Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton preaches - The blindness of sacrificial religion, of idolatry, of cultural hostility, creates a fabricated reality described as a process of externalization, objectivation, and internalization in which the origins of human culture create a necessary blindness or mystery which Christ exposes and displaces.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Creation ex-nihilo poses the possibility of evil as a return or defeat of the fulness of creation in redemption and participation in the divine. Thus we are co-participants in our own creation, willing the fulness of our completion in Christ through our echoing the "Yes" of Christ the the Father and the Spirit. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brad, Brian, Matthew, Drew, Jim, Austin, Matt, and Paul conclude their discussion of Maximus the Confessor and his notion of theosis and take up possible problems and implications.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matt, Jim, Brian, Brad, Drew, Matthew, and Paul examine together the Christo-logic of Maximus the Confessor found in his formula “The Word of God, very God, wills that the mystery of his Incarnation be actualized always and in all things.” The radical implications and potential issues with this understanding are discussed.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - The holistic cosmic vision of Ephesians also details how this integrated vision defeats the partial vision of sin, in which the finite is invested with ultimate meaning. The genealogy of the desire of the flesh, involves investing the flesh with a semantic load it cannot bear or satisfy. The antagonism this creates is resolved in the Body of Christ. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matthew, Rob, Matt, Brian, Drew, Brad, and Paul conclude their discussion on Augustine's departure and contrast to Origen and develop the practical difference this will make in reading the Bible. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Paul Axton preaches - Paul's notion of Christ's "summing up" of all things (Eph. 2:10) is taken by Irenaeus and the early church as descriptive of the economy of salvation and the means of defeating evil. Where this economy of participation is lost there is a simultaneous loss of a real world defeat of evil and a loss of a coherent frame explaining being "in Christ." Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jim, Brian, David, Matthew, Drew, Rob, Matt, and Paul, discuss the shift that occurs with Augustine's rejection of Origen's apocatastasis and his turn to a dualism and notions of language and interiority that will come to define the modern in its nihilism and secularism. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

If Paul's gospel is summed up by Ephesians, this means the Lutheran or Protestant focus on Law versus grace or faith over and against works does not figure. This recentering of Paul's gospel entails a different perspective on Judaism (based on covenant and not contract) and also the understanding that Christ fulfills the covenant and does not meet the obligations of a contract, and this is God predestined plan for the cosmos. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Brian, Austin, and Paul discuss how Origen's Christology constitutes a metaphysics. In describing the relation between the Son and the Father Origen establishes his first principle, the foundation of the Christian worldview.  (Sign up for our next class Philemon and Ephesians: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Paul https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.