It's round-up time again! Yeagh! Yeagh!

It’s been a long Hellatus (sorry, Supernatural fans), but I’ve been active on Twitter that whole time. Surprise

I’ve decided that a good way to keep content on the blog might be to round-up the week’s tweets in a blog post (which then gets re-tweeted. Ha-HA!). Here goes:

* Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology | Wired.com

* Police tell cafe owner: Stop showing Bible DVDs, or we will have to arrest you | Daily Mail via @IanGBlack

* Google makes 5 Dead Sea Scrolls searchable | CNN Belief Blog

* Petition on White House website asks for investigation of Scientologists | Beliefnet News

* Torah Games? Bringing Torah to Life Through Game Design | State of Formation

* Thich Nhat Hanh is now a 3D Animated Comic Book | SF Gate via @walterm

* Woman read son’s religion paper minutes before slaying husband, tech expert testifies | NY Daily News

* British police give partial apology, say cafe owner can play Bible videos | Beliefnet News

* “Ha! Face of Jesus shows up on used Nintendo ES system. Kotaku has pics. Owner says: answer to ‘What Would Jesus Play?’” via @godwired

* “Bizarre video game based on a psychotic retelling of the near sacrifice of Isaac: ‘The Binding of Isaac’” via @godwired

I also realised I had some draft posts hanging around, including one I thought I’d lost. Stay tuned for more stuff soon!

Not content with revealing his previously secret love for Tupac and Biggie Smalls, the Pope has provided an official satement on social media and he initially has favourable things to say.

this dynamic has contributed to a new appreciation of communication itself, which is seen first of all as dialogue, exchange, solidarity and the creation of positive relations.

The problem, however, is that

this is contrasted with the limits typical of digital communication: the one-sidedness of the interaction, the tendency to communicate only some parts of one’s interior world, the risk of constructing a false image of oneself, which can become a form of self-indulgence.

Rob Beschizza Pope blesses social networks: “Who is my neighbour in this new world?”, Boing Boing (24/01/11)

The Canadian Press either missed the story or decided to take the Catholics to task for this reticence: “the church just might shake its centuries-old reputation for not always being on the cutting edge of communications.”

Canadian Press ‘Tweets from the Catholic church: religion’s top official in Canada takes to Twitter – Big Hollywood‘, Canadian Press (23/02/11)

These guys could all take some advice on social networks, and I’m not talking about Paul this time. Archaeologists have discovered a  1st century, vellum-based social network called ThyFace, and Jesus’ archived profile has been published for the first time.

Is the user name a clue to the target audience?

By now Google’s bots have crawled, indexed and cached all over this story – allow me to join in the echo-chamber that is the intertubes: the Catholic Church has for the first time approved an iPhone/iPad app called ‘Confession‘ that helps guide worshippers through, well, confession. This comes in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI urging Christians last January to embrace digital communication and make their presence felt online.

The app takes users through the sacrament – in which Catholics admit their wrongdoings – and allows them to keep track of their sins and to examine their conscience based on personalised factors such as age, sex and marital status.

iPurgatory ...?

“Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology,” Patrick Leinen of developer Little iApps told Reuters.

The firm said the app was developed with assistance from several priests and had been given the church’s imprimatur by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne in Indiana.

In the few days since the announcement most of the 24/7ths of second news-cycle has centred on the never-going-to-get-old ‘X? There’s an app for that’ gag. In response, the Church has been been doing some serious back-pedalling (which admittedly is hard to do in a cassock) in an effort to correct the perception that Confession replaces, um, confession as a sacrament – however did people get so confused about this distinction? - and the need to be receive absolution from a priest.

So far, all controversy, no analysis. The lone exception I’ve come across was in a post from Father John Zuhlsdorf’s trail-blazing (for a Catholic priest) blog, whose review takes the reader step-by-step through what the app can do, providing copious screenshots along the way. I recommend you check it out for a detailed run-down.

He has also provided some pastoral criticism to which the developers have responded . They have now added a bit of text to the first page of the confession page on the bottom, “This app is intended to be used during the Sacrament of Penance with a Catholic priest only. This is not a substitute for a valid confession.” Because official sanction always clears up unwanted interpretations …

But while critical, it’s still coming from the home crowd. So, to some preliminary observations. First, some screenshots:

Despite the facade of embracing modernity, it didn’t take long for the Catholic Church to once again belie its name by singling out the occult as a sin. And I think some will think it a bit rich that it also considers ‘involvement in superstitious practices’ to be on the naughty list.

