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Tammeus
Kansas City, Mo.
Recent Activity
When science studies religion, watch out
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Religion is, in so many ways, a mysterious thing, discipline, approach to life, practice. I remember some years ago when a guy I know did a study about whether patients in a hospital got better when others prayed for them... Continue reading
Posted 4 days ago at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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As we welcome today's change, it's time for a reckoning
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We greet a new U.S. president and vice president today, and as we do we should be looking forward to a restoration of civility, of the rule of law, of basic human decency in the White House. As many of... Continue reading
Posted 7 days ago at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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What can we do about all the extremism?
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I devote quite a bit of space in my new book (which will be published Tuesday and introduced that evening in a virtual event presented by the Kansas City Public Library) to various kinds of extremists, especially, but not exclusively,... Continue reading
Posted Jan 15, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Should preachers serve in Congress? Why not?
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Yes, it's unusual to have a member of the clergy elected to public office. Unusual, but not unique, as this Religion News Service story notes. But the Rev. Raphael Warnock (pictured here), newly elected Democratic senator from Georgia, is in... Continue reading
Posted Jan 12, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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What can we do about all the extremism?
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I devote quite a bit of space in my new book (which will be published Tuesday and introduced that evening in a virtual event presented by the Kansas City Public Library) to various kinds of extremists, especially, but not exclusively,... Continue reading
Posted Jan 9, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Are all ethical standards rooted in religion? Good question.
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The world's great religions offer adherents standards of moral behavior to use as guidelines and sometimes as direct commands. Perhaps the most famous example would be the Ten Commandments, laws God gave to the people of Israel. But beyond that,... Continue reading
Posted Jan 8, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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The Trump-inspired catastrophe that happened Wednesday
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You know things can't be going well when you get this message from your church after sunset, as I did last night: "This has been a difficult day for our country and democracy. It is times like these when we... Continue reading
Posted Jan 6, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Why does tax money go to hire congressional chaplains?
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In the fall of 1990, I spent a week writing columns from Washington, D.C., just for the alleged fun of it. While I was there, I dropped in on the chaplain of the U.S. Senate, the Rev. Richard C. Halverson,... Continue reading
Posted Jan 5, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Is religion 'preposterous'? Yes, and often on purpose
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I found it intriguing that Atlantic writer McKay Coppins, in this article about Mormonism (Coppins is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), used the term "preposterous" as a description of some Mormon beliefs. Coppins dug... Continue reading
Posted Jan 1, 2021 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Thinking about The Star's apology for racist coverage
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I was happy (though, as you will see, with understandably mixed personal feelings) to learn that journalism was changing for the better in terms of the racial makeup of those hired to cover the news when, in late 1969 or... Continue reading
Posted Dec 29, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Is there any hope for hope in 2021?
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Some years ago, when I was still writing the "Starbeams" column for The Kansas City Star (they were quips, satire and often-snarky but allegedly humorous remarks about current events and our culture), I wrote one for the front page for... Continue reading
Posted Dec 25, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Cutting through the Christmas birth stories to what's vital
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Twice in my life I have been to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional site of the birth of Jesus. Once I was there on Christmas Eve in 1957 and once in 2012. The photo here, which... Continue reading
Posted Dec 22, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Is this flood of executions about to end?
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The other day here on the blog, I mentioned the death penalty, but just in a quick and incidental way. It's time to take it up again in a considerably more serious way, given the final push under President Donald... Continue reading
Posted Dec 18, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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War: The sin humans can't seem to quit committing
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As we move toward the end of this execrable year full of sound, fury, lies, pain and death (relieved a little by the return to form of Royals catcher Salvador Perez), let's take stock of the ways in which human... Continue reading
Posted Dec 15, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Why religious illiteracy is killing us
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In my forthcoming new book, I devote the final chapter to suggesting ways to work against religious extremism. I wish now I could have included a link to this Religion News Service column on that subject. It starts by bemoaning... Continue reading
Posted Dec 11, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Fixing what pro-Trump Christians broke will take time
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I originally had some hope that President Donald J. Trump's election loss would fairly quickly begin to restore sanity to his supporters who identify as evangelical Christians. To suck up to political power, they had abandoned their long-held religious principles... Continue reading
Posted Dec 8, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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My new 9/11 book will be available soon
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I want you to know about the coming publication of my latest book -- one that, in a sense, I've spent almost 20 years writing. It's called Love, Loss and Endurance: A 9/11 Story of Resilience and Hope in an... Continue reading
Posted Dec 4, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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What the damaging Vatican report can teach us
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Several weeks ago, the Vatican released its long-awaited report on what church officials knew about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's history of engaging in sexual abuse and misconduct. (McCarrick is pictured here before he was laicized.) You can read the breaking... Continue reading
Posted Dec 1, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Here is Advent seen through stunning glass art
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The Christian world enters the season of Advent on Sunday. It's the annual time of rich and expectant waiting to commemorate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day. For this Advent, I have found a moving work of art, "Nativity... Continue reading
Posted Nov 27, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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After a year like 2020, is there a way forward for faith?
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If faith communities know one thing after experiencing the traumatic, disruptive, costly but enlightening year of 2020, they know that there's no going back to whatever normal was. Normal was mostly broken even before the pandemic, even before police murdered... Continue reading
Posted Nov 24, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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American churches become more racially diverse
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One of the oldest, most-repeated statements about American Christianity, often attributed to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is that the most racially segregated hour of the week is 11 a.m. on Sundays. It's time to update that observations at... Continue reading
Posted Nov 20, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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How will Joe Biden's religious faith matter?
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We Americans still are two months from Joe Biden (pictured here) becoming president. But one question worth asking is what, if any, difference will it make that our new chief executive will be only the second Catholic elected to the... Continue reading
Posted Nov 17, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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A questioning man's journey into a strict religion
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What drives, nudges, attracts, lures human beings to religion? Is it simply a way to resolve mysteries by imagining a god who becomes the explanation for those mysteries? Is it a desire for order and dependability in a world that... Continue reading
Posted Nov 13, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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When nuns and nones get together
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Perhaps the least secret story about religion in the U.S. in recent decades is the growth in the number of people who identify as religiously unaffiliated. They're called the "Nones." It turns out that most of them aren't atheists but,... Continue reading
Posted Nov 10, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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Is this the world's most useless Bible?
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Biblical scholarship may just have driven itself into its last meaningless corner. Well, scholarship may not be the right word. A better one might be gimmickry. Sideline Collective, an international team of designers, writers and programmers, has just published the... Continue reading
Posted Nov 6, 2020 at Bill's Faith Matters blog
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