Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton Preaches - "God's anger, is at one with his love; so, too, God's mercy and his justice are one and the same. Mercy and punishment are not opposed; for punishment - the consuming fire - is a means to an end, that we might be the creatures he intended us to be. God's punishment, his justice, can be his most merciful act." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Matt, John, and Paul, discuss the early Orthodox understanding that Jesus is the revelation of the immanent Trinity and the wide ramifications this has for the doctrine of God and theological anthropology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches - This verse speaks of three different groups or three different types of people. We can trace three psychological types which correspond to these three orientations. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Matt, Jon, and Paul discuss the interaction of Christ with culture by using Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, displaced by Christ, as an example of how the violence of Christ filters out evil and lifts up the good. In part 2 we focus in on what it might mean to be a Christian in America. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches - In Chapter 1 of Ephesians Paul has described a world built upon Jesus Christ. In chapter 2 he begins to contrast this with a world controlled by the Prince of this world. The truth and morality of the one is pitted against the other. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Matt, Jon, and Paul discuss the interaction of Christ with culture by using Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, displaced by Christ, as an example of how Christ filters out evil and lifts up the good. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches - For Paul, Christ is Jesus – the reality of the one is inseparable from the other. It is not that Jesus is one phase of the making of the Christ. The truth of God, the truth of the world is found in the incarnation. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Dylan and Kylie, two of our Forging Ploughshares community, are starting a special home here in Moberly. Dylan describes their journey and the nature of their vision. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches - Certainly, salvation is the overcoming of sin but the fullness of redemption is the completion of creation’s purpose. Paul has moved our understanding of God’s plan beyond the earth and the human race to its cosmic impact as part of the outworking of the love (the very essence) of God. The whole point of who God is and what God is doing in creation is summed up in the incarnate Christ (1:10). Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In the conclusion to a discussion on modern experiential reality Jon, Matt, and Paul, describe the peculiar role of Eastern Orthodoxy in contrast to Protestantism and Roman Catholic thought impacted by nominalism and the rise of the peculiarities of the secular in the West. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Ephesians describes a different experiential reality. To get at this understanding we need to redo the deep grammar from which our experience flows. This will include a reworking of the category of eternity and our relationship to that category. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this introduction to describing this place we have come to in modernity Jon, Matt, and Paul discuss the role of nominalism in Protestantism and Roman Catholic thought and the rise of the secular in modernity. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

The heart of the New Testament is a theology of new creation through resurrection: God affirms the goodness of the created order, and affirms he is makeing itanew, starting with the physical body of Jesus Himself. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this lecture Paul Axton describes the formation of desire from a biblical and Lacanian perspective and links this to idolatrous religion and human angst, both of which are defeated in putting on the image of Christ. This piece is part of the larger picture of religion being put together in the upcoming class for which you can register here at the bottom of the page - https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/lm/offerings Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this conversation Jason and Paul touch upon the issues of religious sacrifice, nationalism, orientalism, and the primary role that violence and peace play in the confrontation between the kingdom of Christ and the principalities and powers. The upcoming course World Culture and Religion will take up these issues in depth. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Jason, Vangie, and Paul discuss how Christian's are to perceive this present political moment in which a vast number of Christians have aligned themselves with a particular political party. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Part I - Jason and Vangie Rodenbeck and Paul Axton discuss the significance of the Netflix portrayal of the election of Pope Francis and the resignation of Pope Benedict. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches - The way of peace can be equated with the Gospel while the way of violence is that taken by the enemies of the cross of Christ. It should be oxymoronic to speak of “violent Christianity” or “Christian warfare.” Peace is the Christian way established by the Cross and instituted in God's Kingdom, the Church. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In Part 2 of this interview with Dr. Deborah Saxon the roll of self care is explored more completely and this gives rise to a discussion of how this understanding relates to other cultures such as Japan. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches - The story of Herod's lying guise of wanting to worship Jesus and his subsequent slaughter of the innocents calls upon us to consider the moral cost of the perpetual battle for power in which political leaders will put on the façade of religion and where the powerless and the poor are slaughtered for the powerful. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In Part 1 of this 2 part conversation with Dr. Deborah Saxon we discuss some of the missing texts written by and focused on women in the early Church. Dr. Saxon has focused on gender and the care of the self in early Christianity and she explains what this meant and its implications for Christians today. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Deep and full joy and laughter are a rebellion against the darkness of the world. Laughter and Christ are synonymous. To miss the laughter, to miss the joy, is to miss Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In part 2 of this discussion between Brad Jersak, Matt Welch, and Paul Axton the approach to the Old Testament understanding, in light of Christ, is worked out. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches: Humans are deadly. We are deadly for other creatures and for ourselves. The revelation of Christ witnessed to in Scripture is not about God’s anger being appeased or satisfied. It is about the human predicament, the exposure of the destructive nature of human logic, and the positing of life on a different principle. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this episode Paul Axton and Matt Welch talk with Brad Jersak about his journey of discovery of peace and the Christ centered nature of that peace. