

Forging Ploughshares
Paul Axton
Cultivating the Peaceable Kingdom
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 12, 2026 • 52min
The Constantinian Shift to "Common Sense"
In this continued discussion of how the Constantinian shift impacted Christianity, Nate, Karl, Jim, Andrew and Paul, discuss the loss of non-violence, the turn from Christian ethics and the Sermon on the Mount, the turn to violent atonement, and the shift in the conception of authority and the church. A different "common sense" arose that pervaded every area of life so as to displace the uniqueness of Christian identity.
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Jan 10, 2026 • 40min
Sermon: The Transformed Mind as an Alternative Subjectivity
Paul Axton preaches, describing the transformed mind, or knowing God as the suspension of the common Jewish and Enlightenment notion of God and, recognized by Hegel. Paul's suspension of the law and Hegel's negation of the negation as the displacement of a mediated notion of God and direct knowing in Christ, are making the same argument about the necessity to cease believing in the God of the law so as to believe in the Father of Christ.
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Jan 5, 2026 • 1h 3min
How Christianity Became a Religion
In this discussion of how it is that Christianity became a religion, much like other religions, Paul, Nat, Jim, Andrew and Karl, discuss the impact of the Constantinian shift, the rise of Divine Satisfaction, the turn to a closed understanding of the world, and the relinquishing of the revolutionary nature of the faith.
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Jan 3, 2026 • 25min
Sermon: Eucharist as the Completion of Emmanuel
Paul Axton preaches: The theme of Mathew captured in Immanuel, is completed in the Lord's Supper, in which the efficacious presence of God is made to bear on the lives of believers in what Hegel calls "actualized Christian Freedom." There is freedom from the violence of blood spilled in the taking up of the blood of Christ in the life of believers.
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Dec 27, 2025 • 43min
Emmanuel: The Presence of God as the Resolution to the Human Predicament
Paul Axton preaches: In this Christmas Sermon the role of presence ("God with us") and absence is traced in Scripture as the primary theme fulfilled in Christ; a theme also recognized in postmodern philosophy.
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Dec 22, 2025 • 1h
An Expanded View of Recapitulation
In this continuation of discussions of sin and salvation, Paul Axton takes up and expands upon the early church understanding of recapitulation as an all-embracing understanding of atonement that accounts for the New Testament and the focus on the new divinized humanity found in Christ.
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Dec 20, 2025 • 54min
The Rule of Faith and Deliverance from the Law of Sin and Death
In a continuation of the discussion of the nature of sin and salvation and hermeneutics, the discussion turns to how the rule of faith, or biblical hermeneutics centered on the person of Christ, brings out Christ's deliverance from the human predicament through his defeat of the rule of death over human lives. This is not an answer defined by law, but a deliverance from this orientation.
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Dec 15, 2025 • 1h 8min
Sin and Salvation: The Gospel as the Coherence of Scripture
In this new series on sin and salvation, Paul Axton introduces a series on theories of atonement, beginning with Christ as the "rule of faith" interpreting Scripture and exegeting God. The issues of psychological healing in connection to death drive, cosmic bondage and apocalyptic deliverance, and the eternality of the historical Christ are introduced.
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Dec 13, 2025 • 40min
Jesus as Temple Recapitulation: Transformation of Historical Good Friday into Speculative Good Friday
In this talk Paul Axton gave at a local restaurant, the focus is on outlining the Gospel of Matthew as Jesus as Temple recapitulation, the implication of which is Jesus taking up the historical, social, and legal situation of the Temple and Israel, and this is worked out by Gillian Rose and G.W.F. Hegel as addressing the injustice of the law and the Temple or the City of Man.
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Dec 8, 2025 • 59min
Overcoming Dualism in the Body and the Bible Through the Synthesis of Christ
Brad and Paul discuss the work of Wittgenstein, Maximus, Hegel and Bulgakov as they converge on embodied synthesis in Christ and then extend the conversation to the synthesis of Scripture overcoming the contention in Job, Daniel, Maccabees, and Jonah over the split and violent or unified and peaceable image of God.
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