Mark Galli, former Christianity Today editor, embraces Catholicism

“Once something commends itself to you as true and real, even if it’s inconvenient, you either look the other way and pretend you didn’t see it,” said [instructor and fellow convert John] Ellison, “or you do something about it.” Religion News Service

A better way to deal with differences

Some encouraging news from Virginia:

Two Ministers Forge Friendship Across a Church Divide (The New York Times)

We see though dark glasses

Does wearing fake designer sunglasses make you feel good? Answer “Yes” or “No” (no cheating, please!), then check out this fascinating report in The Economist.

What do you mean: “Lost”?

Originally seen at The Wittenburg Door. Hat-tip: Purple Hymnal

Men are bigger liars than women, says poll

BBC report on Science Museum survey

I guess the assumption here is that everybody told the truth about how often they lied.

Why is it that surveys, telemarketing scripts and sales pitches (which themselves may sometimes be “economical with the truth” or less than totally upfront about their purpose or intentions) so often seem to assume that the respondents’ answers will be honest and straightforward?

“Great job on the others, but you got us all wrong!”

I once read a book in which the author set out to debunk various different popular movements and ideas by showing what was wrong with them (in some cases exposing pseudoscientific concepts or demonstrating basic misrepresentation and dishonesty, for example). Each chapter was about a different movement or idea. What struck me particularly was something he mentioned in his introduction: After the first edition of the book was published, he got a lot of comments from readers about what a good job he had done of exposing the errors of different groups. Very often, such praise was accompanied by a comment to the effect that “in the case of our group, though, you’ve got your facts wrong”...

Realistically, a popular author or journalist is not likely to be the world’s greatest authority on about twenty different movements or ideas simultaneously – and nobody would seriously expect him to be. So a few (or a lot of) factual details in the book could well have been incomplete or simply inaccurate. But what worries me more is the danger lurking hidden within the seemingly innocuous endorsement “You did a great job on the others!” – namely, the evident tendency, which I also recognise in myself, to accept uncritically statements and assertions that support or fit in with our own beliefs and ideas.

Science ponders "zombie attack"

This unusual but enlightening BBC news item is just too good not to share!

You learn something new every day.

Dissident Cobblers

Ominous changes are afoot in the capital of Europe! Here in Belgium, if you buy a car and don't already possess the pair of licence plates that will remain yours for life, the local vehicle registration office will normally issue you with your first licence plate (the rear one, as it happens) by sending it to you through the post. You then have to visit a cobbler and buy the front plate yourself. Apparently, this business represents about 15 percent of Belgian cobblers' overall turnover. It may not have made the world news headlines, but, shockingly, it seems that the days of this time-honoured tradition may be numbered: According to a recent news report, Belgian cobblers are "in uproar about a proposed reform of the way licence plates are issued". Under the proposed reform, "new EU-style licence plates issued from July 2010 would be sent out in pairs" by the licensing authority (emphasis mine). It just so happens that I neither own nor drive a car. But this news does prompt me to ask: What next? Will holding the number of the Beast soon become a punishable offence in the new Europe? Now, that really would be an unexpected turn of events, wouldn't it? I don't think it's likely to happen. But, then again, I've been wrong before.

Wrap your mind around the LHC

What will the clever people at CERN come up with next? (Another World Wide Web?) Who knows? While we're waiting to find out, let's take a mind-expanding tour of the Large Hadron Collider:

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

They didn't teach physics like this when I was at school!

Everybody always thinks they are right

That’s one of the maxims from “Things I have learned in my life so far” by New York-based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister. It’s an insight worth remembering, I think.

“Most people will believe nearly anything”

Those are the words of professional hoaxer Alan Abel, one of my childhood heroes – who, I’m happy to report, is still going strong today. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s hard at work right now, devising some new way to render the valuable public service of giving people what he calls “a kick in the intellect”.

If Alan Abel didn’t exist, he would probably have invented himself as a publicity stunt. In the distinguished tradition of the fool of antiquity, “Abel challenges the obvious and utters the outrageous”, to quote the New York Times. And they should know: in January 1980 he managed to get that same newspaper to publish a report of his own death which proved to be, let’s say, less than totally accurate in certain material respects.

His book Yours For Decency (originally published in the US in 1966 as The Great American Hoax) is one of the funniest books I have ever read. I enjoy a good laugh, but I have a very low tolerance threshold when it comes to suspension of disbelief. So when I know the story being recounted is real rather than fictitious, I find the whole enterprise vastly more amusing.