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches - There is a waiting – that is simply fear driven inaction. Advent is not this sort of waiting. It is the expectation of the birth of Christ, reimagined and infused with hope of the Parousia, so that “God with us” identifies the nature of the absence. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches: A Girardian interpretation of the Eucharist exposes the murder covered over by the myths of the nation as in Thanksgiving. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Martin Heidegger was at once the the greatest metaphysician of the 20th century and a despicable idiot in his involvement with National Socialism in Germany. In this talk Paul Axton suggests the evil of the man is present in his thought while the thought still contains great insight. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches - Is conscience and guilt the voice of God or part of the human disease deluding the self. The history of human suffering and its peculiar shape according to time and place indicate the human creation of suffering and this points to the the therapy or healing of Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this lecture on Japanese religion and culture Paul Axton delves into the problem of defining religion, especially as it is often defined in connection with Christianity. This is a sample of the approach that will be employed in the upcoming class on Religion and Culture offered through Ploughshares Bible Institute. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches: The New Testament is focused on achieving peace. This peace is certainly inclusive of a physical non-violence, but it also includes corporate peace – an enacted peace in the body of Christ, and a psychological peace which we are to discern and cultivate. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Jonathan Totty and Paul Axton describe how approaches to Thomas (in Neo-Thomism, Nouvelle Theology, Radical Orthodoxy, Post-liberalism, Reformed Theology) may account for Trad-Catholics, Evangelical apologetics, analytical philosophy, and the rise of nominalism and secularism. The peculiar understandings of Thomas help explain the divisions of modern thought and theology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

The ultimate sacrilege occurring in churches today is the sacrifice of women and children, the outworking of the Fall characteristic of Moloch worship, in the name of Christ. This is the potential tragedy connected with reifying traditional roles captured in complementarianism. It misses the fact that the Gospel is overturning fallen norms of what it means to be male and female. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches: Love in the body of Christ is our assurance it is our certainty. This is not the certainty of a principle or formula (which is without life or presence) but the certainty of a promise of real presence of my brother on the right and my sister on the left. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this interview with Michael Hardin, the author of the "Jesus Driven Life," we discuss the work of Rene Girard as it is integrated with a non-violent hermeneutic. Hardin is an acclaimed author who has written extensively on Girard and in addition to his other books also edited the important compilation, "Stricken by God." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches: One of the curses of the Fall, a part of what it means to have forfeited the image of God, is that man will oppressively rule over women and women will masochistically succumb to this rule. Authentic Christian salvation is aimed at curing this oppressive curse. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Jason Rodenbeck and Paul Axton discuss the misfocus of forms of universalism and Jason suggests a key part of following Christ is necessarily left out of any form of universalism. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton Preaches: The completion of all creation is the completion of man by the creation of woman. The whole inner basis of creation, God’s whole covenant with man, which will later be fulfilled through Christ and the Church is prefigured in the completing of man’s emergence by the coming Woman to man. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Jason Rodenbeck and Paul Axton discuss the misfocus of forms of universalism and Jason suggests a key part of following Christ is necessarily left out of any form of universalism. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches - By referencing one of the most famous sermons in America and referring to one of the most unremarkable passages in the New Testament, the proposition is posed that the universal is to be found in the specific, the ordinary reality of all of our lives. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Matt, John and Paul continue their discussion of David Bentley Hart's recent book That All Shall Be Saved. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Sermon - God’s will is being enacted in creation, in history, in all of our lives culminating in universal worship: “Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Matt, John, and Paul discuss Hart's dogmatic universalism as set forth in his most recent work. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: Freedom does not mean that we are constrained by nothing so that true freedom arises in a vacuum. We are to be slaves of truth, slaves of righteousness, slaves of happiness. This is true freedom. Christ frees us from the slavery to death to slavery to righteousness and this accords with absolute freedom. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton interviews Douglas Campbell, a professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School who is known for studies of Paul's writings that command the respect of scholars worldwide, discussing the details of his work on Romans and his larger understanding of theology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The basic negative emotions – shame, jealousy, envy – can be understood as arising with mimetic rivalry – desiring what the other desires; desiring life and wholeness and feeling its absence. With the faith of Abraham made complete and available in Christ, imitating his faith saves from blind sacrificial violence. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: In Christ what sacrifice hides is now revealed. No longer can we claim that sacrifice and murder are perpetuated by God – as His murder and all murder “shall be charged against this generation” (Luke 11:51). All that would claim the necessity of His sacrifice perpetuate the lie that killed Him. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Jason and Vangie Rodenbeck discuss the upcoming PBI course THE 310 Christian Community in the World: A study of the Kingdom of God as it restores community and creation. Registration is currently open and can be found at the bottom of the current offerings page. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The Word of Christ can save as it displaces a word that kills around which we would center ourselves. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton proposes that the key idea of Hegel is explained through his interaction with Kant, Descartes, and the thought he gave rise to in psychoanalysis. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound