Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon compares two understandings of Israel and God as presented in Nehemiah, Ezra, and Ruth, with Ruth the Moabite foreigner serving in the messianic line and as a kinsman redeemer through her faithful loving kindness, over and against the retributive picture of God and exclusive picture of Jews in Ezra and Nehemiah.   If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Notre Dame Professor Emmanuel Katongole, founder of Bethany Land Institute in Uganda, describes the theology and work of nonviolence in a world divided by violence and hatred.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: There are competing images of God in the Bible between a God of law and vengeance and the God of mercy and love. This contention is resolved in Christ in which true deity is found in the face of the forgiving human victim, and this highlights a theme traceable throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Frederick Bauerschmidt describes the practical work of teaching about the peace of Christ in the Catholic Church when violent Christian nationalism is the norm.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: History is of eternal significance in that it pertains to God's identity, and the impact of this significance is in its liberation from an enslaving finite understanding into the liberating eternal reality of God found in Christ. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Daniel Wood continues the conversation with Matt and Paul and in part 2 describes Hegel's picture of an inadequate notion of the infinite, and he pictures Hart as falling into this failed understanding, which explains Hart's rejection of Jordan's Maximian-Hegelian understanding.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: appealing to the work of Sergius Bulgakov, Axton develops the significance of God's presence in the name given to Moses, and then Christ's assumption of this name and the opening to all the possibility of dwelling in the name, which describes the possibility of God pouring himself out in and through human language.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Daniel Wood, in conversation with Matt and Paul, explains the logic of Hegel as a natural development of Maximus understanding of personhood, which also serves to address the failure of David Bentley Hart to grasp the paradigm shift Jordan is picturing in light of Hegel.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

In this talk at a gathering at a local restaurant (thus the country music in the background) Paul Axton presents the manner in which Christ defeats cosmic and personal trauma through the work of predestination. The Erasure of Cosmic and Personal Trauma in the Lamb Crucified from the Foundation of the World

Roberto J. De Noval and Mark Roosien describe Bulgaokov's entry into speculative theology through Sophiology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: John identifies Jesus as the the rejected Logos, which means he is not the Greek logos, the Jewish logos, the philosophical logos, or the religious logos, or the logic, language, reason, or word that grounds this world’s systems of human thought. Martin Heidegger is the prime example of recognizing the violence of the Greek logos, and then of presuming the Logos of Christ is a continuation of the same. René Girard brings out the absolute difference, developed most completely by Anthony Bartlett.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Roberto J. De La Noval and Mark Roosien describe to Brad and Paul their encounter with Sergius Bulgakov and detail his understanding of universal salvation in its personal implications.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Rene Girard pictures the body of the scapegoat as the original sign and signification, which accords with the depiction of religion in the Bible and in the religions of the world, and Christ directly reverses this sign and provides a new order of meaning. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Matt and Paul talk with David Artman, author and host of the podcast Grace Saves All. In this conversation we discuss how universal redemption is necessarily through Christ and may be completed through and beyond death. David also details his recent reading and podcasts on the rise of fascism through Pentecostalism. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Paul Axton preaches: Death and judgment are not the end of the story in Scripture but either the continuation of the work begun in Christ or a restorative judgment in which all are drawn into restoration and salvation. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The author of the book and podcast "Grace Saves All," David Artman, describes his entry into universalism and the development of his book and raises the issue of its playing the role of a theodicy. (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: In this sermon, linking the left/brain right/brain theory of Iain McGilchrist with Paul's distinction between letter and Spirit, a connection is made between how it is the left hemisphere of the brain can take predominance in the same way the law can become its own end, and this is suspended in the opening up of Christ to the thought of God on the order of a full utilization of the right brain. (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!

In this continuation of our podcasts on Imaginative Apologetics, Paul addresses the moral argument as posed by Kant, and traces his coining the term "radical evil" and provide illustrations showing this is not simply a philosophical but a real world cause and effect - certain conceptions of morality are directly linked to the worst forms of evil.  (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: When asked the reason for following Christ, Axton poses a one word answer upon which he builds an alternative understanding to the partial answer of being saved and shows that the choice is between meaning or no meaning.  (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!

In part 2 J. Denny Weaver, the foremost Mennonite thinker, describes the role of the Church as an alternative peaceable kingdom to the violent kingdoms of the world.  (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!