Reconnect the 6th and 7th Petitions

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Paul Harris

The Pope made quite a stir when in 2019 he deemed, dared to, correct the Lord who said, “When you pray say…Lead us not into temptation” into “Do not let us fall into temptation”. I have preached a lot on the Lord’s Prayer every 4 years from 1990 to 2023. That in itself doesn’t make me an expert. It does make be experienced in dealing with this petition. Luther’s strong quoting of James 1:13 right off the bat notwithstanding, “God tempts no one”, I have stumbled at times in thinking, teaching and preaching. Ergo, I’ve concluded, that we need to connect the 6th, “Lead us not into temptation” with the 7th, “Deliver us from evil.” Continue reading →

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This Seems Just Plain Wrong

Posted on July 7, 2025 by Paul Harris

Go here to view the age of consent for sexual relations in 1880 America, and prepare to be shocked: https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24.html . I first found this out from Marvin Olasky’s 2023 book The Story of Abortion in America: A Street-Level History, 1652–2022. And I’m still puzzling over it if not downright bothered by it! Continue reading →

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Go Ask Alice

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Paul Harris

Everything/Nothing/Someone is the 2023 memoir of 39 year old Alice Carriere whose only claim to fame is that she was the only child of a famous artist and actor. One review said, “At 35 she has quite a lot to tell.” She thinks she does, but does not. But like Jefferson Airplane taught us: “Go ask Alice.” Continue reading →

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Just Too Good To Pass Up – “The Push for an American Baby Boom”

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Paul Harris

My blogs are usually 30 to 40 weeks in the “hopper” before being published. It doesn’t ensure quality as much as assure against “poison pen” posts. (And poison pen letter is another expression that will have to be defined for anyone under 20 or mayhaps even older.) Continue reading →

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Lady Godiva

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Paul Harris

This 1861 statue is in England is the oldest known statue of the most famous nude.

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How Cheap Can We Get Him?

Posted on June 16, 2025 by Paul Harris

A mentor of mine who for decades was a circuit counselor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod told me that when he was working with a church that had a pastoral vacancy, when the topic turned to salary some old German always said, “How cheap can we get him?” He didn’t seek to muzzle the ox. Just to limit its eating. Continue reading →

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What to say after Here I stand: Perhaps I’m Wrong

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Paul Harris

There is such a thing as the tyranny of conscience. This early quote from Luther applies: Luther’s own appraisal of his “Here I Stand” 95 Theses in a 1518 letter to his superior, the Bishop of Brandenburg, said in part: “For I doubt some of them, am ignorant about others, and deny some, while not positively asserting any, but submitting all to the holy Church’” (Plass, Ewald, This is Luther, 201). Susan Howatch in her The Starbridge series of novels covers an Anglican cathedral from the 30’s – 60’s. A young priest’s revelatory moment, saving him from a nervous breakdown, is the sudden thought, “I may be wrong.” This is what I find is lacking in many of today’s Confessional Lutheran pastors. They have a drop- dead certainty about things that the Lord has not said, and this leads to a tyrannical conscience. This is a letter from Oliver Cromwell that addressed this tyranny. Continue reading →

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A Myth of the Digital Age

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Paul Harris

I’ve come to terms with “sometimes perception is reality”. Finally, I’m able to expose it for the fallacious thinking, even more to the point, the solipsistic thinking that it is. Continue reading →

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The Buggy Whip Salesman & Me

Posted on May 26, 2025 by Paul Harris

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The Excruciating 21st Century

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Paul Harris

You can say something is excruciatingly funny or that a comedy is excruciating. “But the root sense, all pain, is: ‘to crucify.” The Lain ex functions as an intensive. Cruciare ‘to crucify’ has the generalized sense to torture. That’s from John Ciardi’s 1980 A Browser’s Dictionary (123). The 2024 Merriam-Webster largely agrees with this saying under etymology: “derived from Latin excruciatus, past participle of excruciare “to torture,” from ex- “out of, from” and cruciare “to torment, crucify,” from cruc-, crux “cross” — related to cross, crucial, crucify “Excruciating” (Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/excruciating. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024). But Merriam-Webster give us the direct connection of “out of the cross” which makes any Confessional Lutheran pick up his ears, and now we’re to the excruciating 21st century. Continue reading →

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