Forging Ploughshares

Paul Axton preaches: Jesus' promise of peace, not as the world gives but his peace, is the beginning of an alternative subjectivity which William Desmond calls the "intimate universal" or an opening of a communicative subjectivity with the transcendent. 

(Register for the course, Metaxology, taught by William Desmond, which will cover the philosophy and theology of William Desmond as it applies to ethics, aesthetics, peace, and the Christian life. The course will run from 2026/6/20–2026/9/19. Sign up here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings)

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In this final conversation with Michael Hardin, Michael's friend David Dawson, author of "Flesh Becomes Word" describes Girard's entry into the discussion of structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction. 

(Register for the course, Metaxology, taught by William Desmond, which will cover the philosophy and theology of William Desmond as it applies to ethics, aesthetics, peace, and the Christian life. The course will run from 2026/6/20–2026/9/19. Sign up here: https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings)

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Paul Axton preaches: This sermon for Pentecost Sunday, compares life in the Spirit or in the Trinity to life in the absence of the Trinity, as Paul presents it in Romans 7 & 8. 

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Michael Hardin explains how Christ's exposure of the scapegoating mechanism unleashes the potential for a final violence, which can only be disrupted if Christians can resist through the reality of living out the gospel.

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This discussion and attached sermon with Brad and Paul builds upon the work of Raymond Panikkar and William Desmond in their description of the "between" as this applies to the Trinitarian nature of truth. 

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Michael Hardin spells out his key advancement of Girardian theory in his development of a positive view of mimesis as the very mode of salvation. 

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Paul Axton preaches: In this sermon on the necessity of love of enemy to arrive at the perfection of God, the focus is on the possible insight the "enemy" such as Islam and Iran might have into the failures of Western Christianity. 

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Michael Hardin explains how René Girard scapegoated the term sacrifice and the book of Hebrews and how he corrected course in regard to Hebrews. Karl and Paul discuss attachment of fundamentalism to the historical critical method, and then Nate and Paul point out to Michael the same problem with theological liberalism, and propose an alternative Christocentric hermeneutic in place of historicism. 

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Brad and Paul discuss the attached sermon tracing a Jewish understanding of Sabbath as synonymous with God and with being joined to God, as in marriage, and the development of an event oriented understanding degraded into a space surrounding tabernacle and temple taken up and transformed by Christ.

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In this continued discussion with Michael Hardin, Michael lays out a theory of a nonviolent atonement, through Girardian theory. Michael pictures this as key to understanding the cross and the Bible. 

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