Forging Ploughshares

Jim, David, Brian, Matthew, Jonathan, Matt, and Paul discuss how the law functions as a deep grammar giving rise to the antinomies of a dialectic which functions as an end in itself. Romans 6 describes baptism as the cure to this dialectical antagonism by being joined to the body of Christ in baptism. Here the sign no longer floats free of the signified. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcas...

Jeff, Matt, Brian, Jon, David, and Paul discuss Louis Martyn's depiction of the Galatian heresy as captivity to the elementary principles as this can be equated with Douglas Campbell's picture of the false teacher, and how conversion pertains to mind transformation through deliverance from this cosmos through Christ as fundamental reason. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consid...

Modernity and secularism in capitalism are made of the same stuff as Aaron's Golden Calf, captured in Paul's picture of the law as an idolatrous temptation, after Christ. The principalities and powers continue to reify that which has no substance and the Gospel exposes this idolatrous power.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.  

Matthew, Brian, Jon, Matt, Jeff, and Paul discuss how the false teacher's understanding has melded with the Augustinian misreading of Romans 5 to make law and sin the primary human problem, while in Paul's Gospel, the orientation to death is the cause of sin and the primary human problem. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Treating the secular as a unique epoch in history runs the danger of reifying this reality as if it is a true description, when it is on a continuum with the age-old deception of the law of sin and death that has a grip on the human heart.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Jeff, Brian, Matt, and Paul conclude their conversation about the false teacher, who embodies the human problem of reifying law and language, which is Paul's definition of sin and the psychoanalytic diagnosis of the human predicament.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Antinomies, dualisms, alienation, and divide, are reflected in every realm of human thought from the psychological, the philosophical, gender relations, and even religion. Male/female, Plato/Aristotle, Spirit/flesh,  sociology of religion/religious studies all represent a partial truth grounded in the lie of division and antagonism. Jesus Christ is the singular synthesis, bringing together that wh...

Jon, Matt, Brian, Jim, Jeff, David and Paul compare and contrast two meaning systems and two alternative approaches to reality connected to two alternative understandings of justification by faith.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Brian, Matt, and Paul contrast the teaching of Romans 1:18-32 with Paul's Gospel in the rest of Romans and in in Ephesians and Colossians, suggesting this may be the gospel (including its anthropology and theology) from hell, which Paul is refuting. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Jeff, Matt, Brian, and Paul discuss the opening three chapters of Romans as it contrasts to Romans 5-8, and as treated in Douglas Campbell, so as to delineate Paul's unconditional Gospel from justification theory's fusion of the false Teacher with Paul, resulting in the conditional Gospel. (Register now for the class in World Religions and Cultures: Go to  https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/...

Jon, Matt, and Paul discuss the outline and scope of the upcoming course on World Religions and Cultures, dealing with both a theology of religions and the interactions of particular religions with culture, including also the issue of Orientalism and reverse Orientalism, Girard's theory of myth and scapegoating, nationalism, and a close look at the Bhagavad Gita. (Register now for the class in Wor...

Brian, Jim, Matt, Jeff, and Paul discuss how Campbell's theory of the Teacher accords with the psychoanalytic understanding of sin as a lie concerning the law, with all-pervasive consequences. (Register now for the class in World Religions and Cultures: Go to  https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings  to register.) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to supp...

The Wise Men of Matthew traditionally represent the Gentile world and religion, and demonstrate the best of religion and human thought is a guiding star to Christ. (Sign up for our next class, World Religion and Culture, starting the week of January 22nd: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings ) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Jon, Matt, Jim, and Jeff raise central questions about Douglas Campbell's theory of the false teacher in Romans 1-3 and Paul Axton offers possible explanations. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The Aramaic term transliterated into Greek, Maranatha, sums up the final word of the Bible which is the creative aim toward which human effort and human history are moving. This prayer encompasses the meaning of time's movement and history's end. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this introduction to Douglas Campbell's notion of the false teacher, Paul Axton explains justification theory, how it perverts Paul's Gospel, and the unconditional nature of Paul's Gospel. Jim, Brian, Jonathan and Matt act as interlocutors. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.   

The virgin birth is a sign of both the deity and humanity of Jesus. It signals the even more miraculous event of the incarnation, God with us, which reverses the typical human understanding portrayed in Plato's parable of the cave, which imagines the absolute requires escape from the created and material world. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our w...

The birth of Immanuel, God with us, means that a Person is at the center of reality. Other forms of conceiving reality will conceive of the categories of the mind as ultimate and fall short of personhood, but Christmas means personalism is final and full reality. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this conclusion to Jordan Daniel Wood's depiction of his departure from Hart, he locates the specifics of their difference in Jordan's focus on the personhood of Christ, which embraces sequence, development, and progress historically and in the learning of individuals, where Hart seems to set this aside.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work...

Ever since the decree of Pope Nicholas in A.D. 1059, focus in the Eucharist has turned to the transformation of elements, rather than the transformation of persons into the person of Christ. Luther aggravates and moves the conversation forward, but the formula of Maximus combined with the developments of Aquinas and Luther, recaptures the early church understanding of the Love Feast.  Become a Pat...

Jordan Daniel Wood lays out two possible understandings of David Hart's critique of his work on Maximus. He locates the central issue in Hart's depiction of nature, in which Hart would locate divinity but in which he would turn to the Person of Christ as uniting the natural and divine. Jonathan suggests that Bernard Lonergan's approach, dropping focus on nature but looking to human desire, may be...

In Corinthians, Paul says some are sick and dying due to their practice of the Lord's Supper. Is this crude magical thinking or does it accord with the picture in modern science of mind/body holism in which sick meaning systems give rise to literal sickness? Paul's  answer is to be incorporated into the body of Christ, inclusive of a new ethic, a new love, a new economy, and a new humanity. Become...

Jonathan leads the discussion of Pope Francis's Laudato si', with Tim, Brian, Jim, Jon, Jeff, Allan and Paul. What is the proper use of technology, such that it does not become a violent and shaping force and remains a means (not an end)? Global warming and overpopulation, must be addressed not simply at a technological but at a theological level.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, ple...

The Lord's Supper is first known as the "love feast" which is both commanded by the New Testament and forbidden at the Council of Carthage, resulting eventually in the distorted meaning of the Mass. Correctly understood the love feast or eucharist is the enactment of the body of Christ - or the person of Christ - seen in sacrificial love. Literal reduction to blood and flesh reifies the sign and m...

Jonathan Totty leads the discussion with Brian, David, Jonathan, Allan, Jeff, and Paul on the once active social teaching of various churches, and the loss of this focus, and the return of Catholic Social Teaching as represented by Pope Francis. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.