CHICAGO, IL (March 11, 2016) — Many Covenanters routinely share links to social media articles and videos with one another that Covenant News Service believes may be of interest to others. Each Friday we post five of them. Following is a sample of those submissions—their inclusion does not represent an endorsement by the Covenant of any views expressed.

How “Normal” Came to Be

How often have I described someone as “average” height or “average” build without really considering who decided what average was? Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quetelet, perhaps on his own quest to avoid being considered “average,” introduced the idea that average is normal.

From the article: “When Quetelet ventured to establish a social science, his most pivotal decision was borrowing astronomy’s method of averages and applying it to people. His decision would lead to a revolution in the way society thought of the individual.”

Babies on Display

When Lucille Horn was born nearly a century ago, she was so tiny her father could hold her in his hand. The hospital gave him no hope for her survival, so Horn’s father brought her to Dr. Martin Couney’s “tiny baby” sideshow incubators on Coney Island. She tells the tale on StoryCorps of spending the first six months of her life in the show. “There weren’t many doctors then that would have done anything for me,” she said. “Ninety-four years later, here I am, all in one piece. And I’m thankful to be here.”

From the article: “The medical establishment had rejected his incubators, but Couney didn’t give up on his aims. Each summer for 40 years, he funded his work by displaying the babies and charging admission—25 cents to see the show.”

Who Wants to Be Called Evangelical?

The term “evangelical” has become more of a political statement than a rich Christian tradition these days, says Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. As the word gets bandied about this election season, how do we as a church identify ourselves? Do we even know what evangelical truly means?

From the article: “I just noticed a few weeks ago that I had stopped describing myself to people as an ‘evangelical.’ I had begun, subconsciously, to say that I am a ‘gospel Christian.’ When I caught myself doing this, I wondered why and the answer wasn’t long in coming.”

Safety for Women in India

Five engineering students in India have created a line of smart jewelry to help combat sexual assault in their country. Knowing that most women wear jewelry and carry cell phones, the entrepreneurs developed a startup company called Leaf Wearables with the goal of keeping women safe.

From the article: “We’re often asked why five young men want to tackle this issue,” Manik Mehta said. “Our answer is that this isn’t a male or female issue. This is a problem that is confronting us as human beings. It shouldn’t matter who creates the solution.”

Creator of Apple Font Dies

Robert Palladino, a Roman Catholic priest and calligraphy teacher, couldn’t have imagined the impact he would have when a student named Steve Jobs audited a class he was teaching at Reed College in the early 1970s. Learning his craft while living as a Trappist monk, Palladino is credited by Jobs for Apple’s stylish on-screen fonts and overall computer designs. He died on February 26 at 83.

From the article: “I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great,” Jobs said in 2005. “It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.”