Forging Ploughshares

In this second part of our conversation with Girard expert, Anthony Bartlett, we discuss the upcoming class Anthony will teach and also discuss the necessity to go beyond Girard to the fulness of peace and nonviolence of the Gospel. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Anthony Bartlett describes his departure from the Priesthood and passage through The Little Brothers of Jesus and his discovery of René Girard and entry into a nonviolent reading of Scripture and an alternative community of peace. (Sign up for the class with Anthony Bartlett, Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In Part 2 on discussion of the Eucharist the focus on the role of the Holy Spirit, the bringing together sign and signified, in a new humanity of peace realized in deep communion and practice are discussed. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The kingdom of Christ, the church, is the all encompassing work of Christ in defeating evil, and the kingdoms of this world, so as to be all in all and to reign over all. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

What happens when a Baptist, an Episcopalian, an Eastern Orthodox, a Roman Catholic, and a non-denominational Christian discuss the Eucharist? Brad, Brian, Matt, Jonathan, and Paul arrive at a point of convergence which relies upon a depth of history, very much associated with the Eastern tradition. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The slaughter in Gaza demonstrates the bankruptcy of premillennialism, dispensationalism, and Christian Zionism, all of which deny the basic teaching that the work of the cross has defeated sin, death and the devil. The genocidal teaching displacing the Gospel, and which Christ identifies with blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, is now the predominant religion of the land. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In part 2 of our conversation with Benard Perret he describes the role of the satan, or the complex nature of mimetic desire and the obstacle cause of desire which gives rise to violence and murder. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The point of judgement, "When you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me," puts the full weight of the eternal in the finite, which is the form of the incarnation. Eternity has invaded time, and to continue in a consciousness that separates them is the failed ethics and consciousness Christ defeats in his uniting God and humanity. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In part 1 of a two part episode, Benard Perret explains the significant depth and development of Girard's theory as an alternative to Anselm and as a further development of Karl Rahner's understanding that God gives himself in revelation. Perret explains how Girard's theory takes account of the violence of Scripture, bringing a unity otherwise lacking. Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon touches upon the possibility of acting upon the lie of radical evil, as in the case of Lamech, and the counter to this in the enactment of divine grace in infinite forgiveness. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

John Dear, the world renowned peace activist, describes his theological focus on practicing the Sermon on the Mount. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Brad and Paul discuss sin, not as a legal failure giving rise to guilt, but as a loss of the divine model due to the obstacle posed by sin (a very different understanding of missing the mark) and the recovery of this model in Christ. This serves as an explanation of the sermon which follows the discussion. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

John Dear describes to Brad and Paul his life of peacemaking with Jesus along with his friends the Berrigans, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and others, recommending doing the Sermon on the Mount rather than simply studying about it. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The vision of the apocalypse in which the slain Lamb reigns through nonviolent defeat of violence and death is the impetus behind the resistant nonviolence of the Sermon on the Mount. The interlocking logic of the vision and practice points to the necessity of universal salvation as the goal behind the practice. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

William Desmond describes the danger of the "all and all" in an Eastern sensibility, of subsuming all things into one rather than preserving difference. He describes the prejudice against belief and his preservation of Christian faith against the philosophical tide of the academy. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton Preaches: The Jewish confusion between God and evil results from the projection of their violence onto God, which Jesus identifies as marking their paternity as children of the Devil. The Jewish captivity to the lie of sin, is the human problem Jesus exposes and defeats, by defeating the power that killed him on the cross. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

William Desmond explains his reading of the Metaxological as the recovery of metaphysics as a being between, and he describes his deep reading of Hegel and points out the failure of the positive reading of Hegel in Rowan William and Gillian Rose, and debunks the Žižekian reading as untrue to Hegel. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The saving peace of Christ is universal in its cosmic scope, inclusive of the world, all people, and everything about them, delivering from the violence of the world, infected by human violence. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this final discussion of Hegel and Anselm, the contrast between the two in the personal and propositional is brought out, with the idea that God's person is given to us in Christ (poured out in kenotic love) and in this sense can be known. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Christ, in the kenotic love of the cross and incarnation, opens God to knowing and by imitating Christ there is a suspension of the oppressive understanding of God, the law, and the self, and the experience of the Spirit. The background to this kenotic interpretation is in Hegel's philosophy which is characterized by this kenotic understanding. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this lecture Paul Axton traces the early church's understanding of the Logos as the incarnate Christ, the sensibility preserved best in the East and taken up in Hegel's doctrine of atonement. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Following the development of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his expanded Christocentrism and departure from Luther's notion of the two kingdoms, this sermon calls for a clear delineation between Christian Nationalism and authentic Christianity. The failure to delineate gave rise to National Socialism in Germany and is giving rise to fascism in the United States. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton describes Rowan Williams' reinterpretation of Hegel, which accords with Axton's reading of Hegel's work on the philosophy of religion and Anselm's ontological argument. In this understanding, Hegel provides an orthodox Eastern-like sensibility of the necessity of Trinity for thought. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Romans 4 describes the experience of the sublime, in which the individual recognizes their unifying center outside of themselves, and are thus enlarged and liberated from the world. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

