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…
Faith And Love
Churchgoers at a tidy, white-steepled United Methodist Church in Carrollton, Missouri, heard a frank admission from their guest pastor one spring morning in 2007. “When asked to preach this Sunday, I almost said no,” Priscilla Wood Neaves told the congregation. “Why? Not because I lacked training and experience, and I have always enjoyed preaching.” She…
Hospital 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…
Purge In Turkey Worries KC Emigres
The brutal, imperious reaction of Turkey’s dictatorial government to a failed coup attempt last year has turned life into a nightmare for most, if not all, Kansas City-area residents of Turkish nationality. “I don’t know of anyone here from Turkey who is not affected,” says Selahattin Aydin, executive director of the Dialogue Institute of the…
Christianity 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…
Vietnam War Refugees Succeed — and Struggle — in Kansas City
When American troops made a chaotic, embarrassed withdrawal from Vietnam in April 1975, the flood of terrified Vietnamese refugees to Kansas City began. Ty Bui, who had spent seven years in the Vietnamese military, escaped his country in August that year and, after staying in a refugee camp in Arkansas, came to Kansas City in…
Clergy 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…
Offering More
With more and more gluten-free options for breads available in grocery stores, last month, the Vatican reminded Catholics to be wary of the alternatives for altar bread. At Pope Francis’ request, the July letter reminded Catholics around the world that the bread they use for mass should contain wheat and water only, and to be…
KC Clergy Stood Fast With Anti-War Stance
He’s 84 now, and has been retired since 2003 from his role as pastor of a United Methodist Church in northern California, but the Rev. Phillip Lawson vividly remembers all the trouble he stirred up in Kansas City in 1970 by speaking out against the Vietnam War. He went to Hanoi and, in a radio…
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…