In 1959, Abel (an ad man who once floated the concept of renting out advertising space on bald men’s heads), dreamed up a tongue-in-cheek crusade, spearheaded by an imaginary character named G. Clifford Prout Jr., dedicated to clothing cats, dogs, cows and other animals in the name of public decency. His satirical send-up of censorship and hypocrisy in contemporary American society was widely perceived as a serious undertaking. Somehow he managed to keep a straight face (in public) in his superbly deadpan role as “Vice President” of the ironically named Society for Indecency to Naked Animals [sic].

SINA had a prestigious New York mailing address and telephone number. But its “office” actually consisted of a locked broom cupboard with a nameplate on the door. For nearly six years, Abel, his wife Jeanne, and actor Buck Henry in the role of “President” G. Clifford Prout Jr. attracted media attention, some enthusiastic support, and quite a bit of outraged hostility.


Buck Henry and Alan Abel field questions about the SINA hoax during a press conference in New York City (1962).
Photo by Kelly Hart, © Alan Abel.


Alan Abel holding a copy of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals official magazine (1964).
Photo by Sasch Rubenstein, © Alan Abel.

SINA was just one of a number of hoaxes that Abel has perpetrated on an unsuspecting American public over the years. His success speaks volumes about the media’s readiness to carelessly accept sensational stories at face value, and the hoaxes make illuminating case studies in human gullibility.

Abel’s daughter Jenny has made a film – Abel Raises Cain – as a personal account of her father’s life and work. I haven’t seen it yet, but a reviewer writing in the STAR-TRIBUNE describes it like this: “An affectionate portrait of a gadfly dedicated to lampooning American society’s foibles, the laziness of the media and the tendency in all of us to swallow what we really want to believe but shouldn’t”.

The movie has been screened at film festivals in the US, Canada, New Zealand and other countries, and, as you might have guessed, I’m planning to buy the DVD. You can find out more about Abel Raises Cain here.

Poetry For The Perplexed

Here are two of my favourite poems – both by the same author and dealing with related themes, but from two very different perspectives. I’ve never seen these two poems presented together like this before, but I think they complement each other nicely. Maybe “poetry to die for” would not be the most helpful description, so let’s just say that, for me, this is the kind of poetry that helps to make life worth living.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

I had grown weary of him; of his breath
And hands and features I was sick to death.
Each day I heard the same dull voice and tread;
I did not hate him: but I wished him dead.
And he must with his blank face fill my life—
Then my brain blackened; and I snatched a knife.

But ere I struck, my soul’s grey deserts through
A voice cried, “Know at least what thing you do.”
“This is a common man: knowest thou, O soul,
What this thing is? somewhere where seasons roll
There is some living thing for whom this man
Is as seven heavens girt into a span,
For some one soul you take the world away—
Now know you well your deed and purpose. Slay!”

Then I cast down the knife upon the ground
And saw that mean man for one moment crowned.
I turned and laughed: for there was no one by—
The man that I had sought to slay was I.

G. K. CHESTERTON

A Ballad Of Suicide

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall;
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours—on the wall—
Are drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!”
The strangest whim has seized me. …After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay—
My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall—
I see a little cloud all pink and grey—
Perhaps the rector’s mother will not call—
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way—
I never read the works of Juvenal—
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The world will have another washing-day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H. G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational—
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray
So secret that the very sky seems small—
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

ENVOI
Prince, I can hear the trump of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even to-day your royal head may fall,
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Have any of you read Jane Eyre?

It happened during an English Literature class at school when I was about 14 or 15, but I still remember it as if it was yesterday. Like most teenage kids, I dreaded looking silly in front of my classmates – particularly my friend “Fizz” who sat next to me. (In those days, I was known as “Buckets”, incidentally.) Fizz already thought I was crazy for getting a book called Letters of Giuseppe Verdi out of the library, and he also failed to see how I could find a book with a title like Memoirs of an Interpreter interesting.

But this particular day, our teacher, Mr Hodgkins, casually asked the class, in passing: “Have any of you read Jane Eyre?” If I remember correctly, one of the girls immediately put her hand up. A few seconds later, I put my hand up, too. This was an important test for me, you see, because of my religious convictions: I needed to tell the truth at all times and at all costs. Why the few seconds of hesitation, then? You’re probably ahead of me: I hesitated briefly (and humanly) because I didn’t want to look silly in front of Fizz and all the others, obviously. And if you’d been there, you would indeed have heard some sniggering when I put my hand up.

There is, however, one problem with that explanation: despite all appearances, it’s simply not true. It just so happens that fear of possible ridicule was not the reason I hesitated at all in this particular case. In fact, I would have been very proud to “admit” to having read the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë – and, indeed, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by her sister Anne Brontë, if it came to that (so there!). The reason I hesitated was because I was struggling to resolve a serious problem: I didn’t know whether or not I would be telling the truth if I put my hand up, because – get this – I honestly and sincerely didn’t know whether or not I had actually read Jane Eyre (or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall either, if it came to that)!

