The Visit I Didn’t Want to Make – Cowboy Church

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

I didn’t even want to write up this account of my 2019 visit to a Cowboy Church in Bryan, Texas. Continue reading →

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Is what We Remember that Important?

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

“You don’t remember what your father said, but you remember what he did.” This was my first circuit counselor’s defense of deeds over creeds. He was a mid-50’s grad of the seminary. I was a new 1983 grad of the logical seminary, and I wondered did he know he Continue reading →

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If You’re Going to Run Through the Bosporus Give Heed to CCR

Posted on June 20, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

This article was published in Christian News, June 8, 2020. I couldn’t find an online edition so I offer it here for those interested. Continue reading →

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You Won’t Believe this Communion Statement!

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

I freely admit this is clickbait, but it’s also true. The following story shows how it’s possible to go from Closed to Communion to Open in less than a generation.

Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church was founded in 1985 by a Confessional Lutheran Continue reading →

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Displaying Sins like Sodom

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

“The expression of their faces bears witness against them. And they display their sin like Sodom; They do not even conceal it.” So says Isaiah 3:9. This passage came to mind as I watched a show involving all flavors on the LGBTQ menu. Continue reading →

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Believing as Bludgeoning

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

To anyone who has memories of WW II and certainly those who remember the Depression, what is going on now probably seems like an overreacting at best or a “Chicken-littleing” at worst. People are definitely unnerved and some are undone. Most people my age are more concerned about the economy and politics then they are with getting sick. Continue reading →

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Warning Sevin Dust Needed

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

A Review Essay of The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way

©2011 by Michael Horton

Introduction

I keep corn for deer and hogs in my garage. I couldn’t figure out why  neither were stopping for it. Then I discovered mealworms had gotten to the corn. They had eaten out the inside of the kernels leaving them intact on the outside, but empty of any nutritional value. Even a pig knew there was nothing worth eating in them. Consulting the all-knowing internet I found this was a common problem. The solution? Sevin Dust. Sprinkle around the bucket and on top of the corn. It works. There is helpful theology in Horton’s 1052-page tome, but being solidly old school, Calvinistic, Reformed theology there is more there that will eat the very heart out of Lutheran theology, its two chambers being justification and the Real Presence. If you want shorter, but accurate, Lutheran reviews of this book, see Dr. David Scaer’s 2012 book review here https://ctsfwmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/CTQ/CTQ%2076-1%2C2.pdf  . If you just want a pithy conclusion of Scaer’s it’s “Horton’s dogmatics shows that Lutherans and the Reformed live in different universes, not as allies but opponents” (188). You can read Wisconsin Synod’s Pastor Benjamin Tomczak’s 2015 three-page review at https://www.wls.wels.net/pilgrim-theology/ .

Perhaps a word is in order for how it is that I came to read this work. Continue reading →

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Bucket Lists, Binge Watching, and Social Distancing

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

It’s intriguing how quickly people adopt the latest way of labeling something. It becomes a shibboleth to me gauging how close one is to the world around them. This may be too strident of a judgment, something Logia editors said about my writing, but it seem to me but one step away from saying there are 4 lights when I know there are 3 because someone demands I do so under duress. However, this is not about that but about the last term: Social Distancing. Continue reading →

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Sword, Famine, and Coronavirus, O My

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

Read the 19 Bible passages below and tell me that the way of the world is not sword, famine, and pestilence? Christianity and Christians, historically, have stood out in times of pestilence. We were not the man who dressed like a woman to board the lifeboat on the Titanic which were for women and children first. One of the two films from the 50s did a good job depicting this real life event. It made me wonder at the time, circa 1967, would I be that “man”?. Continue reading →

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Eight Months Out and Not Dead or Dying

Posted on February 24, 2020 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

A LCMS seminarian told me back in circa 2002 or so: You leave the Synod you die. That’s definitely what you’re led to believe by the churchmen and bureaucrats, who equate to Sauron and Saruman in the Lord of the Rings, and the bureaucrats are Saruman because they control all, move all, seduce all with their voice. Though they be many they speak as one; sort of like in 1984: Continue reading →

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