William Cavanaugh describes to Brad and Paul how the state came to dominate the Church, using Chile as a case study, and drawing links between Pinochet and Trump in the outworking of fascism through Christian nationalism in the US and in models such as Victor Orbán in Hungary. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The Lord's Supper is instituted originally against Egypt, Rome, and Israel, but the Eucharistic power has been coopted by the modern state such that nationalism and capitalism have become the modern liturgy, which can only be resisted through the power of bodying forth Christ in the original Eucharistic sense. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this continued discussion of imaginative apologetics it is argued that the possibility of knowing is not contained within thought, the possibility and impossibility posed from Anselm, Descartes, and Kant, but as Hegel argues, it is contained in the personhood of God revealed in Christ. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Tim Turner and Paul discuss the work of the Macedonia Project and the opportunity to come to Japan for a mission internship. Contact the [email protected] or visit https://macedonianprojectjapan.com/ (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Brad and Paul discuss the new monthly online fellowship as part of the necessary work of making peace through deep friendships and theology. The antagonism of the institution to the fullness of the gospel may require alternative means of finding fellowship. Send an email to [email protected] or to [email protected] in order to be put on the fellowship list. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton Preaches: The theology undergirding Donald Trump's expansion of presidential power is that of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, built upon nominalism and voluntarism, the opposite of Jesus Christ as Logos and Lord. In this understanding the rule of law through the political leader displaces Christ's defeat of death and evil, and leaves law and fear as primary and necessitates a sovereign political leader. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Anthony Bartlett, a leading Girardian theologian who has extended Girard's theory into a more complete description of the the semiotic or meaning shift which takes place in our orientation to signs through Christ, here explains how it is that hominization results in an orientation to death that Christ releases us from in his death and resurrection and in our taking up the cross. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: In the debates over Christology there were two clear tendencies in which the Alexandrians embraced the paradox of Jesus as God and the Antiochenes attempted to rationalize the suffering and death of Jesus through two natures. This has resulted in an obscuring of the identity of Christ in much of Christianity. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Anthony Bartlett, a leading scholar of René Girard, describes Girardian theory as precisely not the understanding given to it by Peter Thiel and right-wing Girardians (would be kingmakers in an authoritarian state). In a Girardian reading of the "sign of Jonah" Jesus and Christianity are anti-imperial, anti-oppressive authoritarianism. "A Christianity that would deploy Girardian insights for power and violence are of the anti-Christ." (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon looks at the radical New Testament depiction of Christ and its implications, and the failure to fully acknowledge this understanding in various heresies or simply the tendency to delimit the discussion such that it falls shore of acknowledging the story of Jesus is the story of God. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul and Jonathan Totty discuss the upcoming class on Colossians and Christology, which will utilize the historical development of Christology detailed by Rowan Williams, in arriving at an applied and practical understanding of the person and work of Christ. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 22nd https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Wittgenstein, Hegel, and Moltmann unite in describing the resurrection as opening up the life of Christ as the story of God, and the central interpretive key of faith. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul and Jim look at the ontological argument as an example of the basic human impetus to secure the self, to gain being, in and through language. The work of the psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva explains this basic human drive and how the cross breaks open this narcissistic self to become open to others and community. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The theological reason for the death of Christ should begin with the historical reality of what killed him and what he defeated in his death and resurrection; namely Israel, Rome, the law, and the principalities and powers behind the reification of death and law. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The Canadian broadcaster David Cayley describes his groundbreaking interviews with the thinker and theologian Ivan Illich, in which Illich describes how it is the very best, the church, became the very worst, in modernity. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton Preaches: Romans 3:25 is a key verse in determining Christ's relationship to the Temple. Is he a sacrifice of atonement to be fit into the Temple and Law, or is he the (hilasterion) Mercy Seat providing access to revelation of righteousness which is salvation? If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In part 2 of Brad and Paul's conversation with the theologian James Alison, the role of the church in marriage, divorce and the role of Church law are discussed especially as it relates to issues of gender and homosexuality. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: What Paul calls the ministry of death, is accentuated and exposed in the murder of Jesus, due to Jesus teaching and action in the Temple. The temple deals in the death of animals, which did not touch upon the deadly attitude of the human heart, and Jewish response to his interruption of the killing is the motive for killing Jesus bring this ministry of death to an end. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Brad and Paul interview the Girardian theologian James Alison concerning the pastoral and practical application of Girard, and how this relates to the sexual crisis in Catholicism. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches on the inadequacy of now and not yet as a characterization of the Christian life. Victory in Christ holds out a fullness of truth, a complete adoption, and the reality of escaping evil. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Anselm's deployment of the ontological argument leads directly to the closed whole of his atonement theory in divine satisfaction, all of which depends upon the reification of language resisted and corrected in Hegel, and noted by Paul. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus sets love above custom, law, and religious institutions but the corruption of this very best also poses the possibility of the very worst, in the words of Ivan Illich, in the institutionalization of the Church. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

John Pearson describes his work with the homeless and in sustainable farming leading to his work with wounded ministers through Ministry Support Services International https://www.mssint.org/ If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The fundamental lesson of the incarnation is that embodiment in general is the carrier of meaning a meaning for death or life, and that His embodiment is the fullness of meaning, life, extended universally. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In Part 2 of this 2 part conversation, Jon, Matt, and Paul, discuss the possible meanings and impact of David Bentley Hart's recent confession and discuss various alternative interpretations. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Personhood is definitive of God and humanity, meaning the relational, the infinite, and the universal, are inherent to truth, rather than the foundational, the propositional, the doctrinal, or the institutional, which reduce to the impersonal. Personal truth and knowledge overcomes the reductionistic, finite, and limited systems of this world. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!