Forging Ploughshares

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.

Paul Axton preaches - Christianity has often given rise to antisemitism, as with Martin Luther's direct inspiration of Adolph Hitler, but rightly understood Christ occupies the Hebraic universe of meaning and Christianity is simply a different orientation in this same symbolic universe. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - In Shusaku Endo's description, Christianity cannot take root in Japan, which he describes as a mud swamp, but every culture has its corrosive effects on the gospel, particularly as in America, where we may be blind to these effects. The resolution is to come to a correct understanding of Jesus relationship to Jewish culture and religion as its proper end. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jon and Paul discuss gender reassignment surgery and issues of gender and possible theological approaches to the subject. Jon explains the fully affirming Episcopal perspective and the parameters and limitations of that perspective. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - In this secular age the experience of God may be lost, as Paul describes, due to a pursuit of human wisdom and signs. But in Christ the fulness of divine experience opens all of life to the fulness of a different reality and experience. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Jon, and Paul reflect on our conversation with Jordan, including his departure from David Bentley Hart, and Jon takes up Hart's understanding and suggests a rapprochement through Bulgakov. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Is the incarnation finished with the resurrection and ascension of Christ or is this now an eternal fact about God and reality? There is a form of Christianity that posits a complete divide between faith and practice, body and soul, and heaven and earth (implicitly or explicitly assuming the incarnation is provisional) which misses the beauty of God revealed in the world and real world defeat of evil. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt and Paul discuss the UFO phenomenon with Ambrose Andreano, who has written the book Angels, Archons and Aliens. Some of the the explanations for the phenomena and possible implications are considered. Register now For the Class Marginalization and Restorative Justice https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The portrayal in each of the resurrection appearances is grief, initial misrecognition of Jesus, and then a shift in perspective. It is within this shifted perspective that the gospel is proclaimed, the New Testament is written, the church is formed, and two thousand years of witnesses come forth. Register now For the Class Marginalization and Restorative Justice: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Colossians poses the incarnation of Christ and redemption as the true creation and the true beginning, in which Genesis 2 is made a reality and the false creation and incarnation of Genesis 3 is suspended. Register now For the Class Marginalization and Restorative Justice https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt and Paul discuss with Jon the upcoming class, Marginalization and Restorative Justice: A biblical and theological study of the Kingdom of God - an approach to issues of power and inequality among oppressed groups including gender, race, disability, and socio-economic status. Register now for the class https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In Part 3 of Matt and Paul's interview with Jordan Wood, Jordan differentiates his and Maximus' focus on the person of Christ from David Hart's clinging to formal categories and tendency toward abstraction. Jordan also addresses the issue of panentheism, his departure from Thomas Aquinas, and his understanding of the role of nature and grace in Maximus. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The book of Philemon is a worked example of the implication of the gospel in that the slave/master relationship is displaced in the church by the koinonia of brothers and sisters. Yet this obvious implication of the gospel, worked out in Philemon, is rejected as is indicated in the reception of the book and the continuation of slavery among Christians. This may be because the implication of the gospel is a complete overturning of the city, the law, and the economy of the the city of man. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In part 2 of our interview with Jordan Wood, Jordan soars to amazing heights. Jordan explains to Matt and Paul, Maximus' formula "creation is incarnation" and the time and space bending implications of Jesus Christ as being at the beginning of all things. We also discuss how it is the fall occurs with the beginning with creation ex-nihilo. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Paul’s depiction of the armor of God in Ephesians is a summary of his gospel with the focus on taking it up and doing it. This is not simply an allegory or illustration, but the very center of Paul's gospel as presented in Ephesians. It is the power of the Constantinian shift which will tend to spiritualize and trivialize this depiction, and it is precisely against a Constantinian Christianity and this sort of insidious power that this armor protects. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this first in a series with Jordan Daniel Wood, Matt and Paul interview Jordan and discuss his journey from the Restoration Movement and a Bible College in Missouri to his groundbreaking work on Maximus the Confessor. Jordan, Matt, and Paul, share the overlap and development of their journey and discuss the present state of the academy and church, and Jordan introduces why Maximus is the theologian for this age of expanding knowledge. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Imitation of Christ is the very substance of salvation. Apart from imitating his life there is no gospel, no tradition and no faith, yet this crucial motif supporting the language of discipleship, being in Christ, walking as Christ walked, is obscured by "faith alone" and theories of atonement focused on payment. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The power of coercion, the power of command and control, or power over other people is the power of death and violence that is universally recognized. Resurrection power redefines the meaning of power, linking it with the love and unity of being joined to Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, David, Austin, Drew, Brian, and Paul discuss Luther's approach to faith and reason as building upon a nominalist understanding which leads to his focus on forensics and his notion of a necessary and continuing dialectic between law and grace. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The blindness of sacrificial religion, of idolatry, of cultural hostility, creates a fabricated reality described as a process of externalization, objectivation, and internalization in which the origins of human culture create a necessary blindness or mystery which Christ exposes and displaces. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Creation ex-nihilo poses the possibility of evil as a return or defeat of the fulness of creation in redemption and participation in the divine. Thus we are co-participants in our own creation, willing the fulness of our completion in Christ through our echoing the "Yes" of Christ the the Father and the Spirit. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brad, Brian, Matthew, Drew, Jim, Austin, Matt, and Paul conclude their discussion of Maximus the Confessor and his notion of theosis and take up possible problems and implications. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Jim, Brian, Brad, Drew, Matthew, and Paul examine together the Christo-logic of Maximus the Confessor found in his formula “The Word of God, very God, wills that the mystery of his Incarnation be actualized always and in all things.” The radical implications and potential issues with this understanding are discussed. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The holistic cosmic vision of Ephesians also details how this integrated vision defeats the partial vision of sin, in which the finite is invested with ultimate meaning. The genealogy of the desire of the flesh, involves investing the flesh with a semantic load it cannot bear or satisfy. The antagonism this creates is resolved in the Body of Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matthew, Rob, Matt, Brian, Drew, Brad, and Paul conclude their discussion on Augustine's departure and contrast to Origen and develop the practical difference this will make in reading the Bible. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Paul's notion of Christ's "summing up" of all things (Eph. 2:10) is taken by Irenaeus and the early church as descriptive of the economy of salvation and the means of defeating evil. Where this economy of participation is lost there is a simultaneous loss of a real world defeat of evil and a loss of a coherent frame explaining being "in Christ." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Brian, David, Matthew, Drew, Rob, Matt, and Paul, discuss the shift that occurs with Augustine's rejection of Origen's apocatastasis and his turn to a dualism and notions of language and interiority that will come to define the modern in its nihilism and secularism. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

