Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton preaches: The vision of the apocalypse in which the slain Lamb reigns through nonviolent defeat of violence and death is the impetus behind the resistant nonviolence of the Sermon on the Mount. The interlocking logic of the vision and practice points to the necessity of universal salvation as the goal behind the practice. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support...

William Desmond describes the danger of the "all and all" in an Eastern sensibility, of subsuming all things into one rather than preserving difference. He describes the prejudice against belief and his preservation of Christian faith against the philosophical tide of the academy.   If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton Preaches: The Jewish confusion between God and evil results from the projection of their violence onto God, which Jesus identifies as marking their paternity as children of the Devil. The Jewish captivity to the lie of sin, is the human problem Jesus exposes and defeats, by defeating the power that killed him on the cross.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to suppor...

William Desmond explains his reading of the Metaxological as the recovery of metaphysics as a being between, and he describes his deep reading of Hegel and points out the failure of the positive reading of Hegel in Rowan William and Gillian Rose, and debunks the Žižekian reading as untrue to Hegel.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The saving peace of Christ is universal in its cosmic scope, inclusive of the world, all people, and everything about them, delivering from the violence of the world, infected by human violence. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this final discussion of Hegel and Anselm, the contrast between the two in the personal and propositional is brought out, with the idea that God's person is given to us in Christ (poured out in kenotic love) and in this sense can be known.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Christ, in the kenotic love of the cross and incarnation, opens God to knowing and by imitating Christ there is a suspension of the oppressive understanding of God, the law, and the self, and the experience of the Spirit. The background to this kenotic interpretation is in Hegel's philosophy which is characterized by this kenotic understanding. If you enjoyed this podcast, ple...

In this lecture Paul Axton traces the early church's understanding of the Logos as the incarnate Christ, the sensibility preserved best in the East and  taken up in Hegel's doctrine of atonement. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Following the development of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his expanded Christocentrism and departure from Luther's notion of the two kingdoms, this sermon calls for a clear delineation between Christian Nationalism and authentic Christianity. The failure to delineate gave rise to National Socialism in Germany and is giving rise to fascism in the United States. If you enjoyed this po...

Paul Axton describes Rowan Williams' reinterpretation of Hegel, which accords with Axton's reading of Hegel's work on the philosophy of religion and Anselm's ontological argument. In this understanding, Hegel provides an orthodox Eastern-like sensibility of the necessity of Trinity for thought. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Romans 4 describes the experience of the sublime, in which the individual recognizes their unifying center outside of themselves, and are thus enlarged and liberated from the world. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

William Cavanaugh describes to Brad and Paul how the state came to dominate the Church, using Chile as a case study, and drawing links between Pinochet and Trump in the outworking of fascism through Christian nationalism in the US and in models such as Victor Orbán in Hungary. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th  https://pbi.forgingplou...

Paul Axton preaches: The Lord's Supper is instituted originally against Egypt, Rome, and Israel, but the Eucharistic power has been coopted by the modern state such that nationalism and capitalism have become the modern liturgy, which can only be resisted through the power of bodying forth Christ in the original Eucharistic sense. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will...

In this continued discussion of imaginative apologetics it is argued that the possibility of knowing is not contained within thought, the possibility and impossibility posed from Anselm, Descartes, and Kant, but as Hegel argues, it is contained in the personhood of God revealed in Christ. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th  https://pbi...

Tim Turner and Paul discuss the work of the Macedonia Project and the opportunity to come to Japan for a mission internship. Contact the macedoniaprojectjapan@gmail.com or visit https://macedonianprojectjapan.com/   (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th  https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings ) If you enjoyed this podcast, please c...

Brad and Paul discuss the new monthly online fellowship as part of the necessary work of making peace through deep friendships and theology. The antagonism of the institution to the fullness of the gospel may require alternative means of finding fellowship.  Send an email to paulv.axton@gmail.com or to bradklingele@gmail.com in order to be put on the fellowship list. (Register now for the course C...

Paul Axton Preaches: The theology undergirding Donald Trump's expansion of presidential power is that of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, built upon nominalism and voluntarism, the opposite of Jesus Christ as Logos and Lord. In this understanding the rule of law through the political leader displaces Christ's defeat of death and evil, and leaves law and fear as primary and necessitates a sovereign po...

Anthony Bartlett, a leading Girardian theologian who has extended Girard's theory into a more complete description of the the semiotic or meaning shift which takes place in our orientation to signs through Christ, here explains how it is that hominization results in an orientation to death that Christ releases us from in his death and resurrection and in our taking up the cross. (Register now for...

Paul Axton preaches: In the debates over Christology there were two clear tendencies in which the Alexandrians embraced the paradox of Jesus as God and the Antiochenes attempted to rationalize the suffering and death of Jesus through two natures. This has resulted in an obscuring of the identity of Christ in much of Christianity. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will r...

Anthony Bartlett, a leading scholar of René Girard, describes Girardian theory as precisely not the understanding given to it by Peter Thiel and right-wing Girardians (would be kingmakers in an authoritarian state). In a Girardian reading of the "sign of Jonah" Jesus and Christianity are anti-imperial, anti-oppressive authoritarianism. "A Christianity that would deploy Girardian insights for power...

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon looks at the radical New Testament depiction of Christ and its implications, and the failure to fully acknowledge this understanding in various heresies or simply the tendency to delimit the discussion such that it falls shore of acknowledging the story of Jesus is the story of God. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3r...

Paul and Jonathan Totty discuss the upcoming class on Colossians and Christology, which will utilize the historical development of Christology detailed by Rowan Williams, in arriving at an applied and practical understanding of the person and work of Christ. (Register now for the course Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 22nd https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerin...

Paul Axton preaches: Wittgenstein, Hegel, and Moltmann unite in describing the resurrection as opening up the life of Christ as the story of God, and the central interpretive key of faith. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul and Jim look at the ontological argument as an example of the basic human impetus to secure the self, to gain being, in and through language. The work of the psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva explains this basic human drive and how the cross breaks open this narcissistic self to become open to others and community. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a...

Paul Axton preaches: The theological reason for the death of Christ should begin with the historical reality of what killed him and what he defeated in his death and resurrection; namely Israel, Rome, the law, and the principalities and powers behind the reification of death and law.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!