Author Archives: Paul Harris

About Paul Harris

Pastor Harris retired from congregational ministry after 40 years in office on 31 December 2023. He is now devoting himself to being a husband, father, and grandfather. He still thinks cenobitic monasticism is overrated and cave dwelling under.

Is Implying Closed Communion Practicing It?

Again, I don’t go browsing, surfing, or shopping the web for Communion Statements. Something else brought me to St. Paul Lutheran Church & Early Childhood Ministry, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod,  Columbus, IN. Once there I checkd out their Sunday bulletin, … Continue reading

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Who’s Writing the History Now?

You know the adage that history is written by the winners. Well, it’s re-written by the losers. Solzhenitsyn points out in one of his books on the Gulag that the Soviets removed from their history ¾ of what really happened. … Continue reading

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Woman the Glory of Man?

You know 1 Cor. 11:7, “For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man”, doesn’t mean that women exists to glorify us. … Continue reading

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Don’t Let the Old Man In

One of my sister’s sent me the link to the song named above on my birthday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc5AWImplfE.[i]  Give it a listen. You need to be a certain age to really appreciate it. My older brother said: He sneaks in. My older … Continue reading

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Useful Suffering

When suffering one either migrates to the poll of despair or resignation; at least I do. We know that despair is not of God but of the Evil One. We know that resignation is the refuge of the fatalists, Stoics, … Continue reading

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To be Hoisted Yet Again

Having recently published a blog about the ‘necessity’ (This word seems ill-advised in this context, but nevertheless.) of properly discerning what is truly adiaphora I find myself flummoxed, adrift, even asea.

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Apparatchiks Я Us

I’ve been banging on Concordia Health Plan’s publication Better Health for years. To sum up my take from 2013 (“Better Health Poorer Christianity” 7-29-2013) and from 2009 (“Food for Thought” 11-09-2009), I would subtitle Better Health with :Poorer Theology.

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Fruit Dragging the Ground

If you don’t know what to say about this 2002 Editorial Cartoon, you don’t understand the bizarre nature of the Pro-Death movement. If you aren’t moved to write a Letter to the Editor in response, you might not be as … Continue reading

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Excuse My French

An “Irish goodbye”, is an expression used today by Americans and Englanders. It comes from the English referring to a “French leave.” The French refer to it as “leave as the English.” Germany has “to make a Polish exit”.[i] This … Continue reading

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Devil’s Night

When I had a parish in in the City of Detroit in the late 80s, Devil’s Night was a feared Halloween Eve tradition. Pranks, vandalism, and crimes were up as youth ran wild. That’s how it was billed and the … Continue reading

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