Forging Ploughshares

In the conclusion to the interview with Girard specialist Michael Hardin, Michael explains how a non-sacrificial hermeneutic, taken up in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience, given a Christological center is the dynamic for reading the Bible and understanding God, not through morality but in character and ethics. The notion of doubling, rivalry, the rise of passion, and the failure of evangelicalism in accounting for the Jesus Movement are also discussed. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In John's account of the triumphal entry the resurrection of Lazarus triggers the events leading to Jesus' kingly reception, and then the turning of the crowd and his death as a scapegoat. Jesus exposes the history of violence and murder and explains his coming death as the defeat of Satan and the answer to mythic religious violence. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In part one of this two part conversation, Michael Hardin, a leading expert on René Girard shows the direct parallels between Girard and Maximus on mimesis, desire, the object cause of desire, and the genealogy of violence, and how it is the very character of God, in kenotic love, delivers creation and the crown of creation from the futility of death.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this new series on world cultures and religions, Tim, Jon, Brian, David, Simon, and Paul discuss the impact of the secular on religion, creating a distinct category "religion" separate from culture in which faith and practice become visibly distinct. The obscuring role of religion in Peter Berger and Rene Girard are examples. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The serpent points to a false desire, sin points to a false understanding of the law, and the idol poses a false god, which in each instance serves as an obstacle to what it promises, giving rise to the obstacle cause of desire. Christ exposes this scandalous lie, but Christ and the cross become a scandal or a stone of stumbling for those who continue to believe the lie, or he is the chief corner stone of a new form of worship for those who believe this truth. (Sign up for the course, The Theology of Maximus the Confessor with Jordan Wood. https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings. The course will run from 2024/3/25–2024/5/17 and will meet on Saturdays at 9am central time.) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt and Paul discuss key points raised by Jordan Wood and his upcoming class for PBI concerning Hegel, concerning the depth of theosis, and the meaning of being subject to fire in a universal understanding of Christianity. (Sign up for the course, The Theology of Maximus the Confessor with Jordan Wood. https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings. The course will run from 2024/3/25–2024/5/17 and will meet on Saturdays.)   Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul and Matt discuss with Jordan the upcoming course on Maximus, discussing Christ as the foundation of a reason bringing together the antinomies (or limits of reason) pointed out by Kant, accounted for in the post-Kantians and incorporated into Bulgakov's sophiology, and Jordan suggests an alternative reading of Hegel in which he is an orthodox Christian working out a form of thought on the order of Maximus. (Sign up for the course, The Theology of Maximus the Confessor with Jordan Wood. https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings. The course will run from 2024/3/25–2024/5/17 and will meet on Saturdays at 9am central time.) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Jeff, Brian, and Paul discuss Paul's use of Isaiah's picture of the covenant with death, and universal deliverance and salvation, as an alternative reading to Romans 10-11, as opposed to justification theory. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jeff, Jim, Brian, and Paul discuss the role of the false teacher in Romans 9-11, Douglas Campbell's idea that works of the law was a problem which occurred only with the advent of Christianity, and the role of Christian Zionism and anti-Semitism in justification theory. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jeff, Jim, David, Brian, and Paul compare and contrast the Human Subject of chapter 7 and the reconstituted Subject of Romans chapter 8. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Jeff, Brian, David, and Paul discuss Romans chapter 7 as providing a diagnosis of the human disease, in which the self is divided against itself. In Calvinism and justification theory this is presumed to be the normal Christian life, but this is Paul's picture of the human disease.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.  

In the conclusion to our discussion of Romans 6, Matt, Jim, Brian, David and Paul discuss the question as to how to describe the difference in the Christian life. God's universal plan of salvation and the reality of evil create the question whether there is an ontological distinction with those in Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

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 podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

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 consider donating to support our work.

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 which cannot synthesize itself, thus he is healing, fulfilling and completing the fractured human image. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

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.