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Tammeus
Kansas City, Mo.
Recent Activity
Is political violence in the U.S. simply inevitable?
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One reason I wrote my last book -- Love, Loss and Endurance: A 9/11 Story of Resilience and Hope in an Age of Anxiety -- was to explore the question of how people get sucked into extremism and what we... Continue reading
Posted 2 days ago at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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A big reason people doubt Christians? Hypocrisy
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When I was in junior high and high school, my family regularly attended a Presbyterian church in my small hometown in northern Illinois. The closer I got to high school graduation, the more I seemed to sense a rupture between... Continue reading
Posted 5 days ago at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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If people from outer space get to Earth, will we preach to them?
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Now that the Pentagon and some academics seem to be taking seriously the idea that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, what are people of faith supposed to make of the idea? Here's what Sean M. Kirkpatrick, director... Continue reading
Posted Mar 17, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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A single word switch in translating scripture can change much
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I recently wrote here on the blog about a well-known translator of the Hebrew Bible, Robert Alter, and of his belief that many, if not most, modern English translations of the Bible are, as he put it, "execrable." Which I... Continue reading
Posted Mar 14, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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How Jimmy Carter tried to live out his Christianity
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Jimmy Carter, now in hospice care in his home in Plains, Ga., will never be ranked among our top 10 presidents. But his failure to achieve greatness as a political leader means next-to-nothing about his moral center and his status... Continue reading
Posted Mar 10, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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The concept of 'shalom' is more than just one thing
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At my congregation, our pastors rarely rely on the lectionary to choose biblical passages on which to base their sermons. Rather, they do various sermon series on a particular topic. Our current topic is the idea of "shalom," or peace... Continue reading
Posted Mar 7, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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A modern 'revival'? What is that all about?
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Religious revivals are a tradition in American Christianity. They began, in fact, before there officially was a United States, with the "Great Awakening" from 1734 to 1743. Jonathan Edwards, most famous for his preach-fear sermon "Sinners in the Hands of... Continue reading
Posted Mar 3, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Our desire to be entertained to death is, well, killing us
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Now and then it's important -- in fact, vital -- that we take a step back from how we're living and compare it to the generative, generous and caring ways that the world's great religions call us to live. When... Continue reading
Posted Feb 28, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Why a great Bible scholar thinks many translations are junk
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The recent appearance by renowned biblical scholar Robert Alter (pictured here) at the Kansas City Public Library gave a large in-person and Zoom audience dozens of delightful moments from a serious man nearing the end of a terrific and consequential... Continue reading
Posted Feb 24, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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How can we stop antisemitism's resurgence?
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A new American Jewish Committee survey, as this RNS story reports, has "found that 41% of American Jews said they were feeling less secure than a year ago, a 10 percentage point increase over a 2021 survey when 31% of... Continue reading
Posted Feb 21, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Does A.I. have even a clue about religious matters?
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Humanity once again is up against yet another scientific or technological development for which it is morally and ethically ill prepared: Artificial Intelligence. A.I. has been around for long enough now that many people think they know what it can... Continue reading
Posted Feb 17, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Can American Christianity reverse its downward trend?
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For some years now, I and many others have written about the diminishment of Christianity in America. Falling church membership and worship attendance numbers are signs of what's been happening. You can find two recent pieces I've written about this... Continue reading
Posted Feb 14, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Ignorance of history can lead to misunderstanding religious commemorations
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When we somehow take note of anniversary dates that are important to this or that faith or ethnic tradition, we should be especially careful to try to understand the meaning of those dates as the people of that tradition understand... Continue reading
Posted Feb 10, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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The Church of England's attempt to tell its slavery story
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As the people of the United States argue about how, if at all, to confront and learn about the country's history of slavery and of the crushing of Indigenous people by European invaders, we might do well, in Black History... Continue reading
Posted Feb 7, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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An online WWI exhibit that carries a vital lesson
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Across the span of human history, religion has caused wars, shaped the course of wars, worked to prevent wars and helped people to heal after wars. The interconnectedness between religion and war is almost endless. And sometimes those connections help... Continue reading
Posted Feb 3, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Is the pope really moving the church on LGBTQ+ issues?
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What are we to make of what Pope Francis said in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press released on Jan. 25, as reported in this National Catholic Reporter story? (And here is the original AP story.) "Being homosexual is... Continue reading
Posted Jan 31, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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A reminder of the extraordinary fragility of our lives
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Thirty-seven years ago this weekend, Jan. 28, 1986, those of us watching live TV coverage of the launch of the space shuttle Challenger saw people die in a massive explosion (pictured above). One of the dead was a teacher named... Continue reading
Posted Jan 27, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Do visits to holy sites really make us any more holy?
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Over the decades of my life, I have managed to visit quite a few sites that have been described as holy, sacred or religious. They include the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Taj... Continue reading
Posted Jan 24, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Is Abe Lincoln's theology still useful in today's America?
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In less than three weeks, on Feb. 7, President Joe Biden will deliver the annual "State of the Union" address to Congress. I've been thinking about the uses and misuses of presidential speeches recently as I've just finished reading Jon... Continue reading
Posted Jan 20, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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This is how to tell complicated religion stories carefully
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Roman Catholicism is in a period of transition. Yes, I know. That sentence has been true of that religious tradition since its founding. But it seems to be in a time of change more noticeable and perhaps more important for... Continue reading
Posted Jan 17, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.'s KC connections
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There's no doubt that the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. now belongs to the world, to history and even, in some ways, to legend. But this year for King Day, which is Monday, I want to describe a... Continue reading
Posted Jan 13, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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A path forward for American churches experiencing decline
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If current trends continue for several more decades, Christians may well discover that they no longer make up a majority of Americans, a recent Pew Research study says. And at the moment there's no good reason to suspect that won't... Continue reading
Posted Jan 10, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Wherever you look there's news that somehow involves religion
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There were lots of news stories in 2022 that had various religious lines running through them, from the continued diminishment of American Christianity to resurgent antisemitism and Christian nationalism to the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI -- and more.... Continue reading
Posted Jan 6, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Commemorating the start of a vital Holocaust education source
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The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is celebrating the 30th year of its founding in this new year. As one of the agency's newest volunteer board members, I want to encourage all of you to know about MCHE and to... Continue reading
Posted Jan 3, 2023 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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What if we fought only about what's crucial in faith traditions?
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As we move to a new year this weekend, I first want to back up a bit and take note that this fall we passed the 60th anniversary of the start of the hugely influential (and, in some corners, controversial)... Continue reading
Posted Dec 30, 2022 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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