Forging Ploughshares

Mike Johnson has put on display the reigning religion of Christian Nationalism, in imagining God ordained his rise as Speaker so as to support Israel. The appeal to Romans 13 is a key part of this Christian Nationalism, but this misses the true message of Paul that the Christian defeat of evil government is not through fusion of church and state, but by Christian adherence to the Kingdom built on resurrection power not through directing the state power of death.

In part 2 of our conversation, John DePue explains the history of interpretation of Romans up to the Reformation, the manner in which Phoebe would have acted out the text, and how it is an apocalyptic reading avoids supersessionism or antisemitism. See Beyond Justification (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) , by Douglas Campbell and John DePue. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The rise of Christian nationalism, first in England and then in the United States, has always been linked to Christian Zionism, which is now killing Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians. Ironically this is linked to Romans 11, where Paul sets forth the purposes of Israel to Christ, and refutes any eternalizing importance of the law or of ethnic Israel. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

John DePue explains to Jeff, Brian, Matt, David and Paul the historical and grammatical argument for reading Romans 1:18-32 and other places in Romans as Paul giving voice to the False Teacher. See Beyond Justification (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) , by Douglas Campbell and John DePue. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Many, such as John Calvin, presume the law is definitive of the economy of salvation, and thus read Romans 7 as the normal Christian life. The tragic error of this misunderstanding is to confuse the lie of sin with the solution of Christ. The lie of this false teaching is brought out by contrasting chapters 7 (life under the law) & 8 (new life in Christ) of Romans. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The law always has its transgressive support – doing a particular form of evil so as to produce a particular form of the good. The law generates this embodied deception. In Paul’s imagery, the body can be attached to either law (Paul uses the phrase, “body of sin”) or to the body of Christ, the issue is, which is the constituting environment? Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In part 2 of our conversation concerning the book Beyond Justification (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) , by Douglas Campbell and John DePue, John describes the shortcoming of the new perspective, but particularly the programmatic failure of N. T. Wright, along with the unnecessary divisions which occur between justification, sanctification, revelation and salvation, in justification theory. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In Part I of this two part conversation, Jonathan DePue, coauthor with Douglas Campbell, discusses their upcoming book (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) with Paul, with particular focus on the problem of anti-Semitism in traditional Protestant justification theory. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The typical understanding of salvation, or the typical Protestant understanding, is that all people recognize God and his righteousness, and experience the incapacity to keep the law. This inability to keep the law is definitive of both the human problem and the solution of the cross of Christ, and this explains the curse of the law. This sermon proposes an alternative understanding of the human problem and a different soteriology, based on an alternative reading of the curse of the law in Romans and Galatians. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Matt, Jonathan, David, Austin, Jim, and Paul discuss John Howard Yoder's and David Bentley Hart's depiction of Constantinianism and the fusion of Church and State and the disappearance of the church. The only visible Christian is one armored by the gospel, resistant to and not armored by the state. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The impetus behind Paul’s writing and the work of the Christian life and theology is the conversion of the mind, the transformation of the Subject, the rise of a new form of consciousness including self-consciousness. God, the essence of reality, is not passively intuited or grasped by sight or images – which by definition remain objects – but God in Christ presents himself for the understanding, to be actively apprehended as part of human decision and judgment. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, David, Matt, Brent, Jonathan, Jim and Paul discuss the armor of peace and nonviolence as the heart of resisting the powers, rather than, in the manner of Hart and Milbank, as a passive nonresistance. This resistance is salvific and the meaning of "putting on Christ." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Faith brings coherence, intelligibility, and understanding, in the midst of the homelessness of being human. The foundations of culture, of law, of institutions, crumbled at Babel just as they have in postmodernism but faith secures meaning in the midst of this homeless condition. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Jim, Jonathan, Matt, Brent, David, and Paul discuss the picture of imitation in Ephesians and the New Testament as the basic motif of salvation in the New Testament. Christian imitation is a lived salvation delivering from the rivalry of mimetic desire. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Romans 1:18-32 are not Paul's gospel but the premises of a false Teacher opposing Paul, and in Romans 1-3 he deconstructs these premises, preparing for his conclusion that the law is part of the problem defeated by Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The Romans may have had a law-based understanding of atonement connected to the notion that sin is simply breaking the law. Paul takes them from this understanding to the notion that sin is bondage to a lie in regard to the law from which Christ delivers through resurrection. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

