Forging Ploughshares

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.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 Colossians and Christology which will run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

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 political leader. (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 consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

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 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 consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

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 run from June 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 and violence are of the anti-Christ."  (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 consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

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 3rd to July 29th https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

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 Patron!

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!

The Canadian broadcaster David Cayley describes his groundbreaking interviews with the thinker and theologian Ivan Illich, in which Illich describes how it is the very best, the church, became the very worst, in modernity. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

Paul Axton Preaches: Romans 3:25 is a key verse in determining Christ's relationship to the Temple. Is he a sacrifice of atonement to be fit into the Temple and Law, or is he the (hilasterion) Mercy Seat providing access to revelation of righteousness which is salvation?   If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In part 2 of Brad and Paul's  conversation with the theologian James Alison, the role of the church in marriage, divorce and the role of Church law are discussed especially as it relates to issues of gender and homosexuality. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: What Paul calls the ministry of death, is accentuated and exposed in the murder of Jesus, due to Jesus teaching and action in the Temple. The temple deals in the death of animals, which did not touch upon the deadly attitude of the human heart, and Jewish response to his interruption of the killing is the motive for killing Jesus bring this ministry of death to an end. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

Brad and Paul interview the Girardian theologian James Alison concerning the pastoral and practical application of Girard, and how this relates to the sexual crisis in Catholicism. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches on the inadequacy of now and not yet as a characterization of the Christian life. Victory in Christ holds out a fullness of truth, a complete adoption, and the reality of escaping evil.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Anselm's deployment of the ontological argument leads directly to the closed whole of his atonement theory in divine satisfaction, all of which depends upon the reification of language resisted and corrected in Hegel, and noted by Paul. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus sets love above custom, law, and religious institutions but the corruption of this very best also poses the possibility of the very worst, in the words of Ivan Illich, in the institutionalization of the Church.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

John Pearson describes his work with the homeless and in sustainable farming leading to his work with wounded ministers through Ministry Support Services International https://www.mssint.org/  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The fundamental lesson of the incarnation is that embodiment in general is the carrier of meaning a meaning for death or life, and that His embodiment is the fullness of meaning, life, extended universally.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In Part 2 of this 2 part conversation, Jon, Matt, and Paul, discuss the possible meanings and impact of David Bentley Hart's recent confession and discuss various alternative interpretations.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Personhood is definitive of God and humanity, meaning the relational, the infinite, and the universal, are inherent to truth, rather than the foundational, the propositional, the doctrinal, or the institutional, which reduce to the impersonal. Personal truth and knowledge overcomes the reductionistic, finite, and limited systems of this world. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In Part 1 of this 2 part conversation, Jon, Matt, and Paul, discuss the positive impact of the work of David Bentley Hart and consider what his recent confession might mean in understanding his work. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The focus on Christ's faithfulness rather than merely our faith in Christ, creates a more holistic understanding of faith than an interior intensity of belief, focused on Christ as object. Faithfulness is Christocentric rather than anthropocentric, incorporating ethics and embodiment of the living out of faith in Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Matt, Paul, and Jon continue the discussion of the baptist vision set forth by Stanley Hauerwas and James McClendon, focusing on unity and contrasting it with the forced and violent unity of Christendom. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Ephesians 3:10 describes the work of Christ as recapitulation, which is inclusive of all that it means to be human, and can be described as a different human experience and psychical difference. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

John, Matt, and Paul, inspired by articles by C. J. Dull, discuss the baptist vision set forth by Stanley Hauerwas and James McClendon, and discuss how this provides for a first order unity in the person and work of Christ. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.    Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this sermon, the witness of Scripture to Christ and Christ as interpretive key to Scripture is spelled out, using the Gospel of John and Paul's illustration in Corinthians concerning Moses.  Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.    Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this first podcast on Imaginary Apologetics, it is noted that Anselm's ontological and cosmological arguments pose a logic developed in his atonement theory, focused on a foundational logic, and this is contrasted with Hegel's understanding that the ontological argument is dependent on Christianity and the Person of Christ. Hegel is working from a Maximian-like understanding in which Christ brings together thought and being while Anselm does not reference Christ in the core of the argument. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.    Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

Philippians 3:13 describes a stretching forth, in which the past (failures and achievements) are forgotten as part of the focus on the goal of attaining to likeness of Christ. Gregory of Nyssa portrays this Pauline understanding as the eternal dynamic of life in Christ which offers true stability and peace. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th. Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March.   Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The transformative power in conversion and salvation flows backward, redeeming all of our life, so that the end is in the beginning. Our finite lives make sense as they are stretched out in the beginning and end that is Christ. This self-transcendence is realized in being woken up religiously to the love of God, morally to others, intellectually to the cosmic Christ, and psychically or emotionally to the fruits of the spirit. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th. Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March.   Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!   J

