Forging Ploughshares

What happens when a Baptist, an Episcopalian, an Eastern Orthodox, a Roman Catholic, and a non-denominational Christian discuss the Eucharist? Brad, Brian, Matt, Jonathan, and Paul arrive at a point of convergence which relies upon a depth of history, very much associated with the Eastern tradition.  (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument.  The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: The slaughter in Gaza demonstrates the bankruptcy of premillennialism, dispensationalism, and Christian Zionism, all of which deny the basic teaching that the work of the cross has defeated sin, death and the devil. The genocidal teaching displacing the Gospel, and which Christ identifies with blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, is now the predominant religion of the land. (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pa

In part 2 of our conversation with Benard Perret he describes the role of the satan, or the complex nature of mimetic desire and the obstacle cause of desire which gives rise to violence and murder.  (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If you enjoyed t

Paul Axton preaches: The point of judgement, "When you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me," puts the full weight of the eternal in the finite, which is the form of the incarnation. Eternity has invaded time, and to continue in a consciousness that separates them is the failed ethics and consciousness Christ defeats in his uniting God and humanity.  (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic

In part 1 of a two part episode, Bernard Perret explains the significant depth and development of Girard's theory as an alternative to Anselm and as a further development of Karl Rahner's understanding that God gives himself in revelation. Perret explains how Girard's theory takes account of the violence of Scripture, bringing a unity otherwise lacking.  Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon touches upon the possibility of acting upon the lie of radical evil, as in the case of Lamech, and the counter to this in the enactment of divine grace in infinite forgiveness.  (Sign up for the class Human Language, Signs of God: using Anthony Bartlett’s two books, Theology Beyond Metaphysics and Signs of Change, as one continuous argument. Underlying this sequence is the core perception that language is the privileged medium by which the biblical God, the God of nonviolence, is revealed to us. If God is going to invite us into a new sense and meaning of what it is to be human this has to happen through language, that is through "signs of God." Theology Beyond Metaphysics introduces the thought of semiotics and specifically in relation to the anthropology of Rene' Girard. Signs of Change traces a pathway of semiotic change of meaning through the text of the whole Bible. The course will run from 2025/9/16 to 2025/11/4. Register here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/) If yo

John Dear, the world renowned peace activist, describes his theological focus on practicing the Sermon on the Mount.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Brad and Paul discuss sin, not as a legal failure giving rise to guilt, but as a loss of the divine model due to the obstacle posed by sin (a very different understanding of missing the mark) and the recovery of this model in Christ. This serves as an explanation of the sermon which follows the discussion.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

John Dear describes to Brad and Paul his life of peacemaking with Jesus along with his friends the Berrigans, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and others, recommending doing the Sermon on the Mount rather than simply studying about it. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 our work. Become a Patron!

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 support our work. Become a Patron!

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, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

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!