Confused? You bet I was. No, sorry – I mean: “And so you should be”. But, you see, the fact of the matter was that I had listened to the entire unabridged text of both of those books broadcast over the air as serialisations on BBC radio in the evenings. But I had no recollection of ever having set eyes on a single printed page of either of the two books. So had I read Jane Eyre? Well, I thought to myself, it depends what you mean. Yes. No. And also Yes-and-No. All three at once, in fact. But how do you indicate all that by putting up your hand, not putting up your hand, and putting-up-and-not-putting-up your hand all at the same time? Quite a problem, isn’t it? And there wasn’t a moment to lose! The question sent my mind (and my pulse) racing. Fortunately, I managed to figure out the right response in time. Phew!

If I’d got it wrong, though, maybe I could have emulated what Giuseppe Verdi did once after he made a social gaffe: “In a fury, I took a revolver and fired it into my mouth. It was made of chocolate. And I live – alas! alas!”

I Think My Wife’s A Calvinist

To kick off The Third Witness Virtual Folk Club, I’d like to dedicate this gem of a song to Gavin, Dennis and all other theologically-inclined visitors with a sense of humour as we start the year that marks the 500th aniversary of the birth of John Calvin. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome... Brandon Milan and his Calvinist wife! (Hat tip: Internet Monk.)

Twas the season for bad public relations

“Be deaf! The herald angels do not sing;
Wrong ring the bells: ding ding not dong.
To wish you ill in non-rhyme on this non-Christmas card
Is not easy; it is difficult.”

These lines were penned by Paul Francis Jennings (1918–1989), a British humorist whose weekly columns (originally published in the Observer) were reprinted in books with titles like “Oddly Enough” and “Even Oddlier”. I enjoyed his writings during my schooldays, and his tongue-in-cheek suggestion about sending “non-Christmas cards” really captured my imagination. I even toyed with the idea of sending some to my friends.

One of Paul Jennings’ later books was entitled “I Was Joking, Of Course” – an ironic reference, no doubt, to some documented occasions when certain readers had mistaken his satires for serious journalistic reports. But even he would probably have been astonished to learn, as I myself was several years later, that the non-Christmas card, far from being merely an imaginary animal, really did exist: The sister of a friend of mine once received a “non-Christmas card” from somebody who had stopped keeping Christmas because they had discovered what we used to call “The Plain Truth About Christmas”. Apparently there used to be pre-printed cards that new converts to our church could (if they so wished) send to their family and friends, thus making it easier for them to explain why they would no longer be sending Christmas cards. My friend described this as “not a very good public relations exercise” – but nevertheless, he eventually went on to become a church member himself.

I wonder if any of those cards are still around.

The Big Question

When I was about 9 or 10, my father bought me a book about the theological implications of the Great Pumpkin and related issues. No doubt he wanted to help ensure that my theological education was not going to be informed solely by the publishers of a magazine called The Plain Truth. The book was a paperback, entitled “The Gospel According to Peanuts”. I remember that the publisher was Fontana Books, but I don’t recall the author’s name.

Most of the points the author was trying to make went way above my head, but I did enjoy the cartoons. Amusingly enough – and typical of the “put the cart before the horse” approach that sometimes helped to make my upbringing such fun – I had never even heard of the world-famous Charles M. Schulz cartoons before, so I actually discovered the world of “Charlie Brown and friends” for the first time in a book about theology!

By an amazing coincidence, one of my all-time favourite Peanuts cartoons also happens to be one that deals with the subject of theology, although its implications go much further than that.

It’s the one where Charlie Brown discovers that Snoopy is writing a book about theology and says, “I hope you have a good title.” Snoopy’s reply is priceless: “I have the perfect title: Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?”

It’s a good question, isn’t it?

Has Time Been Lost?

Well, I don’t know about you, but in my case I think the honest answer would have to be: Yes. Looking back on my journey through life thus far, quite a lot of time has definitely been lost, although I certainly don’t believe that time lost should automatically be equated with time wasted. Indeed, there is much about which I can say (in the words of an old friend of my father’s when I thanked him for travelling such a long way to come to my father's funeral in December 2004): “I wouldn’t have missed it.” He wasn’t trying to be funny, but I loved the way his sense of humour shone through even when he was making a serious point.

