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Tammeus
Kansas City, Mo.
Recent Activity
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One of the gifts religion has given the world or at least helped to affirm and nurture is ritual. Yes, there's empty, meaningless ritual. But ritual also can be profoundly healing. (The book to read is Caring Liturgies: The Pastoral... Continue reading
Posted 2 days ago at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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No doubt someone could earn a Ph.D. doing research on statistics about religion -- how they're compiled, by whom, their reliability, their purposes and on and on. Journalists who cover religion often are looking for statistics to show that there... Continue reading
Posted 3 days ago at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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When the visioning task force I chaired for my congregation issued our "GPS Report" early last year, one of the sections under which our recommendations fell was called "Radical Intentional Hospitality." In effect, it called on our congregation not just... Continue reading
Posted 4 days ago at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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Yes, I know that today is George Brett's birthday and that the Hall of Famer whose career I was privileged to watch (some of it in person) turns 60. But mostly I don't write about sports here, so happy birthday,... Continue reading
Posted 5 days ago at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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Over the decades, the question of what Christian churches did to oppose or support slavery in the United States has been an embarrassing one that many adherents of the faith have chosen not to explore, given that so much time... Continue reading
Posted 6 days ago at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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One of the obvious truths about history is that as new generations come along they must be taught from scratch what has happened (and why) before they arrived. We are not, after all, born with a data bank in our... Continue reading
Posted 7 days ago at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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One of the persistent myths about the Holocaust is that Jews did not resist, giving in like sheep to the slaughter that was led by Hitler's murderous vision of the end of European Jewry. It's hard to know where to... Continue reading
Posted May 10, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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Perhaps it's because I wrote a daily humor column for nearly three decades for The Kansas City Star that I have a special appreciation for humor in almost any circumstance -- including in worship. It's why once a month or... Continue reading
Posted May 9, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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Several years ago I was the moderator for a conversation between a Muslim and a Jew as part of the annual Festival of Faiths of Kansas City. The Muslim was the scholar Akbar Ahmed from American University. The Jew was... Continue reading
Posted May 8, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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When the battle to defeat South Africa's racial segregation policy called apartheid was under way in the 1970s and '80s, I was not aware of the role that interfaith cooperation was playing. Allan Boesak (pictured here) clued me and others... Continue reading
Posted May 7, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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What does almost everyone know about France and religion in the last decade or two? Well, yes, many of the Christian churches are sparsely attended, but what do we know beyond that? That we've seen a lot of hostility toward... Continue reading
Posted May 6, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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One of the mysteries of religion is what causes some people to become what today is commonly referred to as "radicalized"? How can someone adopt tenets and practices that are far outside the mainstream and still imagine that he or... Continue reading
Posted May 5, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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One need only read the annual reports of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom or the annual reports on religious freedom from the U.S. State Department to know that freedom of religion is not universally respected as a foundational... Continue reading
Posted May 3, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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The news about how Muslims outside the U.S. think about Islam and its relationship to politics and society is both reassuring and, at the same time, somewhat disconcerting -- at least for many non-Muslim Americans. The Pew Forum on Religion... Continue reading
Posted May 2, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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Defending a religion or a religious position sometimes can lead to difficulties. For instance, the other day my former Kansas City Star colleague Mary Sanchez wrote this column about a move among some on the campus of Benedictine College in... Continue reading
Posted May 1, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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In recent months I have mentioned the wonderful four-part series of books by independent scholar Richard Lawrence Miller (pictured below) called Lincoln and His World. (I've just finished volume 2.) Whatever you want to know about Lincoln before he became... Continue reading
Posted Apr 30, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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The New Testament's account of Mary and Joseph fleeing with the infant Jesus to Egypt to avoid Herod slaughtering the child is brief and without much in the way of detail. For instance, Matthew 2:13-15 says this: 13 Now when... Continue reading
Posted Apr 29, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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An interesting -- if strange -- new study suggests that atheists may believe in their brains that there is no god but their hearts aren't nearly as certain. The Finnish study concludes that some atheists may believe in God secretly... Continue reading
Posted Apr 28, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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A Jewish prayer book with which I'm familiar says this: "We walk sightless among miracles." I try not to do that, but often fail. And Albert Einstein is credited with this quote: “There are only two ways to live your... Continue reading
Posted Apr 26, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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The move toward acceptance of same-sex unions -- whether called marriage or something else -- proceeded with such slowness for so long that it hardly could be called movement at all. But in recent years the pace has picked up... Continue reading
Posted Apr 25, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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National Catholic Reporter editor Dennis Coday and NCR staff writer Josh McElwee have been giving some talks recently about their recent coverage from Rome of the election of a new pope. The other evening I was at Visitation Catholic Church... Continue reading
Posted Apr 24, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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There can be -- and often is -- a profound difference between an intellectual understanding of theological doctrines and an ability to live faithfully, especially through trauma, loss and disaster. For instance, we can be perfectly capable of articulating one... Continue reading
Posted Apr 23, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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There still is much we don't know about the Boston Marathon bombings and the perpetrators. But once again the story raises the question of the relationship between religion and violence. And before any of us offers simplistic answers, we would... Continue reading
Posted Apr 22, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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One of the mysteries (and clarities) of Christianity is the New Testament, those writings from the early Jesus Movement within Judaism that in the 4th Century were declared to be holy scripture and part of an unchangeable canon. The New... Continue reading
Posted Apr 21, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog
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Trying to understand Poland's relationship to the Holocaust can be extraordinarily difficult, frustrating and complex. The essential facts are well known: About 90 percent of the almost 3.5 million Jews living in Poland when Germany invaded in September 1939 were... Continue reading
Posted Apr 19, 2013 at Bill's 'Faith Matters' Blog