Forging Ploughshares

Christus Victor as Defeat of False Identity

Jim, Matt, David, Janice, Rob, Ray, and Paul discuss how Anselm's shift to rationalism changed the register of theological discussion to abstractions surrounding identity (Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche) which develop in modernity, giving rise to the delusion of a self-grounding reason and identity; the false notion Christ defeats.

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Sermon: The Madness of the Cross

Paul Axton Preaches - The cross, as foolishness to Greeks and a scandal to the Jews, requires a world-view shift for both Jews and Greeks, in which God in Christ directly confronts the inhumanity, injustice, and demonic evil which constitutes the city of man and which put Christ on the cross.

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The Violence of Penal Substitution

Matt, Janice, Jim, Rob, and Paul discuss the inherent violence leading to and stemming from the doctrine of penal substitution. Penal Substitution is a manifestation of the problem of sin and violence which Christ defeats.

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Why They Are Allowed to Kill

In this lecture Paul Axton traces the intrinsic necessity of violence to the law, which accounts for the peculiar violence of the United States. The law founding and law keeping violence described in the work of Walter Benjamin supports the biblical depiction of  "necessary violence" exposed as the lie which killed Christ.

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Recapitulation Versus Penal Substitution

Rob, David, Matt, Janice and Paul, discuss the early church understanding of Christus Victor and Recapitulation as developed through Irenaeus and this is compared to notions of the cross as God's punishment, culminating in Luther's notion that Jesus is viewed by God as the worst of sinners and Calvin's doctrine of Penal Substitution.

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Sermon: Delivered From Nihilism

Paul Axton preaches - The lame man at the pool, the Jews in their belief in sabbath law, and moderns in their belief in absolute law and that God has absconded, share a nihilistic belief in impersonal blind forces which Christ challenges and defeats.

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Sin as Violence

In this first in a series on sin and salvation Matt, Jim, Janice, Brian, Allan, Ray, and Paul discuss how sin can be equated with violence. A nonviolent hermeneutic, understanding the peace of Christ as the lens through which to abrogate the violence of God in the Old Testament, is introduced.

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The Lost Hermeneutic

In this lecture Paul Axton explains John's and Paul's spiritual reading of the Hebrew Scriptures which has been lost in modern scholarship (as witnessed to by Charles Hill) and at a popular level. Henri de Lubac points us to Origen of Alexandria as the cure for historicism and what might be a type of Gnosticism, which a correct reading of John cures. 

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Alexander Campbell’s Pacifism and Christian Participation in the State

In this PBI discussion David Rawls explains Alexander Campbell's justification for nonviolence and Allan advocates for complete non-participation in nations and governments. Matt, Tim, and Paul join this final discussion on the peaceable kingdom.

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Sermon: Birthing Christ

Paul Axton Preaches - In Revelation and the Gospel of John the church is depicted as bringing forth the enfleshment of the Son in an ongoing incarnation or travail of birth.

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