Beyond Belief
What Are the Open Belief Centers in KC?
By Humera Lodhi Sharon Divine found faith as an adult. Or rather, she lost religion and then found faith. Divine grew up as a Christian attending Methodist, Lutheran, and Unity churches at various points in her life. The older Divine got, however, the less traditional religion seemed make sense to her. “There‘s nothing wrong with…
Read MoreView Could Bridge Divide Between Christians and Jews
The normal weekday lunch-hour crowd has collected at Michael Forbes Restaurant in Brookside. Old friends laughing, business folks talking deals. Well, normal except at my table. I’m with religion scholar Mark D. Nanos. I’ve asked him here to explain himself. And Nanos, a Kansas Citian who’s been stirring up the world of biblical scholarship for…
Read MoreHospital Chaplains Deliver Spiritual Care
Right from birth, this baby was sick, in trouble. “Her mother immediately asked for prayer and was very optimistic,” Kathie Knehans, then a chaplain at Children’s Mercy Hospital told me. So Knehans prayed with the family. And even when no family members were present, Knehans, now retired, visited the child and prayed. When the still-hospitalized…
Read MoreChristianity Faces Another Tempest
As the world marks the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation in October, lots of Kansas City’s Protestant churches know that today they’re in another major theological upheaval. This one isn’t as violent (yes, the Protestant Reformation turned viciously violent for decades) as the one in 1517, but it may be as…
Read MoreClergy Group Looking To Improve Education In Kansas City
After decades of frustration over education in Kansas City, area clergy are joining together to try to fix it. “We need the community to help us,” Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell told me, “because the failure of this school district is a community failure. We understand that we can’t do it alone, and…
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