Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, M.Div., assistant professor of justice and peace studies at St. Thomas, is a nationally recognized teacher, writer, public speaker, and activist committed to nonviolent social change. He has focused his life and work on showing linkages between faith and critical political, economic and social issues. He has written extensively on issues of hunger, poverty, U.S. foreign policy, the historical Jesus, and problems of God and violence. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City..

Jack served as National Program Coordinator of the Politics of Food Program with Clergy & Laity Concerned from 1977 to 1981.  He directed the Minnesota-based Hunger and Justice Project for the American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America from 1982 to 1984.  He has extensive overseas experience including a two-year period when he co-directed a house of studies in Managua , Nicaragua for the Center for Global Education, a program of Augsburg College. Currently, he is active in the national movement to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA; recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation: WHISC or WHINSEC), a U.S. military training school that trains Latin America soldiers and has been linked to human rights atrocities.

At St. Thomas, he teaches JPST 250: Introduction to Justice and Peace Studies; JPST 280: Active Nonviolence; THEO 305: Theologies of Justice and Peace; and occasional topics courses.

He is the author of numerous articles and books on faith, hunger, the arms race and U.S. foreign policy.  His books include

Hunger for Justice:  the Politics of Food and Faith (Orbis Books, 1980),
Water More Precious Than Oil (Augsburg Publishing House, 1982),
The Politics of Compassion (Orbis Books, 1986),
War Against The Poor:  Low Intensity Conflict and Christian Faith (Orbis Books, 1989),
Brave New World Order:  Must We Pledge Allegiance (Orbis Books, 1992),
Families Valued:  Parenting and Politics for the Good of All Children (Friendship Press, 1996),
School of Assassins (Orbis Books, 1997),
Harvest of Cain--his first novel (EPICA, 2001),
Jesus Against Christianity:  Reclaiming the Missing Jesus (Trinity Press International, 2001)
School of Assassins:  Guns, Greed and Globalization (Orbis Books, 2001). 
Is Religion Killing Us:  Violence in the Bible and the Quran (Trinity Press International, 2003).
Worship in the Spirit of Jesus: Theology, Liturgy, and Songs Without Violence (with Bret Hesla.  Pilgrim Press, 2005).
Saving Christianity From Empire (Continuum, 2005).

Jack lives in Minneapolis with his wife and three daughters. He is a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and is active in the faith-based Community of St. Martin.