Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton preaches - Herod slaughters the innocent children of Bethlehem in an attempt to foreshorten the state mandated murder accomplished under Pilate. His lying pretense to find and worship the Messiah gives us a working principle on how to consider the desire of government to worship Christ as King. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - In Greek thought, represented in Plato's allegory of the cave, the material world is but a realm of shadows blocking out the sun (representative of transcendent truth), so that which is of the womb/cave is unreal and truth is thought to abide in the transcendent forms. The Virgin Birth finds the absolute, the sun, the equivalent of the the forms, in the womb. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI discussion of the final chapter of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, Allan, Tim, Matt, Nathan, Rob, David, and Paul compare and contrast desire versus hope, the frustration of life in the imaginary with life in Christ, and the body of death with life in the Spirit. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The shattering of the idols of a settled notion of God in Christ opens us to the world as a reflection of his activity and presence in human relationships and interdependence with the world. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI discussion of chapter 9 of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, Allan, Tim, Matt, Nathan, Thomas, Trenton, Rob, and Paul discuss the three part structure of the human subject as revolving around a deception. Calvin's is taken as an example of one who misses the deception and in doing so believes the lie of sin, demonstrated in the failed treatment of baptism, the confrontation and resolution to the lie. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The name Abba names and sums up the work of Christ in establishing God's Lordship over every aspect of the world, including all that it means to be human and it simultaneously displaces the "father problem" enslaving human-kind.

In this PBI discussion Paul and Allan review Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation (chapters 3-7), explaining key points through philosophical thinkers and their impact on theology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - A prayerful attitude allowing the for the work of the Holy Spirit engenders a new emotional life and alternative character summed up in a continual thanksgiving. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Allan, and Paul continue discussion of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, expanding upon the link between Romans 7 and the secular, discerning the dual sense in which every age may manifest its own unique characteristics with its own leading personalities but every age shares in the same corporate deception. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The feminine characteristics of God found in the Spirit tend to be muted or subordinated to a masculine image. Romans 8 portrays this masculine image being defeated by the Spirit's engendering into the Trinity - which amounts to the displacement of an idolatrous understanding of God. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI course discussion of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, Trenton, Tim, Jon, Matt, Nathan, Thomas, Dan, and Paul discuss how nominalism and secularism fit into Paul's description of a law based ordering of reality. Jon depicts the nominalist predicament and Nathan, an expert on Emmanuel Levinas, poses a response to Slavoj Žižek's bleak depiction. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The failure to delineate the sinful suffering of Romans 7 from the redemptive suffering of chapter 8 results in the recommendation of sinful suffering as if it is redemptive. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI discussion of chapter 6 of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, David and Paul discuss the drive to gain life through fantasy and various symbolic orders and how this is addressed in Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The origin of desire in God also points to a surprising resolution to the primal human need. Paul indicates, with the Psalmist, it is not our knowing but being known by God that aligns with primal desire. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI course discussion Trenton, Allan, Thomas, Nathan, Matt, and Paul discuss Slavoj Žižek's atheistic understanding of the saving work of Christ and compare it to Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death and notions of healing from the disease of shame and the orientation to death. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - Conformity to Christ displaces the cultural conformity to fear we are witnessing in U.S. churches and culture - a direct parallel to Bonhoeffer's description to the conformity of the German church to the fear aroused by Hitler. Love of friends and marital love is an extension of the conforming power of Christ in the church which can overcome the conformity to fear and hatred. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI discussion of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, Tim, Rob, Thomas, Nathan, Matt, David, and Paul discuss the perversion of imagining an absolute law and how the feminine or hysteric orientation questions the law and opens up an alternative. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - A key departure in the early church was the entry of a Greek philosophical view of God which gave rise to the doctrine of the economic and immanent Trinity. The rediscovery of key German theologians is that Christ and the passion of Christ is definitive of our understanding of God - most especially the passionate love of God - which means the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this discussion with Tyler Sims, a long time practitioner of contemplative healing prayer, Paul and Tyler discuss the real world access to the love and presence of God which brings about healing communal and individual connectedness. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - In comparing the story of Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman it is seen that the role of the erotic and physical is not an obstacle to quenching desire but a medium and means of recognizing the love and desire of God. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this interview, part 2, with Brian McVeigh, a leading expert and student of Julian Jaynes and his theory of the bicameral mind, we discuss possible biblical and therapeutic applications of Jaynes' theory. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - There is an inadvertent tendency to subordinate the role of the Holy Spirit but Romans 8 opens the depth of the Trinity on the basis of a prayerful experience in which the reality of God's self-hood completes human self-hood in a triadic unity of experience. Join us for our class on the Holy Spirit starting October 18th by registering here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/student-applications/new Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this discussion with Brian J. McVeigh, who is the premiere student of Julian Jaynes and also a scholar of Asia who specializes in Japanese pop art, education, politics, and history, Paul and Brian discuss the formation and manipulation of Japaneseness through psychology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The church is in a sexual crisis which might be partly explained by a misunderstanding of desire. Desire is greater than gender or human eroticism, though it accounts for both, as desire originates in God's desiring love. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Scott McNay interviews Paul Axton, discussing their history in Japan and introducing the role of the death drive or death instinct into theology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The biblical definition and early concept of martyrdom as compared to modern martyrs, particularly Dietrich Bonhoeffer, calls for a reconceptualization of the term. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jon and Paul conclude their series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer by discussing his contested status as a martyr and the implications for Christian witness, who God is, and the nature of faith if he is or is not considered a martyr. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - In this time in which the church and Christianity may seem to be failing, the example of both Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard in their response to a failed Christianity is key. Both turn to an understanding that Christ mediates the love of God within the life of the individual. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jon and Paul continue their discussion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by linking his thought to a development of the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, meaning that religionless Christianity is linked to a critique of Christendom, and cheap and costly grace, worldliness, and obedience are all also Kierkegaardian concepts developed by Bonhoeffer. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - 20 years after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, evangelicalism has given into a cult of personality and religious nationalism, not unlike that of Nazi Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's call for a religionless Christianity may be the answer. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jon and Paul continue their discussion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, discussing the extent to which he was working within Lutheran parameters and the degree to which this impinged upon his understanding of a religionless Christianity. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jon and Paul take up a three part series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and in this initial podcast introduce several approaches to his biography as this relates to his theology. In regard to his "religionless Christianity" Jon defends a reading that sees this as provisional and immediate while Paul suggests Bonhoeffer means this theologically and universally. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

David and Paul review the failure of theology and philosophy as it has been caught up in an unquestioning orientation to the law and as is summed up in the introduction to Paul Axton's book The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI discussion of Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, Tim, Matt, Allan, Rob, Nathan, and Paul discuss how German idealism intersects with theology, psychoanalysis and the biblical depiction of the human problem and its cure. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - There is a brand of Christianity that imagines Paul, in Romans 7:14-25, is describing the normal Christian life. But to Miss how chapter 7 contrasts with Romans chapter 8 is to miss out the fulness of life in Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI course discussion Matt, Rob, Allan, Trenton and Paul review a Pauline/Lacanian approach to philosophy and Ludwig Wittgenstein's intervention into philosophy. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The deadly belief in conspiracy theories is a type of a belief in the satanic conspiracy that there is life in the law - which kills. The evangelical religion and its key theologian promote this lie as the cure which causes many to miss the true cure. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI course discussion referencing Paul Axton's book, The Psychotheology of Sin and Salvation, Tim, Nathan, Matt, Allan, Dan and Paul, discuss the dynamics of human subjectivity in Paul's depiction of the ego, law and body of death (in Romans 7), as they overlap with the Freudian/Lacanian registers.

Paul Axton Preaches - The continual theme of Scripture is God's sustaining, nurturing presence, which was once a presumed part of Christian experience. With the rise of modernity and modern theology there is a peculiar loneliness (a felt absence) which can be diagnosed as an aggravated form of Paul's picture of sin overcome in Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton lectures on Romans 16, focusing on the significant role of women, such as the female apostle Junia, Phoebe - Paul's spokesperson and carrier of the letter, Priscilla and Aquilla, and the profound warmth and personal connection displayed in the conclusion of Romans. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - In relationship to ourselves we hit upon an absence or discord that points us to the one who constitutes and participates in our own deepest understanding and experience of ourselves. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton lectures on Romans 15 the summation and conclusion of Romans, found in Paul's cosmic vision of a new fellowship and humanity which in its world wide vision comes to pertain to the particulars of loving relationship. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Human sinfulness is defined in Galatians as an incapacity to question a perverse orientation to the Law. This is exemplified by Mike Pompeo's rejection of critical race theory as potentially a questioning of the law that could bring down the country, yet Paul's picture is that the Jewish law is hostile and exclusive and Christianity resolves this hostility. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton lectures on the life and work of Friedrich Nietzsche, tracing parallels to Freud, Hegel, and Paul, while also mining his insight into the possible directions of human culture and the human psyche. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this lecture, Paul Axton, introduces the theory of Julian Jaynes and the bicameral mind and its development as the background to human consciousness. Comparison is made with the theory of Jacques Lacan and the overlap with a biblical understanding is discussed. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton lectures on Romans 14, the culminating point in Paul's argument which foresees a new form of humanity emerging in the new temple communities of Christians. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The God of the philosophers, the God of the law, the God of Christendom, and scientism is dead and to desire to return through fascism, right-wing fundamentalism, or nationalism is on the order of Israel desiring to return to Egypt, or a fall back into idolatry and law. In Christ we can face the desert of a world of lost meaning. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this PBI discussion Jino (from India), Alan (from Mexico), Jason, Matt, Jon, and Paul (in the U. S.) consider the systematic theology of the post-liberal approach of James McClendon as compared to a typical evangelical systematic theology. The applied nature and cross cultural nature of this practical theology is discussed. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton Preaches - The parameters of philosophy can be laid out along the lines of Paul's depiction of the subject. In the subject focused on the "law of the mind," the legal, philosophical order holds out life. With the focus on the ego there is a questioning of philosophy and law and the pointer to fullness in Christ alone. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this lecture on Romans 12-13 Paul Axton sets chapter 13's picture of being subordinate to the government in the context of chapter 12, of not being conformed to the world but being transformed. Subordinance is not compliance or conformity but a means of disempowering the weapon of death deployed by the state. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.