This is the key conclusion to The Mystery Revealed: The Gospel as Exposure of the Lie of Evil as focus turns to individual participation in creation. As David Bentley Hart points out in All Shall Be Saved, humanity is in bondage, but then as he recognizes in You Are Gods, this bondage does not preclude human participation in self-creation. In this discussion Tim, Jonathan, Matt, Jim, Brent, Matthew, Austin, and Paul discuss the implication of these poles of reality in the encounter with and defeat of evil. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In Romans 1-3 Paul is giving voice to and refuting a false teacher, yet justification theory takes all of Romans 1-3 as the teaching of Paul, ending up with a contradictory gospel which Paul might call the accursed gospel. By not sorting out the voice of the false teacher from Paul's refutation of this teacher, justification theory imagines the law, human capacity, and human recognition of its need is the precursor to coming to Christ. By way of contrast, Paul believes humanity is in bondage to sin and death and Christ alone delivers and only Christ is the foundation for right understanding. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Ambrose, Matt, and Paul, discuss how the United States, due to the culture of secrecy surrounding the various intelligence agencies and classified history has come to resemble churches that cloak sex scandals or closed societies that keep their citizens in the dark. Ambrose traces this secret history surrounding UFO crash retrievals, such as that which retired Major David Grusch exposed in his testimony to Congress. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Luther's justification by faith, though it may have been aimed at an unconditional understanding over and against works-righteousness, melded conditionalism and unconditionalism and injected much of Christian thought and biblical interpretation with this confusion. Romans is the place these two systems collide, and particularly how we read Romans 7 brings out the contrast in epistemology, anthropology, the doctrine of revelation, the understanding of God, and of Christ and atonement. (Sign up for our next class, Romans: Salvation through the Body of Christ A theological study of the faithfulness of God revealed in Christ Jesus as articulated in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Focusing on Paul’s exposition of God making the world right through Christ. Starting September 4th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Megan, Shaila, Jess, and Paul continue the discussion surrounding Megan's Women's Chapel, as it has addressed the destructive nature of how women and human sexuality are viewed in teachings surrounding both purity culture and complementarianism as they have become part of church and Christian teaching. (Sign up for our next class, Romans: Salvation through the Body of Christ A theological study of the faithfulness of God revealed in Christ Jesus as articulated in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Focusing on Paul’s exposition of God making the world right through Christ. Starting September 4th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Justification by faith can either be understood as the "accursed gospel" of the false teachers or entry into the unconditional good news. The manner in which justification by faith must include every category is worked out in this message. (Sign up for our next class, Romans: Salvation through the Body of Christ A theological study of the faithfulness of God revealed in Christ Jesus as articulated in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Focusing on Paul’s exposition of God making the world right through Christ. Starting September 4th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Megan, Shaila, and Jess describe to Paul the Women's Chapel started by Megan as a project through Washington University to provide a space for women to share their church journey through, what is sometimes a stifling and traumatic experience. (Sign up for our next class, Romans: Salvation through the Body of Christ A theological study of the faithfulness of God revealed in Christ Jesus as articulated in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Focusing on Paul’s exposition of God making the world right through Christ. Starting September 4th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Justification and faith have been skewed by a gospel that defines these terms as if the law is the baseline and as if retributive justice defines the work of Christ. In this understanding all comprehend who God is and his requirements, yet they simultaneously are depraved. In this false gospel suffering bring righteousness, forgiveness is granted only after wrath is propitiated, and God's anger is pitted against his love. This is not the Gospel. (Sign up for our next class, Romans, starting in September https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Tom, and Paul continue their discussion of the film, Oppenheimer, and discuss the portrayal of sin and evil acknowledged and unacknowledged by the man and the film. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

On August 6th, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, bringing to a conclusion three hundred years of scientific discovery in the holocaust unleashed on Japan and still threatening the world. The individual credited as the father of the atomic bomb, demonstrated the Adam-like struggle tying great good to profound evil, which haunts the human race. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Tom and Paul discuss the Christopher Nolan film, Oppenheimer, and the book which serves as the basis of the film, American Prometheus, setting it in the context of the dropping of the Bomb on Hiroshima (August 6th) and Nagasaki (August 9th), and the theological and moral implications. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The biblical picture of salvation is the melding or joining of Divine and human Spirit, Life, and Breath. The human image bears this eternal purpose which is only understood through the free joining, willing opening, or purposeful enacting of the grace of God in the person. Augustinian original sin and predestination have obscured this picture of salvation as willing participation of the human person in receiving Divine personhood. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Tim, Jonathan, Matt, Jim, Brent, Matthew, Austin, and Paul discuss the mystery revealed through the Gospel (in Ephesians) as unfolding of the will of God in creation's completion through redemption. Examples of the mystery compounded are Girardian scapegoating, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Calvinist predestination, each of which reify a mysterious nothing. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Divine and created Sophia, as brought together in Christ, describes what is happening in the redemption of the cosmos. The created order is brought to its fulfillment in being joined to the Creator. Human wisdom alone though, leaves out the redemptive step. Creation ex nihilo opens creation to the possibility of being pictured in humans wisdom as grounded in some reified nothing, This produces the antinomies and antagonism from which the Divine-Human One saves. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, David, Matthew, Brian, and Paul discuss the nature of radical evil as the underside of the law (as exemplified by Paul the Pharisee and as duplicated in all radical evil), and how Christ defeats this evil by exposing its deception. This is necessarily cosmic and universal. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The demonization and scapegoating of Jesus are exposed by Jesus' death and resurrection and by his explicit teaching, describing the continuation of demonization in the Christian age as the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Where Christians continue to believe the lie of demonization and where they participate in scapegoating there is no forgiveness possible. This is the law of forgiveness, which demands forgiveness of enemies that forgiveness from God would be granted. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Tom Evans, formerly on the ministerial staff of one of the largest churches in the country, describes to Paul, the emptiness of the mega church experience. Real world healing and salvation are being set aside for a business model which cannot endure the countercultural truth of a peaceable Gospel. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The cosmic representation of the Temple is made an individual reality as the kingdom of God is establishes through Temple communities centered on life and peace rather than violence and death. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Brian, Jim, David, Jonathan, Matthew, Brent, and Paul continue discussion on the cosmic power of Christ as defeat of the universal psychoanalytic/individual sickness and the corporate powers. Freud, Lacan and Žižek illustrate Paul's point in Eph. 2: the human disease is imagining it has life and power when it only has the power of death and violence. The grace and inheritance of Christ is a unifying defeat of this divisiveness. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - No single part of personhood is a sufficient beginning point, but only the fullness of Trinitarian reality can encapsulate the ground for reason, cognition, and experience. This is the center of the Eastern theology of Sergius Bulgakov, which points to a recovery of personhood as the experience of God as making personhood a possibility. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matthew, Jonathan, Brian, David, Brent, and Paul discuss the cosmic image of Christ in Ephesians 2, and humankinds incorporation into the divine image, and the simultaneous picture of evil, as the refusal of this reality. Evil arises, in this picture, as the reification or refusal of the cosmic person and the turn to the finite and impersonal (language, law, the symbolic) as the controlling factor of the self. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Christ exposes the history of murder and the exposure, as in the case of Daniel Ellsberg's exposure of the Pentagon Papers and the Doomsday Machine and Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian exposing nihilistic violence, is the first step in confronting evil. The Gospel, by definition, opposes the violence embedded in the human heart. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matthew, Jonathan, Brent, Matt, Brian, Jim, and Paul discuss the psychoanalytic reality of peace and its connection to cosmic peace through the reign of Christ as expressed in Ephesians 1 & 2. Paul introduces Ephesians 2 and the psychoanalytic reality of peace and then the implications of chapter 1 of Ephesians and the subduing of the powers as a practical reality is discussed.

