Forging Ploughshares

Paul continues his sermon on Galatians, expounding the “faith of” Christ as inclusive of ethics. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul concludes his study in I John. The final phrase in John concerning idolatry is a summation of the problem he has dealt with and a contrast to the solution he has offered. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul introduces the book of Hebrews. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

David Mosley has written and published on the intersection between art and theology. In this conversation he compares and contrasts Tolkien and Lewis and describes their particular strengths. He also locates their work in a particular theological understanding. Part 2 of 2 If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

David Mosley has written and published on the intersection between art and theology. In this conversation he compares and contrasts Tolkien and Lewis and describes their particular strengths. He also locates their work in a particular theological understanding. Part 1 of 2 If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his study in I John. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul explains the role of resurrection in Christian understanding on Easter Sunday. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul and Alec Bussen have a conversation about communion practices. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul runs down the meaning of blood and blood sacrifice as it relates back to Abraham and Isaac and is taken up into the Goat of the Lord. From its inception, sacrifice pointed to kenotic love. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul and Jason discuss the issue of suffering and evil from the perspective of Jesus’ “Identification” with our suffering and his experience of evil on the cross, as described by theologian Brad Jersak’s Identification theology. Part 2 of 2. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul and Jason discuss the issue of suffering and evil from the perspective of Jesus’ “Identification” with our suffering and his experience of evil on the cross, as described by theologian Brad Jersak’s Identification theology. Part 1 of 2. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul explains the psychotheology of violence. Part 2 of 2 If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul explains the psychotheology of violence. Part 1 of 2 If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Jonathan Totty makes the case that nonviolence is at the heart of the central ideal of unity in the Restoration Idea. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul traces how authority works in relation to the Gospel and what this has to do with Justification. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Galatians and the New Testament are written that, “We might know how to conduct ourselves in the household of God.” The Bible is to be read in the Church so as to preserve an already existing unity. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Can we state the concrete personal and psychological difference which Christianity makes? Through a comparison of contemporary psychoanalysis and Ro. 7-8 this difference is layed out. (Talk given at Lane Christian Church for the area men’s meeting.) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this sermon, Paul summarizes the book of Romans. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his study of I John. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Using Scientology and Albert Speer as examples, Paul demonstrates how narrative misdirection or a truncated narrative can result in evil. This points to the need of the alternative narrative community of the church in which to ground our ethics. The picture, then, of a Christianity that does not take into account [being enculturated] is the failure of Christianity in Nazi Germany—I think it’s the failure of a Christianity in the United States—because what Christians often imagine is that being a Christian in no way means that they have to sacrifice participation in the culture at any level. But that it means you can add those symbols of faith without any sacrifice or suffering while remaining comfortable. Here the failure of humanity is the way that we would join ourselves together. If we would join ourselves for purposes that are inadequate—well that corporate community is subject to becoming evil. If we join ourselves to a Wall Street firm whose only goal is to make profit, do you think that could become evil? What happens with corporate cultures or cultures per se, is that their story is truncated—it’s too small. If we find our stories in these places, being rich on wall street, a movie star, an athlete, if that becomes a kind of end goal, then we’ve joined into precisely the problem. What Wink has realized is that even church—churches set upon numerical growth… you think they can become evil? Yes, because they’ve truncated the story. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his study in I John, emphasizing that a Christianity which is focused on punishment is inadequate and falls short of love. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul and Jonathan Totty discus Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard’s key work, and bring to a conclusion his goals in authorship. The significance is the attempt to bring the psychological realm back into theology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his study in I John. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul explains the logic of Anselm’s ontological argument, what it does, and connects it to the death of Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his study in I John. And so John gives us the test, “You know the spirit of God—every spirit who confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” You do not distinguish between the man and the divinity, the incarnation, then, is God in the flesh. If you do a little church history it’s amazing how this same thing comes up again and again. I kind of like Luther’s phrase that “God died on the cross. “What he’s combatting is the tendency that he was running into of people splitting up God… Jack Cottrell does this most beautifully. He says, “Well, the spirit of God can’t die, it was the body of Jesus that died.” Oh, we’re right back into dualism and Gnosticism. Other than that it’s a wonderful doctrine, but John says it’s of the antichrist and by this test he would be a false kind of prophet… but I’m not going to say that… Okay, maybe I will. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul presents a reconstituted, holistic form of apologetics that may provide effective witness. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul invites Matt Welch to share his story and talk about his current work with the 91four ministry. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul lays out his understanding of why Christ died and how His death can be described in terms of a change of subjectivity. I think what we see God getting satisfaction out of, we do, too. In a very perverse way. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul and Frank continue their discussion on communion. This episode covers “real presence” and the meaning of “eating” and “drinking” the flesh and blood of Jesus. Rather than dwelling on the theoretical, they dive right into a big-picture view of the Gospel of John by going through the whole story to understand what Jesus meant when He gave that strange commandment. Sources Cited: Scott Hahn’s talk Alexander Campbell’s article If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his study of I John. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