Then there’s the money-screenshot:

There it is – both masturbation and homosexuality! I wonder what Apple’s famously coherent App Store guidelines might have to say about that? Oh, that’s right:

19. Religion, culture, and ethnicity

19.1

Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected

The app also now prevents you from selecting priest as your vocation if you have also selected female as your sex in the user profile. Hmm …

Speaking of money, I think even the person in the street (actually, especially street people) will also think it a bit rich that the Church charges anything at all for the US$1.99 app. Surely the vast wealth of the Vatican and the massive tax-breaks that the Church enjoys are able to offset all its costs?

And so to the faint scent of simony that the app suggests: the crime of paying for sacraments. Now officially this is avoided by the insistence that it doesn’t replace the sacrament. As any Marshall McLuhan fan could tell you, however, the medium ends up being the main message – despite dogmatic correction, the app will inevitably be seen as a de facto sacrament.

In fact, as a devout Catholic, McLuhan would have been very disturbed by the Church’s ‘capitulation’ to technology. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, an information clearinghouse for all things Catholic, three-quarters of Catholics report that they never participate in confession, known as the sacrament of reconciliation, or that they do so less than once a year. The app can only accelerate the trend by acting as a substitute. Skype and chat priests and other ordained can only be a matter of time.

Then there would be the critics from within the Church who would agree that while it is right that the app not replace the sacrament of confession it doesn’t go far enough as a spiritual tool for the examination of conscience. As a former Catholic myself, I can attest that the app is a far cry from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, (composed from 1522-1524) are a brief set of Christian meditations, prayers and mental exercises, divided in four thematic ‘weeks’ of variable length, designed to be carried out over a period of 28 to 30 days. The main aim of the Exercises is the development within the human psyche of “discernment” (discretio), the ability to discern between good and evil spirits. Discernment is achieved in order to act “with the Grace of God”. Not only would an app adapted from the Exercises be truly Catholic and appeal more universally, attracting Protestant interest, but it would be a far cry from the infantile and mechanical authoritarian paint-by-numbers moral hazard that the Confession app reveals is now firmly a part of the institution of confession.

Of course, we finally come to the heart of the matter: will this be released for Android users? And if not, are we to surmise that its because they are more likely to be Protestant or – gasp – non-believers! Max Weber would be proud …

‘Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app‘, BBC News (08/02/2011)

‘Bless me iPhone for I have sinned‘, Reuters (07/02/2010)

Manya Brachear, ‘iPhone, iPad offers confession, not absolution‘ Chicago Tribune (09/02/2011)

‘Sorry, Catholics can’t confess via the new iPhone app – Vatican‘ Faithworld BLOG Reuters (09/02/2011)

Terry Mattingly, ‘Time for confession at Times of London‘ GetReligion.org (09/02/2011)

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, ’REVIEW: The new iPhone app for confession – useful but flawed‘ Father Z’s Blog (08/02/2011)

‘Bogus Claims About iPhone Confession App‘ Catholic League (08/02/2011)

REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih via Boing Boing

A list of Coptic Orthodox churches has been unearthed on a Muslim extremist website, including the Alexandrian church that was attacked on New Year’s Day. Some of the other churches on the list have stepped up security in preparation for the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th. In Holland several nearby Muslim communities have pledged support and protection for the event, and hundreds (of presumably Muslim students, I couldn’t find any other versions of the story) gathered at al-Azhar University in Cairo to show solidarity.

Interestingly, the story about the list and European connections is only mentioned in the video on the CNN story linked below, while the text discusses the situation in Egypt.

Salma Abdelaziz ‘Egypt beefs up security for Coptic Christmas Eve‘, CNN (6/01/11)

(Thanks to DavidP for pointing me to that awesome photo.)

Blogger Jago Constantine's avatar in Second Life

The Iran National Foundation of Computer Game (IRCG) is an industry body that, in 2007, established a self-regulated ratings system for videogames. Unlike in Australia where the Classification Board, an arm of the Federal Attorney-General’s office, regulates media, the Iranian Entertainment Software Rating Association (ESRA) seems to follow in the footsteps of the US Enterainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Of course, all media in Iran is regulated by the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance, so I imagine the idea of self-regulation is an attempt to meet the government half way.

What’s especially interesting about the ESRB, however, is the way in which they’re trying to position themselves as the rating system for the Islamic world. The IRCG and ESRA are sponsors of the upcoming 2011 Dubai World Game Expo (30/11-3/12/11) where they will have an exhibit about the rating system. The way they tell it, this is their first step towards Islamic world domination (although I wonder if something was lost in the translation from Farsi to English).

The system itself breaks down like this:

ESRA team
The research project of ESRA is managed by Mr. Majd and run by a research team of 17 psychologists and 8 sociologists. This research project is done at National Foundation of Computer Game and started in 2007 in 5 phases.

