Forging Ploughshares

Matthew, Jonathan, Brent, Matt, Brian, Jim, and Paul discuss the psychoanalytic reality of peace and its connection to cosmic peace through the reign of Christ as expressed in Ephesians 1 & 2. Paul introduces Ephesians 2 and the psychoanalytic reality of peace and then the implications of chapter 1 of Ephesians and the subduing of the powers as a practical reality is discussed.

Paul Axton preaches - Recognition of the Abba relationship to God frees from slavery to the law, as the relationship sealed by the Spirit through the Son is a new form of subjectivity. The story of Christ lifts up every human story and every father/child relationship, giving it a depth of meaning and significance. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The explanation of the death of Christ, the divine dying in the human, is explained through the created and uncreated aspects of Wisdom (as in the theology of Sergius Bulgakov). This explanation includes how it is that salvation in dying and resurrection is imparted to all through participation (divinization) - the divinization of Christ in which all participate. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brent, David, Matt, Matthew, Jonathan, Jim, and Paul discuss the two-fold economy found in Gnosticism/nominalism and in Paul's summing up as described in Irenaeus' doctrine of recapitulation. Participation in Christ as described in recapitulation constitutes the economy that binds together the various New Testament descriptions of being "adopted," being "in Christ," or being "in his likeness." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

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.