Forging Ploughshares

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

Paul Axton preaches: Evangelicalism reproduces forms of idolatrous religion because it is of the same mold. We are no longer deceived and we can name this idol. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Richard Rohr's depiction of the Universal Christ is providing an answer to a generational disaffection from Evangelicalism. Paul Axton and Sharon Klingemann discuss his work. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: Religion and thought is world preserving in comparison to Christianity which is world deconstructing. The revolution we are called to be part of is world deconstruction. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton explains that the common approach to religion - Pluralist, Inclusivist, Exclusivist - fails to understand the specificity of salvation in each religion and Christianity in particular. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The election of Donald Trump and evangelical support for Trump is a living proof that white supremacy is alive and well, not in spite of, but because of evangelical Christians. Is a faith that requires oppression and exclusion, which explicitly tolerates and promotes white supremacy, “Christianity"? Isn’t this, as Douglas would have it, “the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels?” If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: We live in a time in which ethics has been separated out from the Christian story so that people do not hesitate to embrace the ethic of the culture rather than the ethic of love. – keeping the foreigners at bay, putting children in cages, making America Great Again at the expense of Christian ethics. The question arises as to the ground of ethics and especially Christian ethics. Is our ethics grounded in love? And what does this mean? If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this podcast, Paul Axton compares the work of Mircea Eliade, the father of religious studies, and Peter Berger, the father of the notion of the social construction of reality, so as to arrive at a biblical understanding of religion. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile is broken down in Christ, and the removal of this barrier is, for Paul, the archetype of salvation. Money shared by Gentiles and accepted by Jews is the token of its accomplishment. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this discussion Aaron Woods describes his work in Jerusalem teaching peace to Muslim children in a Christian school. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The resurrection connects us to creation, it exposes the lie of death as an escape, it connects us to embodiment, it frees us from the valuation and ethical system of culture, it connects us to the deep love of others and the comfort of that love, it connects us to history and salvation history – we are part of this history. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton concludes the series on various ways of engineering death in orientalism, occidentalism, and particular modes of enculturation the extreme form of sickness - the serial killer or the homicidal and genocidal tendency - by linking to a universal construct addressed in the death of Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: Is it the sting of sin is death or is it the sting of death is sin? Our tendency to misread this passage points to our tendency to miss what Christ saves us from. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton illustrates the way in which death is engineered into the purpose of life and culture in this analysis of Takeo Doi. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The "sickness unto death” is despair at not having the self. Resurrection is the ultimate cure of this sickness – but rightly conceiving of the resurrection we can begin to conquer this despair now. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton traces the manner in which Freud was taken up in Japan and the deep resonance between his theory and a Japanese sensibility. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches: The Corinthians, the evangelicals, the Roman Catholics, presume there is a naturally given recognition of good and evil in human wisdom. This "wisdom" is not the basis for Christianity but what Christ destroys. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul Axton explains that orientalism is not simply academic or nationalistic but is intimately tied to psychology and human interiority. Japanese used the work of Sigmund Freud, very much an orientalist, so as to manufacture an identity to ward off and reverse the denigrating assessments of the West. Japanese psychologists and texts literally reverse Freud and his valuation system and this reversal has become a key part of the Japanese search for identity. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound