Forging Ploughshares

This sermon follows Paul Axton's recent blog suggesting that the trial of Jesus forever suspends absolute notions of sovereignty and justice.

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Music: Bensound

Paul Axton preaches on passages describing the narrow way and those depicting an all inclusive salvation which give us theological fundamentalism and various forms of universalism. The first step toward overcoming this problem is to recognize salvation is not from eternal torturous existence but from the universal problem of sin and death.

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Music: Bensound

Here is the interview with the premiere historian of the Restoration Movement - Richard Hughes. We discuss nonvioloence in the RM, white supremacy, why continue on identifying with this tradition, and the essence of true religion.

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Music: Bensound

Paul Axton uses James and Frederick Douglas to describe how religion becomes evil through becoming deaf to the oppressed.

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Music: Bensound

Paul Axton shows that the dialectic between madness/wisdom is simply part of the dialectic always taking place between life/death which the cross addresses and undoes.

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Music: Bensound

Paul Axton and David Rosado review the film Of Fathers and Sons: For more than two years Talal Derki lives with the family of Abu Osama, an Al-Nusra fighter in a small village in northern Syria, focusing his camera mainly on the children. From a young age, the boys are trained to follow in their father’s footsteps and become soldiers of God. The horrors of war and the intimacy of family life are never far from one another. At the nearby battlefront Abu Osama fights against the enemy, while at home he cuddles with the boys and dreams of the caliphate.

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Music: Bensound

Paul Axton and David Rosado review two films, Won't You Be My Neighbor and Primas.

Won't You Be My Neighbor: Fred Rogers was about to enter the seminary when he turned on his first TV and saw a man get hit with a pie. He was aghast. How could he preach love and kindness when preschoolers were absorbing junk violence? So he changed career, trading a clerical collar for a cardigan, and attempted to change the world. Morgan Neville’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” follows how Rogers spent three decades hosting PBS’s “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” answering kids’ questions that other entertainers wouldn’t, including week-long episodes on death and divorce. Introducing the film at Sundance, Neville described his cheery documentary as therapy, only now for adults. At the first glimpse of the retro red trolley, a grown man in the audience moaned in joy.

Primas: How do you go on after an appallingly traumatic experience? Rocío, an 18-year-old Argentine girl, has managed to get her life back on track. When she was 10, she was dragged from her bike by a passing stranger, raped, set on fire and left for dead in a field. Incredibly, she survived. Now she tells her story to her cousin, who was sexually abused for years by her own father. Director Laura Bari transforms the girls' shocking personal stories into a beautifully natural portrait of two ordinary adolescents with familiar questions about life.

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Music: Bensound

Music: Bensound

Paul Axton continues his sermon series leading up to Easter. Several of the liturgical readings surrounding Palm Sunday are referenced leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection.

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Music: Bensound

Following the liturgical calendar leading to Easter, this sermon describes the character change of the new covenant described in Jeremiah through the life, death, and resurrection - and the high priestly ministry of Christ.

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Music: Bensound