Religion
Muslim Like Me | To Keep Searching
According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, and Muslims currently make up just less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population. Pew projects the numbers of Muslims in America to grow to 2.1 percent of the population by the year 2050. What these findings suggest is that Islam,…
Muslim Like Me | A ‘Country That Lets You Dream and Think’
According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, and Muslims currently make up just less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population. Pew projects the numbers of Muslims in America to grow to 2.1 percent of the population by the year 2050. What these findings suggest is that Islam,…
Muslim Like Me | Powered by Love, Acceptance, and Coffee
According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, and Muslims currently make up just less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population. Pew projects the numbers of Muslims in America to grow to 2.1 percent of the population by the year 2050. What these findings suggest is that…
Recruiting to Fight Social Injustices
Michael Brooks recalls witnessing racism in Kansas City at a young age. Growing up at 37th and Benton Boulevard, a wealthy neighborhood “filled with doctors and lawyers,” the former councilman and senior pastor of Zion Grove Missionary Baptist Church said he started kindergarten in 1967 at then-affluent Sanford B. Ladd Elementary. Then, he said, it…
Extraordinary Documentary Sheds Light on Today’s Clash of Faiths
It’s a story almost nobody knows, with particular relevance for a world in which religious misunderstanding fuels hatred and murder. Coming January 24th to the Kansas City Jewish Film Fest, “Besa: The Promise” tells a tale of hope and redemption amidst the horrors of the Holocaust. As a special attraction, the film will be followed by a…
Focus on ‘Spotlight’ Film Recalls Local Church Crisis
On Dec. 10, 2004, a few months before Robert W. Finn became bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, I interviewed him for The Kansas City Star about the challenges he might face when he replaced the much-loved Bishop Raymond Boland. Finn was coadjutor bishop at the time. Neither Finn nor I, of…
‘Die Moving Forward.’
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on Jan. 12, and has been updated with video from the event. Click on the play button above to hear part of the keynote speech from the Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, senior pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York. Who knew that the…
Making Buddhism Matter, in KC
“Come inside.” Lama Chuck Stanford is standing just inside Kansas City’s Rime Buddhist Center on a frosty Sunday morning in late December, urging the morning’s volunteer greeter to come in from the cold. She can welcome people once they come indoors, he says. It’s what other greeters do. As visitors arrive to the entryway of the…
What Child Is This?
This story was updated after publishing to reflect the full name of one of the subjects. When Stacie Brewer, 39, of Blue Springs, lost her job, and then her house, she packed up her few belongings and moved into a nearby motel with her two children. Jobless, homeless, and displaced after moving from California for…
Commentary | A Local Love Story with International Echoes
As Doug Anning and Kirk Isenhour turned to walk up the aisle after an Episcopal blessing of their same-sex commitment to one another, the packed church erupted. I have never seen a sanctuary full of such joyful people. They were applauding, shouting, cheering, even crying. At the time, I posted a blog entry about it…