Beyond Belief
Bet You Didn’t Know ‘Amazing’ Religious Archive is So Close To KC
You may be surprised to learn that the first King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611, came in “he” and “she” editions. No, one wasn’t for males and one for females. Rather, in the book of Ruth, one translation said “he went into the city” in verse 15 of chapter three, and one…
Historic Site Gets Some Comic Relief
As attendance at religious services declines nationwide, houses of worship are getting repurposed, including an old brick church just east of 199th and Metcalf in southern Johnson County, on four-block-long Park Street. Calvin Coolidge is loving it back to life. No, not that Coolidge. Rather, his distant cousin, the Kansas City singer and comic. When…
Singers Extend Range Beyond Their Own Faith Tradition
Elizabeth Birger is Jewish, but she is also a professional musician with a love for all kinds of religious works, which is how she ended up singing with a Christian church choir in Wichita some years back. At one point there she was asked to prepare kids to sing in an upcoming worship service. The…
For Openly Gay Clergy, the Goal Is To Keep the Momentum
The Rev. Donna Simon says being a female member of the clergy sometimes is tougher than being a gay member. And Rabbi Javier Cattapan says his professional difficulties have more to do with being an immigrant from Argentina with an accent than with being gay. Those are signs of the welcome reality that many religious…
Court Experience Exposes Anti-Islam Sham
In 2012, Kansas passed a law forbidding courts in the state from making any ruling based on foreign law. Critics widely — and accurately — viewed it as the product of a campaign by anti-Islam bigots who were hyperventilating about Shari’a, sometimes called Islamic canonical law. Those bigots spread the alarm that Shari’a would replace…