Forging Ploughshares

Sermon: Sick Culture and Religion and the Cure of Christ

In Corinthians, Paul says some are sick and dying due to their practice of the Lord's Supper. Is this crude magical thinking or does it accord with the picture in modern science of mind/body holism in which sick meaning systems give rise to literal sickness? Paul's  answer is to be incorporated into the body of Christ, inclusive of a new ethic, a new love, a new economy, and a new humanity.

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The Sword Versus the Ploughshare: Pope Francis and Resisting Technocracy

Jonathan leads the discussion of Pope Francis's Laudato si', with Tim, Brian, Jim, Jon, Jeff, Allan and Paul. What is the proper use of technology, such that it does not become a violent and shaping force and remains a means (not an end)? Global warming and overpopulation, must be addressed not simply at a technological but at a theological level. 

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Sermon: Eucharist as Fusion of Sign and Signified in Christian Fellowship

The Lord's Supper is first known as the "love feast" which is both commanded by the New Testament and forbidden at the Council of Carthage, resulting eventually in the distorted meaning of the Mass. Correctly understood the love feast or eucharist is the enactment of the body of Christ - or the person of Christ - seen in sacrificial love. Literal reduction to blood and flesh reifies the sign and misses the person of Christ and the purpose of the meal, which is not to kill Christ but destroy what killed him in the lives of believers.

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The History and Recovery of Christian Social Teaching

Jonathan Totty leads the discussion with Brian, David, Jonathan, Allan, Jeff, and Paul on the once active social teaching of various churches, and the loss of this focus, and the return of Catholic Social Teaching as represented by Pope Francis.

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Sermon: “Jesus Came to Fulfill the Law” - How Pharisees and Penal Substitution Miss Jesus for the Law

Matthew chapter 5 depicts Jesus' accomplishment or fulfillment of the law as a direct reference to his person, his teaching, and his kingdom which the Mosaic law only pointed toward. Jesus ushers in a righteousness that abrogates and contradicts the law, such that one cannot "keep" the law and be a follower of Jesus. One cannot hate the enemy, a requirement of the law, and follow Jesus.

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Onesimus and Christ as Homo Sacer

Jonathan, Matt, Matthew, Tim, Brian, Jim, David, and Paul continue their discussion of the book of Philemon, comparing it to Giorgio Agamben's notion of homo sacer, and Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and contrasting it to the letter from Pliny the Younger. Philemon as a worked example of revolutionary subordination is the Gospel in synopsis, and we discuss the practical way to apply the letter.

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Sermon: Jesus, and not Herod’s Temple and the Land of Israel, is True Temple and Kingdom

Some Jewish authorities are advocating the obliteration of Gaza, as this is Israel's by divine fiat, but Jesus saw himself as true temple and ushering in the true kingdom. 

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Philemon and the New Social Order Undermining Slavery

Tim, Jonathan, Brian, Jim, David, Matt, and Paul discuss how it is that the tiny book of Philemon fills out the revolutionary nature of the gospel in its undermining of slavery and the institution of a new social order. Slavery is the motif defining sin, yet in the history of reception of Philemon, the revolutionary challenge of the gospel to slavery was ignored, downplayed, and denied. Implicit in this overlooking of Philemon is the failure to recognize the world changing revolution of the gospel in its defeat of the enslavement of sin and the inauguration of a new social order.

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Sermon: Defeating Christian Nationalism Through the Civil Disobedience of Resurrection Faith

Mike Johnson has put on display the reigning religion of Christian Nationalism, in imagining God ordained his rise as Speaker so as to support Israel. The appeal to Romans 13 is a key part of this Christian Nationalism, but this misses the true message of Paul that the Christian defeat of evil government is not through fusion of church and state, but by Christian adherence to the Kingdom built on resurrection power not through directing the state power of death.

John DePue On a Rhetorical and Apocalyptic Rereading of Romans

In part 2 of our conversation, John DePue explains the history of interpretation of Romans up to the Reformation, the manner in which Phoebe would have acted out the text, and how it is an apocalyptic reading avoids supersessionism or antisemitism. 

See Beyond Justification (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) , by Douglas Campbell and John DePue.

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