, South Carolina

Voices of Black South Carolina

Black Charlestonians

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