If Paul's gospel is summed up by Ephesians, this means the Lutheran or Protestant focus on Law versus grace or faith over and against works does not figure. This recentering of Paul's gospel entails a different perspective on Judaism (based on covenant and not contract) and also the understanding that Christ fulfills the covenant and does not meet the obligations of a contract, and this is God predestined plan for the cosmos. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Austin, and Paul discuss how Origen's Christology constitutes a metaphysics. In describing the relation between the Son and the Father Origen establishes his first principle, the foundation of the Christian worldview. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The mystery revealed in the Gospel pertains to creations end and beginning, to salvation from sin and the defeat of the Prince of the Power of the Air, to cosmic peace and reconciliation, and according to Origen, to the logoi or arche laid in the foundation of Christ. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Matt, David, Austin, Drew, Matthew, Brad, and Paul discuss the key and foundational role, in spite of his condemnation, played by Origen of Alexandria. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - At the baptism and transfiguration of Christ are revealed the transforming power of God found in God's presence in Christ, in Scripture, and in the communion of the Saints. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Brad, David, Matthew, Drew, Jim, Allan, Matt, Rob, and Paul discuss how Irenaeus' recapitulation as salvation/hermeneutic is taken up by Origen in his book, On First Principles, as the first theology spelling out how Christian logic departs from Greek philosophy. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - John describes the antichrist as denying the humanity of Christ and Karl Barth concludes the antichrist of the German church has also displaced Jesus as mediator with the world (in the form of the führer, the analogy of being, the state). There is a direct identity between Christ and the believer which brings together Creator and creation, flesh and Spirit, God and man, which is illustrated by Melchizedek and extended to Christ and all believers which directly counters the antichrist. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Austin, Brad, Brian, Matt, Drew, Matthew, Allan, Jim and Paul, discuss the work of the early church father, Irenaeus, and his approach to both his reading of the Hebrew Scriptures and the economy of salvation, including cosmic salvation, through the summing up (recapitulation) of all things in the Gospel. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Isaiah depicts a world of darkness broken open by the light of the Messiah. The depth of the violence, oppression, and meaninglessness of this darkness must be appreciated so as to apprehend the world-changing nature of God conjoined to the world in the light of Christ. (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Jim, Allan, Rob, David, Brian, Brad, Drew, and Paul discuss the Gospel as answering the question, "Who do you say that I am?" Identifying Christ comes with the presence of Christ in the one answering the question. This Gospel encounter, not history, nor Scripture, nor church, is the central and primary authority from which all of these authorities are derived. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The kingdoms of the world would determine reality through manipulation of life through death while Christ's kingdom defeats death and establishes a kingdom of life and peace. Though the Jewish notion that the Messiah would defeat Rome through violent insurrection was mistaken, it was not a mistake to understand that the Messiah would usher in a different kingdom and a different order of truth and reality. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this first in a series on reading the Bible Allan, Jim, Trenton, Matt, Brian, Drew, Matthew and Paul discuss the early church hermeneutic connected to the Gospel of peace and its connection to an embodied ethic, soon set aside in the Constantinian shift. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - In the United States and many places throughout the world Christianity is being tied to fascism and authoritarianism. There is a failed form of Christianity that becomes a platform for the worst forms of abusive authoritarianism, yet where Christianity is correctly understood Fascist Christian, Nazi Christian, or perhaps German Christian or American Christian should be oxymoronic. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this interview with Australian Pastor and Peace Activist Michael Wood, Michael describes how the struggle of being a peaceful Rector (head - the one in charge) led him to realize the depth of violence by which we are surrounded and the need to implement and practice peace structurally and strategically in church and throughout life. (You can find Practicing Peace at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1666792241?ie=UTF8&n=133140011 Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - the anthropic principle may accord or point to a Christian understanding, but Paul goes far beyond this in describing Christ as the motive force - the means and reason - for creation and creation's completion in redemption. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Catherine Totty interviews Paul in regard to his story in missions and his journey and experience in Japan. They discuss the role of mission organizations, the notion of contextualization, mission strategy, and training leadership. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.