Christian peace against the powers.
Forging Ploughshares treats Christian peace as a demanding theological problem. Its episodes move from Sabbath, Easter, and biblical interpretation into Girard, Illich, nihilism, anti-Judaism, antisemitism, and the powers that organize human violence.
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Forging Ploughshares is a Christian theology show built for listeners who are comfortable with sermons that become philosophy seminars and conversations that turn biblical categories toward systems of violence. Its center of gravity is peace, but not peace as sentiment. Peace appears as judgment, deliverance, interpretation, and the undoing of powers that pass themselves off as normal order. The show regularly moves from course announcements into demanding theological argument. That shift is part of its character. Paul Axton speaks from the setting of Forging Plowshares and Plowshares Bible Institute, and the episodes often carry the texture of ongoing teaching rather than studio-shaped commentary. A sermon on Sabbath can become a comparison of William Desmond and Maximus the Confessor. A reflection on Mary and Martha can become an argument about forms of thought, prayer, rest, Descartes, Kant, doubt, and the refusal to receive what exceeds the self. Easter is handled with particular severity. The resurrection is framed as judgment on the judges of Christ, while the history of Christian anti-Judaism is named as an early and persistent failure. Other episodes push into apocalyptic theology, Christian anarchism, biblical hermeneutics, nihilism, Ivan Illich, James Kuhn, Nietzsche, and the strange power of nothing when it is treated as absolute. René Girard receives focused attention through Michael Harden’s account of Girard’s life, literature, and influence. The show’s best moments come when it refuses to isolate doctrine from social order. Sin is not merely private failure. Salvation is not merely inner comfort. Reading scripture is tied to ontology, desire, death, accusation, and the possibility of a new cosmic order in Christ. The tone is grave and patient. It can be repetitive, but the repetition often functions like pressure applied to the same fracture from different angles. Listeners looking for quick inspiration may find it too dense. Listeners drawn to Christian nonviolence, apocalyptic theology, and philosophical critique will find a show that treats faith as intellectually serious and morally dangerous.
Made for: For listeners drawn to serious Christian theology, nonviolence, biblical interpretation, and philosophy. It especially suits those willing to sit with dense arguments about power, desire, violence, and salvation.
What sets it apart: Forging Ploughshares joins sermons, course material, and theological conversation without sanding off the difficulty. It treats Christian peace as an interpretive key for scripture, philosophy, power, and the church’s own failures.
Cultivating the Peaceable Kingdom
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Forging Ploughshares connects biblical theology with philosophy and psychoanalysis to examine salvation, violence, desire, and the possibility of peace.
Forging Ploughshares treats Christian theology as an argument still unfolding. Paul Axton moves between sermons, conversations, and guest interviews, bringing biblical interpretation into sustained contact with philosophy and psychoanalysis.
Kant meets Romans 7, and suddenly your tidy moral argument has a problem.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Illich, nihilism, and the church's own logic of darkness, carried with more pressure than polish.
Paul Axton uses Illich to make a hard-edged claim about Christianity's history: the faith that opens world-changing possibility can also become the worst shape of modern Western society.
A theology seminar on Christ, scripture, and the violence hidden inside how the Bible gets read.
Paul Axton treats apocalyptic hermeneutics as a way of keeping salvation, Bible reading, the human predicament, and deliverance in one frame. He moves through historical criticism, the battle for the Bible, and the instinct to defend Christianity with an inerrant text, before…
A dense, searching sermon on Sabbath, desire, and the peril of seeking peace through war.
Paul Axton's sermon follows William Desmond's question, "Is there a Sabbath for thought?", into a searching account of desire, drive, and the uneasy confusion of life with death.
A peace course begins by asking, through William Desmond, whether thought itself can have a Sabbath.
Peace comes into view as a question about thought itself: how the mind is formed, what shapes it, and whether it can ever rest. Ethan Vanderlee joins Paul Haxton and Brad for a discussion of William Desmond, especially Is There a Sabbath for Thought?
A forceful Pauline critique of Christian Zionism, covenant language, and identity in Christ.
Christian Zionism frames a wider argument about how Christian identity is formed in Paul: not by fleshly descent or earthly inheritance, but by promise, faith, and belonging in Christ.
A demanding theological critique of moral arguments, Kantian freedom, and the violent roots of religion and morality.
Forging Plowshares continues Paul Axton's series on imaginative apologetics with a sharp look at the assumptions behind religious and moral arguments for God.
A sharp Easter sermon on resurrection, repentance, political violence, and modern Israel.
Forging Ploughshares' Easter sermon reads the resurrection through Peter's movement from accusation to repentance, treating it as judgment on those caught up in Christ's killing.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Live sermons with Easter-shaped urgency.
This episode explores apocalyptic hermeneutics, discussing how belief in an apocalyptic breaking in of salvation influences biblical interpretation, understanding of the human predicament, and deliverance.
Paul Axton delivers an Easter sermon analyzing Peter's accusation in Acts that Jews and Romans were complicit in killing Jesus.
This episode is part two of a conversation where Jordan Daniel Wood uses Hegel's philosophy, particularly from 'Faith and Knowledge', to critique and respond to Hart's theological views on the infinite and Christology.
Paul Axton explores the dark side of morality and religion, arguing that human religion is inherently murderous and morality can lead to evil.
This sermon explores the theological connection between the Sabbath and encountering God through creation, drawing on insights from William Desmond and Maximus the Confessor.
This episode features an introductory lecture by Michael Hardin on the life and work of philosopher René Girard, exploring his key books and influence in religious and academic circles.
This Easter sermon explores how Peter's proclamation of the resurrection serves as a judgment on those complicit in Christ's death, while addressing the historical problem of anti-Judaism in the church.
This episode explores the intersection of Christian anarchism, apocalyptic theology, and Ann Jervis's critique of the 'now and not yet' framework to understand Christianity's opposition to worldly powers.
This episode introduces an upcoming sermon and class on Easter faith and peace, with details on how to sign up for the Plowshares Bible Institute course.
Paul Axton opens with Forging Plowshares.
This sermon uses the biblical story of Mary and Martha as a metaphor for two forms of thought, contrasting Martha's busyness with Mary's Sabbath-like peace and prayer, while drawing philosophical parallels to thinkers like Descartes.
Paul Axton frames the discussion around apocalyptic hermeneutics and how an apocalyptic breaking in of salvation reshapes Bible reading.
Paul Axton of Forging Plowshares frames Hebrews 4:1-7 around William Desmond’s question, "Is there a Sabbath for thought?" and then pulls Freud, Lacan, Schopenhauer, Job, and Yeats into the same sermon.
Ethan Vanderlee is preparing to teach an upcoming course on peace.
Paul Axton ties 'Christian Zionism as Apostasy' to Galatians 4, Gaza, and Iran, arguing that earthly Jerusalem is being confused with spiritual Israel.
This episode continues an interview with John Ashworth, an African peace activist who shares his practical experiences transitioning from just war theory to non-violence advocacy in Sudan and South Sudan over decades of work.
This sermon compares non-violent martyrdom in Daniel with violent Zionism in Maccabees as responses to empire, positioning Jesus' death as aligning with Daniel's peaceful approach.