Here is part 2 of the 2 part discussion of the upcoming course Sin and Salvation. John, Matt, and Paul, discuss their theological journey as a journey of friendship. (Sorry, the previous podcast was duplicated but here corrected.) Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Matt, John and Paul discuss the upcoming course with PBI, Sin and Salvation, which focuses on the peace of Christ, and which pictures the theological journey as only cohering as a continuing journey, in which the beginning is in the end, as with Christ. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In part 2 of discussion of Flannery O'Connor, David, Jonathan, and Paul discuss how her depiction is an explicit defeat of liberal and pietistic notions which believe in the natural competency of the soul.  Only an acknowledgement of judgment, evil, and purgation, even as part of a universal salvation, is adequate for the reality of the human condition. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this discussion Jonathan Heaps, Head of the Lonergan Institute at Seton Hall University, Editor of the Lonergan Review, and author of  The Ambiguity of Being: Bernard Lonergan and the Problems of the Supernatural, describes his upcoming class with PBI on Bernard Lonergan. Jonathan describes the resolution that Lonergan brings to the modern theological impasse, a breakthrough broached by nouvelle théologie and ressourcement, but completed by Lonergan.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Colossians 1:15-20 stands at the center of the logic of the New Testament, taken up by Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, Maximus, and in the modern period is recovered by Robert Jenson (among others). Apart from this understanding, that Christ is the realization of the eternality of God, Christianity becomes unintelligible.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood brings his series on Maximus to a conclusion, summing up his views on nature, hierarchy, and the possibility of annihilation.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

David, Jonathan, and Paul in part 1 of this 2 part podcast discuss the novels and short stories of Flannery O'Connor and their challenge to a modern liberal worldview, with their portrayal of inexplicable evil and love. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atonement as a defeat of sin and the basis of an alternative community in Christ. This course will run through the beginning of February to the end of March. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood describes key texts in patristics and philosophy and then describes the similarities between Hegel and Maximus. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Herod lied to the wisemen about his intent, pretending to want to worship Jesus, but slaughtered the innocent children of Bethlehem in an attempt to kill any rival. This provides a working principle for understanding the facade of piety among rulers and the powerful and how to understand the continued slaughter of the innocent in Palestine and elsewhere. It clarifies the mandate for the people of God to be citizens of the Kingdom of God rather than citizens of this world. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood leads a discussion on Maximus' view of the all-embracing and unbelievable love of God as the work being accomplished through the Trinity, in synthesis, personhood, and divine humility. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Mary consented to the formation of Christ within her womb, and Paul calls all people to consent to Christ being formed within. The other choice is bearing the subpersonal image. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of the most pressing challenges of 20th-century Christian thought. This course follows how Lonergan's view of theological method as a task and a problem developed on the way to his 1972 book, Method in Theology, and its major breakthrough: functional specialization." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood explains Maximus' understanding of the limited role of nature in universal salvation, which unlike in David Hart's theology in which nature contains the full potential of deification and salvation, there is the necessity of realization in time and history of the actual working out of salvation and the defeat of evil beyond nature in personhood.  Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of the most pressing challenges of 20th-century Christian thought. This course follows how Lonergan's view of theological method as a task and a problem developed on the way to his 1972 book, Method in Theology, and its major breakthrough: functional specialization." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The Lord's Prayer is answered by Christ in the incarnation and parallels and echoes the prayer of Mary and Zacharias as each of us become the bearers of the incarnate Christ through freely carrying out "Thy Will" in enacting the Kingdom of God on Earth.  Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of the most pressing challenges of 20th-century Christian thought. This course follows how Lonergan's view of theological method as a task and a problem developed on the way to his 1972 book, Method in Theology, and its major breakthrough: functional specialization." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

Jordan follows Maximus argument of deification to conclude that personhood, whether divine or human is not reducible or achievable apart from the reality of the person of Christ (in contradistinction from the work of David Bentley Hart's syllogistic understanding). (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of the most pressing challenges of 20th-century Christian thought. This course follows how Lonergan's view of theological method as a task and a problem developed on the way to his 1972 book, Method in Theology, and its major breakthrough: functional specialization." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Human conceptuality and understanding is limited by binaries, differences and irresolvable dualisms, but Paul describes the synthesizing work of Christ as a knowledge exceeding human conceptuality.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of the most pressing challenges of 20th-century Christian thought. This course follows how Lonergan's view of theological method as a task and a problem developed on the way to his 1972 book, Method in Theology, and its major breakthrough: functional specialization." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood lays out Maximus explanation of the Lord's Prayer, which not only explains how prayer can both seek action from God and change the one praying, but accords with the logic of creation as incarnation. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!