A recent New York Times piece on the rebranding of 3M's Post-it notes has this interesting backstory:

In 1967, a 3M scientist, Spencer Silver, invented a glue with a slightly granular surface that prevented complete adhesion, but the company could not find an application for the underachieving adhesive. Then, in the early 1970s it introduced the Post-it Bulletin Board, essentially a photograph of a cork bulletin board coated with the substance and to which pieces of scrap paper could be attached.

That idea failed when people realized how much dust such a sticky bulletin board could accumulate. The article continues:

Then Art Fry, another 3M scientist, was practicing with his church choir and grew frustrated that slips of paper he used as bookmarks kept falling out of his hymnal. So, using some of Mr. Silver’s adhesive, he made sticky bookmarks, which evolved into notepaper.

The congregation, by the way, was North Church, a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Blessed be the glue that temporarily binds...

Posted by Ted Olsen at August 4, 2010 | Comments (0)

The captain of France's national soccer team is said to have blamed noise from the "vuvuzela" for keeping his team awake at night and contributing to a poor match against Uruguay in the World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.

But Tinyiko Maluleke, president of the South African Council of Churches, told Ecumenical News International that the three-foot noisy horns are forcing the world to wake up and acknowledge Africa's past sufferings.

Nearly 85,000 people have logged on to a website, www.banvuvuzela.com, to silence the horns during the World Cup; a little more than 9,000 want to keep them.

Soccer fans and players say the constant noise from the horns can cause hearing loss and makes the matches unwatchable, even on TV.
Coaches on the sidelines say the noise makes it difficult to communicate with players on the field.

"In the 19th century, white missionaries sided with colonials and gave blacks the Bible, while they took the land. Now, we have created the vuvuzela, which is one of the most obnoxious instruments: very noisy; very annoying. It will dominate the World Cup," Maluleke said recently in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the 2010 World Missionary Conference.

"I see the vuvuzela as a symbol -- as a symbol of Africa's cry for acknowledgement."

In an article published on his website, Maluleke said the horn resembles "in part, a modern trumpet and the `traditional' animal horn used to announce and to summon." South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper reported that the vuvuzela is common in churches in neighboring Botswana.

"The vuvuzela is a biblical instrument," church member Jacqueline Chireshe told the newspaper. "It is a trumpet, and God expects us to blow the trumpet in offering praise to him."

Maluleke noted the irony that white European audiences are now complaining about an instrument that's popular in African culture, generations after some Christian missionaries had deprived blacks of their culture.

"We see it when Africans are embarrassed to be African in their own vernacular language, to relate to their culture positively: the schizophrenic relationship that Africans have to their traditions, their culture, and their religions," he told Ecumenical News International.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at June 16, 2010 | Comments (5)

They say it only takes a spark to get a fire going.

The famous “Touchdown Jesus’ statue outside Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio was hit with a lot more than a spark, and some Christians are trying to understand why.

"This is not right," a church member by the name of Gifty told WDTN news after the Monday night fire that resulted in around $700,000 worth of damage to the statue and the church’s nearby theater. "We just all have to go on our faith and ask God. This cannot be a coincidence."

“Something is not right that we have to pray about,” she said.

The Dayton Daily News posted audio of an almost embarrassed 911 caller alerting authorities to the June 14 conflagration.

“I swear to God this is not a prank,” he said to the dispatcher. “I just saw lighting strike it and it is on fire.”

The statue’s official name is the “King of Kings,” but many use the nickname “Touchdown Jesus” because it depicts Christ raising both arms to the sky. The church installed it in 2004, with a steel frame covered in wood and Styrofoam and coated with fiberglass mat and resin. Church leaders have said they plan to rebuild.

“It sent goosebumps through my whole body because I am a believer,” said Levi Walsh, 29, quoted in the Middletown Journal. “Of all the things that could have been struck, I just think that that would be protected. ... It’s something that’s not supposed to happen, Jesus burning,” he said. “I had to see it with my own eyes.”

“It meant so much to so many people,” said church member Cassie Browning to the Dayton Daily News. “The statue can be destroyed and gone, but Jesus can’t be.”

