

Forging Ploughshares
Paul Axton
Cultivating the Peaceable Kingdom
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 2, 2025 • 1h 7min
William T. Cavanaugh: Torture and Eucharist
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)
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May 31, 2025 • 31min
Sermon: The Memorial of Christ Versus the Memorial of State
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)
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May 26, 2025 • 1h 6min
The Ontology of Knowing From Anselm to Hegel
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)
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May 24, 2025 • 51min
Come to Japan
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)
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May 19, 2025 • 1h 6min
Making Peace Through Online Fellowship
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)
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May 17, 2025 • 26min
Sermon: Trump or Jesus as Sovereign
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)
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May 12, 2025 • 1h 10min
Anthony Bartlett: The Semiotics of The Crucified
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)
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May 10, 2025 • 27min
Sermon: The Story of God in Jesus as Logos
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)
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May 5, 2025 • 1h 9min
Anthony Bartlett On Girard's Anti-Imperialism
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)
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May 3, 2025 • 24min
Sermon: The Obligation of Christology
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)
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