

Forging Ploughshares
Paul Axton
Cultivating the Peaceable Kingdom
Episodes
Mentioned books

Apr 4, 2026 • 1h 3min
Coming To Easter Faith Through Taking Up the Cross
This is a combination of Brad and Paul discussing the sermon and the upcoming classes along with the sermon on approaching Easter through the cross, or taking up the cross as enabling resurrection faith.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th from 7 pm to 9 pm central time. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 30, 2026 • 58min
Ivan Illich and the Apocalyptic Failure of the Church
Paul, Nate, Karl, Jim, and Andy discuss the work of renegade Catholic Priest Ivan Illich in his criticism of institutional Christianity as giving shape to modern nationalism and the profound failures of modern society.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th on from 7 pm to 9 pm central time. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 28, 2026 • 34min
Sermon: Learning to Think with Mary and Martha
Paul Axton preaches: Mary and Martha illustrate two approaches to life and thought, with Mary representing a Sabbath form of thought in which thought is received, and Mary representing a doing form of thought in which thought is aimed at a product. While Marth thinking is necessary, all Martha and no Mary takes away the center and purpose from thought.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 23, 2026 • 1h 13min
Apocalyptic Hermeneutics
Karl, Jim, Nathan, Andy and Paul discuss the difference an apocalyptic theology makes in regard to natural theology, understandings of sin and salvation, and biblical hermeneutics.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 21, 2026 • 34min
Sermon: There is a Sabbath for Thought
Paul Axton preaches: Building on the picture of salvation in Hebrews as occurring through Sabbath rest, and depicting the unrest or dis-ease of neurosis, war, philosophy, and religion, the resolution to the deadly human predicament through Sabbath is depicted.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 16, 2026 • 1h 8min
Ethan Vander Leek on the Peace of William Desmond and Rowan Williams
Brad and Paul talk with Ethan Vander Leek about his upcoming course on peace in which he will utilize the insights of William Desmond, Rowan Williams, and Raimon Panikkar among others.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 14, 2026 • 31min
Sermon: Christian Zionism as Apostasy
Paul Axton preaches: In Galatians, Paul delineates fleshly Israel from Spiritual Israel, equating fleshly Israel with the children of Hagar, and Christians with Isaac. Isaac points directly to Christ, just as the faith of Abraham in having Isaac points to Christian faith, but to focus on fleshly Israel is to return to idolatry.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace”: This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 9, 2026 • 29min
Sermon: Being Between
Paul Axton preaches: Developing Paul's understanding that we fill up the suffering of Christ, the state of being between an originary unity and a developing fulness is explicated against the background of the philosophy of William Desmond, which is building on this Pauline idea.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace”: This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Mar 2, 2026 • 1h 36min
Understanding William Desmond Through Hegel, Žižek, and Flannery O'Connor
Brad and Paul discuss the work of William Desmond and approach it through his engagement with Hegel, his reading of Flannery O'Connor, and his opposition to the dark reading of Slavoj Žižek.
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace”: This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!

Feb 28, 2026 • 33min
Sermon: There is a Crack in Everything - Letting in the Light
Paul Axton preaches: Thomas is a resolute unbeliever who after examining Jesus' wound gives the strongest of affirmations of Jesus' divine identity. As in the story of Flannery O'Connor, Revelation, one world falls apart revealing another. The crack opens up to let in the light.
(Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace”: This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. We will examine various forms of false peace and ask what peace is positively, its metaphysical and religious status as a concept and as a lived reality. Is peace possible? How is it characterized? How does Jesus make peace? Can difference be understood, lived, and resolved, not in violence and victory but in cooperation and mutuality? We will be guided into such questions by voices past and present, including Augustine, Thomas Merton, Raimon Panikkar, William Desmond, Rowan Williams, and more. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)
If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.
Become a Patron!