"I'm thinking it's a sign from Jesus that we need to learn something, as Christians, as a whole, we're not doing something right," said church member Kevin Jones to WHIO.

Others have chimed in with their views. On the Internet, Lindsay Van Kirk of SportsGrid.com’s “Power Grid” blog wryly suggests that the fall of Touchdown Jesus is a sign that recent controversies in the football world may have “made God a bit mad.”

Mark Brumley, on Ingatius Press’ “Insight Scoop” blog, thinks that the fire is a sign that lightning and fiberglass do not mix according to the laws of God’s universe. But, he says, if the fire sparks self-examination among Christians who see the charred remains, maybe that was part of God’s plan.

“Since most of us usually have something to repent of or to repent more deeply of,” he wrote, “the destruction of the statue certainly can be taken as a providential reminder to turn away from sin.”

Posted by Ted Olsen at June 15, 2010 | Comments (20)

A British computer game retailer says it owns the souls of 7,500 online customers after it inserted language into the terms and conditions contract, FoxNews reports.

The contract "immortal soul clause" states that customers grant the company the right to claim their soul.

"By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions."

While all shoppers during the test were given a simple tick box option to opt out, very few did this, which would have also rewarded them with a £5 voucher, according to news:lite. Due to the number of people who ticked the box, GameStation claims believes as many as 88 percent of people do not read the terms and conditions of a Web site before they make a purchase.

The company noted that it would not be enforcing the ownership rights, and planned to e-mail customers nullifying any claim on their soul.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at April 16, 2010 | Comments (3)

Apple rejected an iPhone application that would allow people to put their own image on Jesus' face. The Me So Holy app would enable someone to take a mug shot and crop it to replace Jesus' face. Apple said no to the app, saying it "contains objectionable material," according to Wired.

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users," the iPhone SDK agreement states.

Apple may be tightening its restrictions on its iPhone App Store after it approved an iPhone app called Baby Shaker, a game whose objective was to shake a baby to death. Amid parental outrage, Apple subsequently removed the app, saying its approval was a mistake.

Me So Holy iPhone App from Benjamin Margolis on Vimeo.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at May 12, 2009 | Comments (3)

Think the churches in your neighborhood don't get along? Then, this should put things in perspective: The pastor of Rubaga Miracle Centre in Kampala, Uganda, has accused the pastor of Omega Healing Centre of trying to destroy his reputation by 1) kidnapping and torturing his personal aide and 2) bribing the aide to accuse him of sexually abusing boys.

Omega Healing Centre's pastor, Michael Kyazze, denies he was involved in kidnapping:

I have never been engaged in as nefarious and criminal an act of kidnapping. My struggle has been and will continue to be the fight for the increasing number of victims of sodomy in our society. If it has been interpreted as an effort to discredit Pastor Kayanja, then it is both unfortunate and a dangerous insinuation.

This comes soon after an assistant pastor of Omega Healing Centre was arrested while trespassing at Rubaga Miracle Centre, allegedly while trying to investigate Kayanja .

The aide is currently recovering in a Kampala hospital.

Uganda’s New Vision reported the story and says it highlights growing tension among competing Pentecostal churches. The Daily Monitor says "Cases of alleged homosexuality in churches have now become common." New Vision says rival pastors also accuse each other of witchcraft.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at April 30, 2009 | Comments (7)

Perhaps as part of trying to find common ground, Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh’s Jesus is as blonde as anyone’s, but the ideas behind his film pretty much undercut the Jesus of the Bible, who insisted on his deity, authority, death, and resurrection.

Jesus, the Spirit of God won an award at the 2007 Religion Today Film Festival in Italy.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 15, 2008 | Comments (4)

Scientists have discovered that sharks can reproduce asexually. "Scientists began their investigation after a female hammerhead shark was mysteriously born at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo in December 2001, in a tank that held three adult, female hammerheads but no males," reports the Washington Post. "Yes, indeed this is a virgin birth," said one of the scientists who studied the birth.