Paul Axton preaches - Recognition of the Abba relationship to God frees from slavery to the law, as the relationship sealed by the Spirit through the Son is a new form of subjectivity. The story of Christ lifts up every human story and every father/child relationship, giving it a depth of meaning and significance. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The explanation of the death of Christ, the divine dying in the human, is explained through the created and uncreated aspects of Wisdom (as in the theology of Sergius Bulgakov). This explanation includes how it is that salvation in dying and resurrection is imparted to all through participation (divinization) - the divinization of Christ in which all participate. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brent, David, Matt, Matthew, Jonathan, Jim, and Paul discuss the two-fold economy found in Gnosticism/nominalism and in Paul's summing up as described in Irenaeus' doctrine of recapitulation. Participation in Christ as described in recapitulation constitutes the economy that binds together the various New Testament descriptions of being "adopted," being "in Christ," or being "in his likeness." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - God is working through all peoples, cultures and religions, as is demonstrated in the recent mass movements of Muslims coming to Christ. But this does not entail relinquishing the critical faculty of thought, as is often the case with Zen Buddhism. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jonathan, Brent, Matt, and Paul discuss the implications of taking Ephesians as central to the Pauline corpus and discuss both recapitulation and Christus Victor as Paul's understanding of atonment in Ephesians. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The test of authentic Christianity is its liberating effect, and the most obvious example of this liberation pertains to chattel slavery in the modern period. The trans-Atlantic slave trade directly involved nearly every Christian group. Gregory of Nyssa provides the earliest critique of slavery and a theology that cannot tolerate this sort of moral and theological failure. His theology is the remedy to the modern theological failure. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Matt, Brent, Matthew, Jonathan, Austin, David, and Paul discuss the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Wesleyan understanding of salvation and compare it to Paul's depiction in Ephesians. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The Roman Empire is described in Revelation as the puppet of Satan, and Christ alone defeats this Beast. Empire threatens the church in the United States and the Christocentrism of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his challenge of Nazi Empire, indicates the failure of Lutheran Christocentrism with its notion of two kingdoms, and replaces it with the singular reality of the kingdom of Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

David, Matt, Brian, Brent, Austin, Tim, and Paul discuss the necessary shifts to see Ephesians as central to Paul's Gospel. The work of Douglas Campbell, Richard Hays, E. P. Sanders, Krister Stendahl, and Thomas Torrance, have to be considered in setting aside the reformed understanding of Paul focused on Romans and Galatians, so as to see Ephesians as key to Paul's understanding, captured in the notion of a participatory ontology. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Jesus as ensouled body and embodied soul undoes dualism and antagonism which plays upon body/soul and male/female antagonism. In Christ, as the truly human one, theology is set upon a new foundation in which he defines the human condition and not the other way round. True motherhood and fatherhood, husband and wife, male and female relationship are restored in his flesh. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Tom Evans describes the difference between ancestral sin and Augustinian original sin and compares it to Paul Axton's Psychotheological approach. Where Augustinian original sin leaves both sin and salvation a mystery (giving rise to legal exchange theories like divine satisfaction and penal substitution), ancestral sin, like psychotheology, provides a diagnosis of the human predicament and a real-world cure. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.