Bill Tammeus
Commentator
Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning Faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog for The Star's Web site and a column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book is "Jesus, Pope Francis and a Protestant Walk into a Bar: Lessons for the Christian Church."
Stories by Bill Tammeus
Sikh Temple Will Highlight U.S Religious Pluralism At Lenexa Corner
On the southwest corner of 101st Street and Lone Elm Road in southwest Lenexa, not far from the Falcon Ridge Golf Course, is a large church. It’s a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, usually called the Mormons. The path from the creation of Mormonism in the early 1800s to today…
New Headquarters Marks Another Turning Point For KCK’s Youthfront
Over its 75-plus years, Youthfront, a Christian ministry that supports youth pastors and offers summer camps and other programs for young people, has made several key transitions. And now it’s changing locations. Well, slightly. The organization’s 38 full-time staff members are moving into new headquarters at 4600 Rainbow Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas, and preparing…
Angry Metro Clergy Await Homosexuality Decision from United Methodist Church
Right after a governing body of the United Methodist Church in February approved keeping the denomination’s ban on gay clergy and on any clergy officiating at same-sex weddings, the Rev. Tex Sample was indignant and defiant. He told worshippers at Trinity United Methodist Church in Midtown Kansas City that their historically gay-friendly congregation would follow…
Beliefs Ease Strain of Rime Buddhist Center Financial Struggles
In early March, the winter-brown grass on the vacant lot at the northwest corner of 30th Street and Highland in Kansas City reflected the harsh winter weather that pummeled the city for several months. It looked beaten, exhausted, almost breathless. But this land is where the Rime (pronounced REE-may) Buddhist Center has placed its long-term…
Church Is Ray Of Light In Urban KC Neighborhood
The Sheffield Family Life Center, a 6,000-member Assembly of God church, is a sparkling diamond in an urban coal mine. It’s big, diverse and a key center of life in Kansas City’s distressed Blue Valley area. “We are in a location where we kind of get left out,” says Sheffield’s pastor George Westlake III. “We’re…
Gatherings Create ‘Community of Reason’ Each Week At UMKC
A major story about religion in America in recent decades has been the decline of various Christian denominations and the rise of the religiously unaffiliated to about 25 percent of the adult population. But for all those decades, a group of people mostly outside of faith traditions has been operating in Kansas City. Just like…
Two Johnson County Churches Bridge Centuries-Old Theological Schism
Two neighboring Catholic and Lutheran churches in Johnson County are trying to repair some of the epic rupture to Christianity caused 501 years ago by a Catholic monk named Martin Luther. Luther, without really meaning to, started the Protestant Reformation by publishing a list of 95 matters he thought church leaders should debate. His disagreements…
You’ll Find Clergy In All Sorts Of Places Around Kansas City
Keith Brown is a Protestant pastor who works in an elementary charter school, not a church. Jonathan Rudnick is a rabbi who doesn’t work in a synagogue but as a “community rabbi.” And Sulaiman Z. Salaam Jr. is an imam at a small mosque, but to earn a living, he operates a franchise restaurant at…
Missouri Exoneree Using Ministry To Help Other Freed Prisoners
While he spent some 24 years in Missouri prisons, Darryl Burton — wrongfully convicted of capital murder — wrote letters to everyone he could think of. From presidents to governors to Hollywood stars. Eventually he wrote to Jesus but hid it from prison guards, he told me, believing that if they found it they’d think…
KC Catholic School Learns, Grows After Swastika Incident
In September 2017, a photo posted on Snapchat showed a group of St. Teresa’s Academy students posing in front of a table with beer pong cups arranged in the shape of a left-facing swastika. Social media exploded. That incident at a private home “really brought us to our knees,” says Nan Bone, who is just…