Ted Olsen interjects:

If you want to read the actual study from Biology Letters, it's available for free. I'll also just note that we're talking about bonnetheads rather than great hammerheads, though bonnetheads are considered a type of hammerhead shark.

Parthenogenesis isn't all that rare. Birds do it. Bees do it. But there is an important question here, as the Biology Letters article puts it, regarding "possible negative effects of this form of asexual reproduction on the genetic diversity in small natural or captive populations." Bonnetheads are an abundant species, but if this further research indicates that other, more endangered sharks also reproduce asexually, then there could be consequences for human-aided conservation efforts.

That's one "Green Christian" angle on this. But let's not dismiss the "virgin birth" angle of this as just a joke. Earlier generations of Christians saw in the animal world many echoes of theological reality. They didn't always (or often) get their animal behavior right, but that's no reason that actual animal behavior can't serve as reminders of biblical truth.

But then some of the differences between the Virgin Birth and its "echo" in parthenogenesis is fascinating to me, too. In parthenogenesis, you're basically talking about natural cloning. In the case of Christ's Virgin Birth, you're clearing talking about something radically different. Jesus, after all, was not Mary's genetic equivalent. (For starters, consider the chromosomes.) And any time I start thinking about Jesus' DNA, I marvel at how much mystery there really is in the Incarnation.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 23, 2007 | Comments (5)

The Nation's Max Blumenthal, in a Huffington Post entry, hotlinked an image over at the Family Research Council's site. FRC responded by changing the image to call Blumenthal an "image thief, fabulist, and kitten poisoner," complete with dead kitty image. Something to do while waiting for the hate crimes bill vote, I guess.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 3, 2007 | Comments (9)

'Unisex toilets to tackle bullies' is the headline of a BBC story today. And, when you think of it, really, what could be more embarrassing for a bully than to be tackled by a toilet — and a unisex one at that.

Actually, the proposal is that England's rebuilt and refurbished schools should use unisex bathrooms (ah, let's call them loos like they do, since that's much cooler) with blurred glass walls, central sinks, and no urinals.

The Department for Education and Skills report explains,

Most anti-social behaviour occurs when pupils socialise and hang around in the toilets. To discourage this, along with provision elsewhere in the school for indoor social areas, the space within the toilet facility needs to be kept to a minimum, and hand-washing facilities should be made visible and potentially unisex by being moved out of the cubicle area as a direct extension to the circulation space. This also allows for passive supervision of the common areas from the circulation space, so that pupils can feel safe when using the toilets.

The report urges schools to lose loos' urinals because "research has shown that at puberty, boys’ use of urinals is problematic. The trough type in particular can contribute to a medical condition know as ‘shy bladder syndrome’." Elsewhere, the report notes that since urinals are cheaper than toilets, urinals may be preferred in some cases. (Some alternative floor plans include urinals.)

So anyway, I just thought the article (which I found on the BBC's religion & ethics news page) was interesting. I'm sure that some of the culture-warrior readers (those who use terms like "war against boys," "forced androgyny," and "feminization") will be interested. But since this is supposed to be a specifically Christian blog, I'd like to make some direct connection to Christian life, theology, or mission.

So here's the tangentially related question for you: Several verses in the Old Testament refers to those who "urinate against the wall" (or, to use the King James English, "pisseth against the wall" -- surely one of the favorite references for any grade-school boy in a KJV-friendly Sunday school class or old-school Awana program).

Most translations, even formal equivalent ones, have updated this as "men." But there are other Hebrew words for "men," and these cases the Hebrew really says "urinate against the wall." In each case, those who urinate against the wall are not in God's favor. It almost always looks something like this: "And it came to pass, when [Zimri] began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake against Baasha by Jehu the prophet."

So what's the deal? Urinating against the wall seems to besomething that both Israelites and other nations did, so it's apparently not just a cultural thing. But if the Bible identifies you as someone who pees on a wall, you're in deep trouble. Does God prefer squatting? Will England urinal-free loos be more biblical? Help me, Old Testament scholars!

Posted by Ted Olsen at April 27, 2007 | Comments (4)