Commentary
The Entitlement We’re All Given
This week a White Privilege Conference comes to town. Although I’m sure it will be very instructive for many people, I won’t be going. Not because I’m against the conference in theory; I’m just incredibly self-protective these days about certain conversations. See, I’m as sick of hearing about white privilege as many white people are. Actually, it’s…
Listening With Respect: Discussion Tackles Century-Old Issues
This year’s 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation raises two questions, in local terms: What, after all this time, still divides Kansas City’s Protestants and Catholics? What common ground is marked by the Venn circles of beliefs and practices of these two huge branches of Christianity? Leaders of my own congregation, Second…
How Our Grocery Stores Connect to the Great Health Care Debate
When my grandmother was alive we had a running joke that if she wanted something from the grocery store she had to give me plenty of notice so that I could get it from a store near me, not the one close to her. My grandmother is gone, that store is closed, and I now…
Coming to the Tipping Point
As a reporter for The Star, Mike McGraw examined the federal prosecution of the 1988 explosion that killed six firefighters in numerous articles. He retired from The Star in 2014 and is now a special projects reporter for Flatland. What finally pried the cell door open last week for Bryan Sheppard, one of the defendants…
Behind the Bryan Sheppard Ruling: What the Release Order Says and Doesn’t Say
A federal judge’s decision last week to release a man serving a life sentence in the 1988 deaths of six Kansas City firefighters was, at least for some of the families of those men, a hurtful betrayal by the legal system. For the families of the accused, it was the final arrival of justice long…
Making Sense of A Tragedy
The Rev. Kelly Isola is chair of the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. The comments below were prepared for a vigil held days after the fatal shooting in Olathe. It is with a heavy heart that I stand with you today. The council is deeply disturbed and saddened by these violent acts. We offer our…
D.C. Building Gains Dollars, Doors Via KC
To enter the huge new Museum of the Bible when it opens this fall just off the National Mall in Washington, D.C., you’ll have to go through Kansas City. Not literally, but almost. That’s because the amazing 40-foot-tall bronze doors — a replica of the bed of Johannes Gutenberg’s press from which he printed the…
Flexing Our Communal Protest Muscles
In our own way, America is at war. It may seem dramatic to say, but it’s the truth. Not against a foreign enemy. Not with guns and tanks and nukes. We’re at war with our fellow Americans, with our sense of communal normalcy. Right now the weapon is everything we can lay hands on —…
Bryan Sheppard and the Heavily Redacted Elephant in the Courtroom
In 1997 Bryan Sheppard was sentenced to life without parole for the deaths of six Kansas City firefighters. Although he and the other four defendants have always maintained their innocence, they have lost all of their appeals and are considered guilty of the crime in the eyes of the U.S. judicial system. All five were…
Rev. Adam Hamilton Strains to Prevent Schism in United Methodist Church
Forgive the Rev. Adam Hamilton, founding pastor of the 20,000-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, if his attention seems divided these days. One minute, he’s celebrating the opening of a new $81-million sanctuary — complete with a breathtakingly large stained glass window — at its main campus in Leawood. The next, he’s worrying that…