The universal notion of sacrifice and the biblical departure from this system in the Old Testament and in the sacrifice of Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Ethics and belief must be brought together in the ethic of love. To not bring them together results in ideology – a religion without content. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

The equation of hope/love, self-sacrifice/love, righteousness/love, recognizing Jesus/love. All of these are needed to arrive at a notion of agape love. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

The Christian ethic begins by putting our security in the hands of God. Evil arises because we would secure ourselves and this is the ground of personal and corporate evil. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Modern apologetics would presume to be able to prove God through the traditional arguments for God. Paul proposes holistic witness as an alternative. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

How we define evil will be determinative of how we understand God. We know God not on the basis of a law or tradition as with the Friends of Job but through Christ. As we confront and challenge evil, that is precisely (in the thinking of Bonhoeffer) where God meets us. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul and Jonathan Totty talk about Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus, and how he travels a road very similar to Zizek and Lacan. The difference of course is that Kierkegaard moves beyond Climacus to a full blown Christianity. The question is if his criticism of Hegelian Christians as falling short applies to the contemporary scence. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul continues his explanation of Romans 13. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul’s study in I John continues, this time about practicing righteousness and what it means to be born again. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul explains the disastrous consequences in the 20th Century brought about in part by the role modern philosophy of religion played. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul addresses how the Christian should respond to evil government in Romans 13. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul describes the keys to recognizing the false Christians among us. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

What kind of dialogue does the Gospel of peace have with the state, especially in as dark a political time as the one we find ourselves in? That of obedient supporters of its agendas or of withdrawn resignation to its violence? Jason and Paul discuss the New Testament’s witness (from the Gospels and the epistles) of the Church as a radical alternative Kingdom to Caesar’s, a Kingdom whose prophetic words and life are an engaged critique of the powers of this dark world. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Subordination is significantly different from unconditional obedience. Was Christ “obedient” to Rome? He was killed by Rome. Romans 13 is not about “blind obedience to the state.” If that was the case, the Christians would all have been worshiping Caesar. Paul is rejecting any notion of violent revolution. Paul has no illusions about Rome being a servant of God, though he does use corrupt nations for his purposes as they remain under his judgment. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

John poses three tests to determine orthodoxy: The moral test (How do you walk in light or darkness?), the social test (Do you continue to fellowship with the saints or are you divisive?) and the doctrinal test (Do you believe that Jesus is Lord and that he was fully human?). If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul discusses how our own self-image and the idolatrous image reflect a failed image. The restoration of the image in Christ is actually more of a fulfillment of an original potential. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

In this study John’s opposed pairs are shown to counter dualistic notions in that one pair is always pictured as overcoming the other. Salvation is pictured as entailing a set of practices (walking in the light) that John clearly delineates. Practicing Christianity is already an idea aimed at defeating the dualistic separation of faith and practice. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Sharon Klingemann, Mazie Sinlee and Paul discuss the lost apostle – Junia. Why has she gone missing and what are the implications of a woman apostle? The discussion is based on Sharon’s research of the subject. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

This conversation between Paul and Jason is inspired by Paul’s essay The Mystery Revealed. The conversation explores legitimate and illegitimate understandings of the mystery of Christ and focuses largely on pagan understandings of the “idol” and the contrast of the “Image of God” as described by Genesis 1. As the conversation unfolds, what emerges is an understanding of loving God and loving neighbor as self as a restoration of the image of God and a correction of perverse notions of God which are more pagan than Christian. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound

Paul begins a Bible study on I John. This introduction covers key ideas leading to universal false teaching as represented by Gnosticism. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound