Forging Ploughshares

Who Do You Say That I Am?: The Presence of Christ in His Identity

Matt, Jim, Allan, Rob, David, Brian, Brad, Drew, and Paul discuss the Gospel as answering the question, "Who do you say that I am?" Identifying Christ comes with the presence of Christ in the one answering the question. This Gospel encounter, not history, nor Scripture, nor church, is the central and primary authority from which all of these authorities are derived.

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Sermon: The Politics of Jesus as Final Reality

Paul Axton preaches - The kingdoms of the world would determine reality through manipulation of life through death while Christ's kingdom defeats death and establishes a kingdom of life and peace. Though the Jewish notion that the Messiah would defeat Rome through violent insurrection was mistaken, it was not a mistake to understand that the Messiah would usher in a different kingdom and a different order of truth and reality. 

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Enfleshing the Gospel as Analogy of Faith

In this first in a series on reading the Bible Allan, Jim, Trenton, Matt, Brian, Drew, Matthew and Paul discuss the early church hermeneutic connected to the Gospel of peace and its connection to an embodied ethic, soon set aside in the Constantinian shift.

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Sermon: How Not to be a Christian Fascist

Paul Axton preaches - In the United States and many places throughout the world Christianity is being tied to fascism and authoritarianism. There is a failed form of Christianity that becomes a platform for the worst forms of abusive authoritarianism, yet where Christianity is correctly understood Fascist Christian, Nazi Christian, or perhaps German Christian or American Christian should be oxymoronic. 

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Practicing Peace with Michael Wood

In this interview with Australian Pastor and Peace Activist Michael Wood, Michael describes how the struggle of being a peaceful Rector (head - the one in charge) led him to realize the depth of violence by which we are surrounded and the need to implement and practice peace structurally and strategically in church and throughout life. (You can find Practicing Peace at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1666792241?ie=UTF8&n=133140011

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Sermon: The Christocentric Principle

Paul Axton preaches - the anthropic principle may accord or point to a Christian understanding, but Paul goes far beyond this in describing Christ as the motive force - the means and reason - for creation and creation's completion in redemption. 

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My Missionary Journey

Catherine Totty interviews Paul in regard to his story in missions and his journey and experience in Japan. They discuss the role of mission organizations, the notion of contextualization, mission strategy, and training leadership.

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Sermon: Christ as an Alternative Order of Truth

Paul Axton preaches - Christ as the truth resolves the trouble of dialectic through identity and difference. Maximus the Confessor describes Christ, based on the Chalcedonian formula, as a new form of rationality, bringing together absolute transcendence and immanence in the person of Christ - redefining all of these categories in the process.

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A Summary of Salvation in the Gospel of John

In this final podcast on the book of John, Jim, Matt, Brian, Tim, David and Paul, discuss the atonement theory of John - and whether atonement is the right word - and the meaning of dying with Christ or being inflicted with the sickness unto death (or the incapacity to die with Christ). 

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Sermon: Maximus versus Luther - God as Hidden or Christ as All in All

Paul Axton preaches - "God became man that man might become God." Maximus takes Athanasius' formula as summing up God's purposes for creation. The Christian becomes Christ, who is God. Rather than Luther's imputed righteousness Maximus holds to an unfolding deification in which "creation is incarnation."