Forging Ploughshares

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 C...

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...

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. Beco...

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-...

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...

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...

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...

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://pb...

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 consid...

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,...

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...

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...

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 cons...

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 Constan...

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 theolo...

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...

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...

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 don...

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.