Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton preaches: The living letters brings together embodiment and meaning in the particulars of incarnation, and this is reflected in quantum mechanics and modern biology as discussed by David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake. The letter that kills is on the order of a materialism which empties out meaning from embodiment. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Be...

Paul, Karl, Andy, and Jim discuss the role of language in Anselm and its development through Descartes into foundationalism, and pose the idea of personalism, found in Christ, as the resolution to this universal tendency to trade the impersonal for the personal.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Corinthians says, "you are a letter of Christ" and this living letter resolves the problem of the letter or language that is deadly. The resolution between the difference between God and Creation, subject and object, or all seemingly unbridgeable differences inherent to language, psychology, philosophy, and law (summed up as "the letter that kills") are bridged in the living l...

In this continued discussion of how the Constantinian shift impacted Christianity, Nate, Karl, Jim, Andrew and Paul, discuss the loss of non-violence, the turn from Christian ethics and the Sermon on the Mount, the turn to violent atonement, and the shift in the conception of authority and the church. A different "common sense" arose that pervaded every area of life so as to displace the uniquenes...

Paul Axton preaches, describing the transformed mind, or knowing God as the suspension of the common Jewish and Enlightenment notion of God and, recognized by Hegel. Paul's suspension of the law and Hegel's negation of the negation as the displacement of a mediated notion of God and direct knowing in Christ, are making the same argument about the necessity to cease believing in the God of the law...

In this discussion of how it is that Christianity became a religion, much like other religions, Paul, Nat, Jim, Andrew and Karl, discuss the impact of the Constantinian shift, the rise of Divine Satisfaction, the turn to a closed understanding of the world, and the relinquishing of the revolutionary nature of the faith.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Be...

Paul Axton preaches: The theme of Mathew captured in Immanuel, is completed in the Lord's Supper, in which the efficacious presence of God is made to bear on the lives of believers in what Hegel calls "actualized Christian Freedom." There is freedom from the violence of blood spilled in the taking up of the blood of Christ in the life of believers.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider don...

Paul Axton preaches: In this Christmas Sermon the role of presence ("God with us") and absence is traced in Scripture as the primary theme fulfilled in Christ; a theme also recognized in postmodern philosophy. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this continuation of discussions of sin and salvation, Paul Axton takes up and expands upon the early church understanding of recapitulation as an all-embracing understanding of atonement that accounts for the New Testament and the focus on the new divinized humanity found in Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In a continuation of the discussion of the nature of sin and salvation and hermeneutics, the discussion turns to how the rule of faith, or biblical hermeneutics centered on the person of Christ, brings out Christ's deliverance from the human predicament through his defeat of the rule of death over human lives. This is not an answer defined by law, but a deliverance from this orientation. If you en...

In this new series on sin and salvation, Paul Axton introduces a series on theories of atonement, beginning with Christ as the "rule of faith" interpreting Scripture and exegeting God. The issues of psychological healing in connection to death drive, cosmic bondage and apocalyptic deliverance, and the eternality of the historical Christ are introduced. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider...

In this talk Paul Axton gave at a local restaurant, the focus is on outlining the Gospel of Matthew as Jesus as Temple recapitulation, the implication of which is Jesus taking up the historical, social, and legal situation of the Temple and Israel, and this is worked out by Gillian Rose and G.W.F. Hegel as addressing the injustice of the law and the Temple or the City of Man.  If you enjoyed this...

Brad and Paul discuss the work of Wittgenstein, Maximus, Hegel and Bulgakov as they converge on embodied synthesis in Christ and then extend the conversation to the synthesis of Scripture overcoming the contention in Job, Daniel, Maccabees, and Jonah over the split and violent or unified and peaceable image of God. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a...

In a continuation of the discussion of Philosophy of Science, the ideas of Rupert Sheldrake about the dogmatism of science, leads to a discussion of the work of Christopher Kaiser on the creationist tradition and the development of science.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

This discussion of the teleological argument takes us into modern philosophy of science and the debate between Thomas Kuhn and Michael Polanyi. Paul Axton demonstrates the superiority of Polanyi's thought as reaching beyond Kuhn's stunted understanding.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Jesus sign in the Temple is not simply pointing to the need to clean up the pricing system but to halt the economy of violent sacrifice and to deliver his sheep into an alternative nonviolent way of being human.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this discussion Paul Axton explains the failure of William Lane Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument and how it is that Origen of Alexandria provides the resolution in his view of time and eternity brought together in Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Jesus says he will provide no sign other than that of Jonah to the Jews, which is a kind of non-sign in their value system. Jesus, like Jonah, presents a very different picture of God than Nahum and the Jews of Jonah and Jesus generation. This God cares for all and would go to the depths of the earth to retrieve everyone.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating...

Continuing our discussion in Imaginative Apologetics, we discuss the view of the embodied understanding of Maximus and Hegel reflected in Wittgenstein in which the world is synthesized through embodiment and language. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Do we respond to empire with the resurrection faith of the nonviolent martyrs of Daniel and Maccabees or with the violence of the Mattathias and his friends in the Maccabean revolt. Jesus identity with the Son of Man of Daniel and his invoking the nonviolent response to the coming desolation and destruction portrayed in Maccabees provides the resolution to how to respond to ev...

Brad and Paul reflect on the course recently completed with Anthony Bartlett, and discuss how this picture of a semiotic shift surrounding Christ serves as an alternative reading of the Bible and reality.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon compares two understandings of Israel and God as presented in Nehemiah, Ezra, and Ruth, with Ruth the Moabite foreigner serving in the messianic line and as a kinsman redeemer through her faithful loving kindness, over and against the retributive picture of God and exclusive picture of Jews in Ezra and Nehemiah.   If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donati...

Notre Dame Professor Emmanuel Katongole, founder of Bethany Land Institute in Uganda, describes the theology and work of nonviolence in a world divided by violence and hatred.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: There are competing images of God in the Bible between a God of law and vengeance and the God of mercy and love. This contention is resolved in Christ in which true deity is found in the face of the forgiving human victim, and this highlights a theme traceable throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a...

Frederick Bauerschmidt describes the practical work of teaching about the peace of Christ in the Catholic Church when violent Christian nationalism is the norm.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!