{"id":42140,"date":"2017-12-26T06:02:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T11:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=42140"},"modified":"2017-12-18T14:10:51","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T19:10:51","slug":"seven-steps-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/12\/seven-steps-jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Seven Steps to Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>A while back I was told that there is a\u00a0Wikipedia game \u201cSeven Steps to Jesus\u201d\u00a0which resembles the better-known \u201cSeven Degrees of Separation\u201d game involving Kevin Bacon. (And for those keeping count, you will recall that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/03\/your-bacon-number-is-4-or-less.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">my \u201cBacon Number\u201d is 3<\/a>.)\u00a0 I\u00a0initially didn\u2019t\u00a0find any online documentation about the game, and so I thought I would share here what I was told about it. It basically involved trying to get from any Wikipedia page to the Wikipedia page about Jesus in at most seven clicks. Eventually (through a small number of clicks) I learned that the reason I did not initially find it is because <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Wiki_Game\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">the original version involves\u00a0<em>five<\/em> clicks to Jesus.<\/a>\u00a0But that seems too easy to me, and so I am inclined to stick with \u201cSeven Steps to Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I am trying to think of ways to utilize this game for educational purposes. But in the meantime, presumably the best way to get you involved in thinking about this is to challenge you to get from the Kevin Bacon page to the Jesus page on Wikipedia in seven steps or less. Surprisingly, the five-clicks Wiki Race game does not mention Kevin Bacon and the seven degrees of separation, which would have made the connection a direct one.<\/p>\n<p>I invite you in turn to use the comments section to challenge other blog readers (as well as me) to figure out the path that leads to Jesus from any other Wikipedia page you might choose. I guarantee you that the distances are not going to be anywhere near as great as you might first think. For instance, even apart from\u00a0his regular presence at the imagined \u201cdinner with any 5 (or other number) historical people, living or dead\u201d that many are given the chance to host, the Last Supper gets a mention on the Wikipedia page about dinner, and so anyone that you can connect with food, you can connect with him.<\/p>\n<p>And so the challenge for you is to find the path from whatever page another presents you with to Jesus in less than seven steps. And the other challenge for you is to come up with a page from which others will not be able to find a path to Jesus\u2019s Wikipedia page in seven or fewer steps.<\/p>\n<p>Have fun, and good luck!<\/p>\n<p>P.S. Please note that you are not allowed to leave Wikipedia for the purpose of the game, which precludes connecting Jesus and Bacon via tweets about pancakes\u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Wife is making Jesus and Kevin Bacon pancakes. Gonna have Kevin Bacon pancakes with bacon <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/sicYEbaz0A\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/sicYEbaz0A<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 VeloBusDriver (@VeloBusDriver) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VeloBusDriver\/status\/517511791811641345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">October 2, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-42506\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2017\/12\/Five_Steps_to_Jesus.png\" alt=\"Five_Steps_to_Jesus\" width=\"525\" height=\"525\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I was told that there is a\u00a0Wikipedia game \u201cSeven Steps to Jesus\u201d\u00a0which resembles the better-known \u201cSeven Degrees of Separation\u201d game involving Kevin Bacon. (And for those keeping count, you will recall that my \u201cBacon Number\u201d is 3.)\u00a0 I\u00a0initially didn\u2019t\u00a0find any online documentation about the game, and so I thought I would share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":42497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[14979,5677,6157,11082,11133,13722],"class_list":["post-42140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-information-literacy","tag-degrees","tag-jesus","tag-kevin-bacon","tag-separation","tag-seven","tag-wikipedia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Seven Steps to Jesus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A while back I was told that there is a\u00a0Wikipedia game &quot;Seven Steps to Jesus&quot;\u00a0which resembles the better-known &quot;Seven Degrees of Separation&quot; game\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/12\/seven-steps-jesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Steps to Jesus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A while back I was told that there is a\u00a0Wikipedia game &quot;Seven Steps to Jesus&quot;\u00a0which resembles the better-known &quot;Seven Degrees of Separation&quot; game\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/12\/seven-steps-jesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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