He’s a Baptist minister who served as a missionary for many years and has also officiated at services for another denomination. Maybe that’s why he was once able to get away with telling a joke which (according to my father) went something like this:

Question: If an elephant eats a Baptist on Monday, a Methodist on Tuesday, a Roman Catholic on Wednesday, a Presbyterian on Thursday and a Salvationist on Friday, what does he have on Saturday?
Answer: An ecumenical movement.

Yes, there’s “... a time to laugh; a time to mourn, ...” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). At the funeral we managed to do both, and I’m sure my Dad would have approved.

In my experience, there’s also a time to kick yourself. More on that another time.

When do I become a sausage?

German tourist sitting in an English café, waiting for his order to arrive:

“I am sitting here since ten minutes. When do I become a sausage?”

(“Bekommen” is German for “to receive”, but it is occasionally confused with the English word “become”.)

Well, as a child I was once almost on the receiving end of not just one sausage but a whole packet of sausages, hurled in my general direction by an irate family member who had just been reading my copy of a book entitled “The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy”. Immediately preceding that, I gained a new perspective on the words “I will overturn...” (Ezekiel 21:27 KJV) as I witnessed the kitchen table being upended and some newly purchased groceries sent flying onto the kitchen floor.

Shortly after that, I decided to stop eating sausages.

Logical? An obvious case of cause and effect? Not at all, as it happens. There was no causal connection between the two events. And here’s another surprising fact: there are thousands of people around the world who will have no difficulty understanding exactly what I’m talking about. With that kind of heritage in common, no wonder some of us enjoy keeping in touch.

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

It was through a small ad in Quest magazine in the late 1970s that I learned with considerable interest of the existence of an organisation in Washington, D.C. called the Workshop Library on World Humor. This sounded like exactly the kind of resource I was looking for, as I was researching the subject of “Laughter” in connection with my studies in Communication Science and Linguistics in the Department of Educational Enquiry at the University of Aston in Birmingham. I wrote off to the WLWH and was delighted to receive a copy of their newsletter, Humor Events and Possibilities. And that was where, alongside details of intriguing-sounding journals like The Journal of Irreproducible Results, I read that a group called The Mad Millers of Bologna had recently published a study entitled “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”. I never did manage to get my hands on that document, unfortunately. But even without knowing the scientific background, I still managed to teach myself quite a bit about human stupidity by a process of simple trial and error.

[Update – Sunday, 5 October 2008: My thanks to the kind commenter – discreetly identified as “Nunya Bidness” – who made my day by pointing out that The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity can now be found here!]

Today, Quest magazine is no more, and the results of my pioneering analysis of laughter using a speech spectrograph managed to get lost somewhere along the way. Unless I’m mistaken, the work of the Workshop Library on World Humor is now being continued by the International Society for Humor Studies. I’m glad these efforts are still going strong, not least because humo[u]r can often be a wonderful antidote to human stupidity.

“The higher the sense of humor, the more sensitivity you have, the more you enjoy life and the less you want to destroy it.” – Herb Cummings, founder of the Workshop Library on World Humor.

Did your parents come to this school?

At the age of 11, on an introductory visit to Maldon Grammar School, where I would shortly start attending, I was asked an apparently simple question by my future form teacher: “Did one of your parents come to this school?” I answered, “Yes.” Next question: “Was it your mother or your father?” “My father,” I replied. “And do you know which house he was in?” “No, I don’t know.” Easy as ABC, wasn’t it?

Well, hold on a moment…

You see, in my eagerness to answer truthfully (combined with my well-known ability to misunderstand the most “obvious” things), what I actually meant was: Yes, my father came to this school a couple of weeks ago to attend an introductory evening for parents. (He had had his entire schooling several hundred miles away up in Scotland and had never previously set foot on the premises of Maldon Grammar School in his life!) Maybe, I surmised, they had divided the visiting parents up into sub-groups called “houses” for some obscure reason, but my father certainly hadn’t told me anything about that when describing his visit. So, in the words of Mark Twain, “I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”

During the summer, I was away visiting relatives in Scotland with my mother and sisters. On our return, my father showed me a letter he had received from the Headmaster, stating: “You child informs me that you are a former pupil of this school but was unable to tell me which house you were in...” – and inviting him to provide the missing information “so that we can continue the family tradition”!

My father, convinced that I would never have said anything like that, had immediately written back acknowledging receipt of the letter, “which I can only assume has been sent as the result of an administrative error”...

So I managed to get some unwelcome attention from the Headmaster, and maybe even appeared to be a liar because I had endeavoured to tell the truth.

And you thought you had problems!

PS: Amusingly enough, I learned later that my score on the entrance exam had been 100%. They tested my “verbal reasoning” skills – but not, apparently, my common sense!