In rating, ESRA considers 4 characteristics in rating computer games
1. Physical – motional characteristics
2. Intellectual – mental characteristics
3. Emotional characteristics
4. Social characteristics

The age groups are
• The first rate (Kids) +3 years old
• The second rate (Childhood) +7 years old<
• The third rate (the beginning of adolescence) +12 years old
• The forth rate (the second half of adolescent) +15 years old
• The fifth rate (adult, single) +18 years old
• The sixth rate (adult, married) + 25 years old

Content descriptions
The seven content descriptors are:
Violence: The display of violence is when a behavior displayed to harm someone or something, ranged from destroying the belongings and making the unanimated things out of order.
Tobacco and drug: Watching the use of drug and tobacco in games can lose the internal-social taboo of not using it for the addressees.
Sexual stimuli: Sexual diversity, sexuality out of social norms, etc can end to the social and physical harms related to the sexual needs of the addressees and his/her social situations.
Fear: Fear is an internal feeling based on insecurity and not the lack of trust to the atmosphere, which leads to chronic stress, conservative behaviors, etc in social atmosphere.
Religious values violation: The violation of religious values is in accord with the Islamic principles. Two of the important elements of it are as follow:
1. The violation of the basic principles or religious believes (the howness of the display of the heaven or hell),
2. Sacrilege the holy places (sacrilege the mosque, church)
The social norms violation: Using the vulgar words and the uprightness behaviors which lead to breaking the social norms are among the social harms that the kids and the adolescents become familiar with.
Hopelessness: This content in games is related to a kind of feeling where the gamer have to do or not to do something which makes him/her feel sinful.

Panorama
The desire of ESRA, in a better way, its panorama is to achieve a place where it can be able to define the best age for each computer game. The best age during it, the game has no psychic and behavioral harm and helps the growth and the development of the addressee.
ESRA organization, in National Association of Computer Games, is going to continue its activities having two aims:
The first aim is to continue the studies and researches. Using the new perspectives as communication science, educational science and social psychology, designing the criteria and the new harmful scenes, classifying and distinguishing them were among the important research activities besides getting literacy for it which was designed and programmed in 5 research phases in guide map of ESRA.
The next aim was about the executing organization of ESRA. Taking film and extracting the contents of game, analyzing the gameplay, considering and defining the proper age group for each game were among the activities of this phase. Training human force of experts, who are responsible for this aim, is a difficult and expensive task, achieving which need using all capacities.

It’s interesting that they break down adults into a 18-24 and 25+ brackets, and amusing that they say “Sexual diversity” is something that should be regulated: it’s not surprising that they’d say so, just that they’d use such PC language to express it. I wonder if that shows a more liberal leaning in the IRCG.

Luke Plunkett ‘A Ratings System Just for Islam‘, Kotaku (30/11/10)

This is actually the tail-end of a story that played out in the press over November, involving one Cedric Miller of the Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune who ordered 50 male church officials to delete their Facebook accounts or resign from their roles, and encouraged the congregation to do the same. This was all in order to remove temptation, as Miller considers Facebook to be little more than a vehicle for adultery.

This story was picked up here and there until the Asbury Park Press reported that the good Reverend had given court testimony back in ’03 that he had participated in foursomes with his wife and a church assistant and his wife, sometimes “during Thursday Bible study meetings and Sundays after church.” Weirdly, these meetings are characterised as threesomes, but Miller made it sound more like he and/or the assistant’s wife were present while his own wife and the assistant took part. It takes all sorts, I suppose, but I’m not sure it could be considered extra-marital if both he and his wife were involved. Unless you mean “extra-” as in “extra” extra…

At the time of testimony Miller acknowledged that his actions were against the church’s statutes but that, in so senior a position as his in an independent church, there was no real recourse for his dismissal. After APP’s revelation, however, Miller took a 90-day “sabbatical”, presumably to ride out the media’s interest.

AP ‘NJ Anti-Facebook Pastor to Resume Job in 90 Days‘, beliefnet (29/12/10)

Google Earth was in the news regarding religion twice recently. The first story concerns the discovery via satellite photo that a prominent Star of David exists on Iran Air’s main building. My first thought was that it was just a geometric symbol, and also one that is prominent in Islam as its artistic tradition praised mathematical forms over anthropomorphic representations (although, admittedly, this was not so much the case in Persia). It would indeed appear, however, that the building was designed by Israeli architects during the Shah’s reign.
Nayef Zidani ‘Iran outraged as Star of David revealed on airport‘, Al Arabiya News Channel (29/11/10)

The second story tells how, in this age of mineral booms, thieves in the UK are using Google Earth to find churches that still have lead rooves they can fleece. Sneaky.
Reuters ‘Lead thieves use Google Earth to target UK churches‘, Faith World (2/12/10)

Here are a few views on what the WikiLeaks dump means for religions the world over. Obviously they focus on diplomatic relations, so we really only see Islam and Christianity represented here.

