Forging Ploughshares

The Prologue of John depicts the point of creation as incarnation and this is fulfilled through the Spirit. God would be known throughout creation as Christ knows him and makes him known, and this is the point of history and the work of the Spirit as depicted in John, developed by Origen and Maximus, and built upon by G.W.F. Hegel.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Allan, Brian, Jonathan, Jim, Matt, and Paul discuss Charles Taylor's secularization thesis, its factuality and reality as compared with Derrida's theory of difference, Slavoj Žižek's primordial lie and the reality of the knowledge of good and evil, and then how it is that Bulgakov's Sophiology addresses the secondary nature of creaturely sophia. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

David Bentley Hart and Sergius Bulgakov provide the basis for this discussion between Matt, Simon, Tim, Jim, and Paul on how the antagonism in religion has folded into secularism to create a secular experiential reality for fundamentalists of both atheism and religion. Bulgakov's Sophiology once again points toward the synthesizing reality of Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Brian, Jason and Paul discuss the work of Sergius Bulgakov's sophiology in addressing transcendence and immanence and the futility connected to the new atheism, as compared to Slavoj Žižek's therapeutic atheism. The hope for goodness and truth as inherent to the personal faith journey is discussed. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The final words of Jesus in Matthew summarize orthodox Trinitarian belief and the economy of salvation, and the Nicene Creed and Gregory of Nyssa take up this formula as the foundation for orthodoxy and combatting heresy and for describing the dynamics of sin (a dynamic of trinitarian absence) and salvation. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this continued introduction to World Religions and Cultures a review of the work of Rene Girard as it folds into Mircea Eliade and Peter Berger helps define the interactive roles of culture and religion as modes of orientation in identity, and as completed in Christ and the Church.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In two passages from I and II Corinthians, Paul utilizes the mirror or mirroring to illustrate incompleteness and immaturity and fullness. He points to the focus on the spectral, the partial, the created - as in many religions which focus on the sun and its eclipse - as the problem. In Psychoanalysis this mirror stage is universal and without cure, but Paul depicts passage beyond the mirror stage in mirroring Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, David, Tim, Brian and Paul discuss the possible relationships between Christ and culture, particularly in a secular age, and discuss the opposed positions of Mircea Eliade and Peter Berger and the resolution posed by David Bentley Hart and Sergius Bulgakov. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.  

The Council of Chalcedon, as read by Maximus the Confessor, provides a solution to the issue of difference and unity, the problem of the one and the many, or the answer to how their can be unifying love in a universe seemingly built on dualism, difference, and multiplicity. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

There are a variety of Christianities in which resurrection is excluded (theological liberalism), not needed (fundamentalism and penal substitution), or deemphasized (evangelicalism or pietism). The answer to the resurrectionless or semi-resurrectionless religions is the gospel, as the defeat of death, a cosmic salvation, a lived righteousness, a resurrection kingdom, lived in the Spirit now. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.