Muqtedar Khan ‘WikiLeaks exposes Muslim nations’ hypocrisy‘, Washington Post (28/11/10)

Reuters ‘Scathing U.S. view of French unrest and Muslim integration in WikiLeaks‘, Faith World (2/12/10)

Reuters ‘Russian Orthodox Church’s Kirill on ecumenism, via Wikileaks‘, Faith World (2/12/10)

Reuters ‘WikiLeaks: Talks with the Taliban a non-starter‘, Afghan Journal (5/12/10)

Tim Lister ‘Holy See urges “prudence” in reading Vatican-related cables‘, CNN (11/12/10)

Tim Lister ‘WikiLeaks: Sex abuse scandal left rift in Vatican-Ireland relations‘, CNN (11/12/10)

Reuters ‘WikiLeaks bares even tiny Vatican’s diplomatic soul‘, Faith World (11/12/10)

Martin Robbins ‘Mail’s Wikileaks ‘revelation’ about Muslim students is their own 2008 story‘, The Guardian (22/12/10)

Alan Berning

*deep breath* Okay, here’s the rest:

‘Muslims Target TV/Internet Evangelist for Death‘, ChristianNewsWire (14/10/10)

Reuters ‘Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet‘, FaithWorld (19/10/10)

Reuters ‘Bible.com investor sues company for lack of profit‘, FaithWorld (20/10/10)

Bob Allen ‘Sheriff’s office settles lawsuit with former church member outed for blog‘, Associated Baptist Press (21/10/10)

Heidi Campbell ‘New Publications in Religion and the Internet‘, When Religion Meets New Media (30/10/10)

Associated Press ‘Palestinian held for Facebook criticism of Islam‘ (11/11/10)

John Blake ‘Pastor: Facebook is encouraging adultery‘, CNN.com (18/11/10)
and
Mark Driscoll ‘Facebook doesn’t cause adultery; people do‘, Washington Post (19/10/10)

Reuters ‘Condoms, Pius XII, sex abuse and other main points in pope book‘, FaithWorld (20/10/10)
Pope admits the Vatican could have discovered that Bishop Williamson was a Holocaust denier by doing a simple search on the internet.

Lahav Harkov ‘IDF uses Facebook to catch 1,000 draft-dodging women‘, Jerusalem Post (23/11/10)
Israeli women who avoid military service due to being “religiously observant” are caught on Facebook eating in non-Kosher restaurants, dressing in “immodest” clothing and responding to invites from IDF agents to parties on the Sabbath. I call “Entrapment!” on that last one.

Helen Carter ‘Girl arrested for allegedly burning Qur’an‘, Guardian (25/11/10)
15 year-old English girl arrested “on suspicion of inciting religious hatred” after posting to Facebook a video of her burning an English translation of the Qur’an.

Thank God that’s over. This is as good an opportunity as any to announce the arrival of a new contributor to the site, Mediaevalia. Something from her soon!

Alan Berning

Trying to clear a bottleneck of stories I haven’t posted on. Mea maxima culpa.

Heidi Campbell ‘Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!‘, When Religion Meets New Media (24/8/10)

Joshua M. Z. Stanton ‘Cyber Dialogue: The Future of Inter-Religious Engagement‘, Patheos (6/9/10)

Eli Yishai ‘Shas minister shuts down online payments on Shabbat, holidays‘, Haaretz.com (14/9/10)

Matthew Razak ‘Fallout Online viral advertising moves to religion‘, Destructoid (18/9/2010)

Reuters ‘Vatican Bank head in money laundering probe–sources‘, FaithWorld (21/9/10)
Vatican probably the only place in the world that allows people to use ATM’ s in Latin.

Mollie ‘Code name Esther‘, GetReligion (1/10/10)
The Biblical connection of the computer worm that got through Iran’s Digital Veil (that’s what we’re calling it, by the way).

Reuters ‘France charges man for burning, urinating on Koran‘, FaithWorld (5/10/10)

Randall Munroe ‘Online Communities 2‘, xkcd (5/10/10)
You can see “Religious Blogs” in the lower right-hand corner, east of the “Sea of Zero (0) Comments” and southwest of the “Blogosphere (Core Region)”.

tmatt ‘Bible-toting bullies with webcams?’, GetReligion (5/10/10)
and in the same vein
Jeff Kunerth ‘Religion plays different roles in cyberbullying debate‘, Orlando Sentinel (5/10/10)
as well as
Erica Brown ‘Outrage at humanity’s use of technology‘, Washington Post (7/10/10)

Elizabeth Drescher ‘Gen X, Gadgets, and God‘, Religion Dispatches (8/10/10)

Reuters ‘Brazil “values voters” go YouTube against prez hopeful Rousseff‘, FaithWorld (8/10/10)

Phew! That’s broken the back of it. Some more tomorrow, then we return to our regular programming schedule.