by - 5 Comments

Steve Jobs, the Gospel of Technology, and the Hope of Humanity (2)

Technology is like bamboo, it’s an invasive species.

I wish there had been a way to set up a worldwide time-elapsed camera taking shots for the last 10 years. I think if we could watch this film we would notice a progressive yet definite change in head posture (maybe you can see it on Google maps street view). Everyone is looking down at their phones.

Smart phones are beginning to rival God in some ways- they’re increasingly “omnipresent”, “omnipotent”, and “omniscient”. Maybe they don’t attain to omni status, but at least they’re ubiquitous, they function intelligently as diverse powerful tools, and they are fully integrated with the internet’s 8.04 billion websites and Wikipedia’s 3,785,993 articles.

Does this amount to a gospel? Everything you ever needed is now available at your finger tips. Just swipe your finger with the slightest touch and it all comes alive. As powerful as the iPhone 4S is with the new dual-core A5 chip, it is powerless against man’s fallen nature. It has no saving power.

Our grandchildren may discover that technological progress, for all its gifts, is the exception rather than the rule. It works wonders within its own walled garden, but it falters when confronted with the worst of the world and the worst in ourselves.

-Andy Crouch

Many people have more of a relationship with their phone than with their Maker. Not only is this a reversal of the logical order (iPhone -> Steve Jobs -> God), this is turning a cold-shoulder to your Husband.

For your Maker is your Husband…

-Isaiah 54:5

As such, a smart phone can begin to replace God in our experience. The time we used to give to the Lord first thing in the morning now may go to our phone. I know I’ve reached for my phone in the morning before reaching for God more than once.

Don’t get me wrong. Technology can be used by the Lord for His purpose. Of course. And I think we need to find more ways to do this.

But the other concern is equally valid.

This isn’t about redeeming an aspect of modern culture. It’s about faith, love, and hope (1 Cor. 13:13). What do we trust in? What do we love? What do we hope for?

The YouVersion Bible app has been downloaded 30 million times since it came out 4 years ago. Angry Birds has it beat by a factor of 16. The game has been downloaded 500 million times and it has been out for only half the time.

YouVersion Bible readers have posted 11,625,190,000 minutes to date.

Angry Bird players have posted 219,000,000,000 minutes to date.

That’s 200,000 years of playing Angry Birds! Again in half the time too.

How much we love the Lord can be measured in part by how much time we give Him. That’s why we need to redeem the time. Not because the days are morally evil, but because all we have is time that is constantly slipping away.

In this evil age (Gal. 1:4) every day is an evil day full of pernicious things that cause our time to be used ineffectively, to be reduced, and to be taken away. Therefore, we must walk wisely that we may redeem the time, seizing every available opportunity. To understand the will of the Lord is the best way to redeem our time (v. 16). Most of our time is wasted because we do not know the will of the Lord.

-footnotes on Ephesians 5:16-17, Recovery Version Bible

Related articles
by - 11 Comments

Steve Jobs, the Gospel of Technology, and the Hope of Humanity (1)

Since his passing, Steve Jobs has been called a saint, a secular prophet, and a technological evangelist.

On paper, he was just a successful CEO who designed computers and phones. No doubt one that changed not only technology but also the world. He faithfully delivered “magical” products that rarely disappointed. He turned a utilitarian object into something like a friend. One study showed that many people’s attachment to their iPhone reaches romantic levels. They experience separation anxiety if they walk out of the house without it.

Naturally people projected their love of the iPhone onto the creator of the iPhone.

But by no means is he the first to be memorialized with such religious devotion, candid scrutiny, and world-wide attention. Princess Diana and Michael Jackson both went through the same thing. To say “they” went through it isn’t altogether accurate because they weren’t alive anymore, but in another sense they did go through it because their lives were larger than the molecules that made them up.

Make no mistake about it, the veneration we are seeing in the aftermath of Jobs’ death is religious through and through – not “kinda” religious, or “pseudo” religious,” or “mistakenly” religious, but a genuine expression for many of heartfelt sacred sentiments of loss and glorification.

-Gary Laderman

Apple products gave people hope, and this became Steve Jobs’ version of the gospel. They constantly and distinctly improved, not only in technical specs but in user experience. They became less cumbersome. They began to add a fluidity to our lives that tied everything together, magically.

The hope people imbued in the evolution of iPhone became very apparent when the anticipated iPhone 5 turned out to be just a 4S. People wanted something more, new, and transformative. They hoped that technology would provide an ever-developing salvation from the aging, slowing, and decaying effects of fallen flesh. Surely a new iPhone meant new promises, new advances, new releases.

Some have seen the early apple logo as a symbolic proclamation of this gospel. A bitten apple imprinted with a rainbow. Both are Biblical allusions. The bitten fruit, a sign of man’s rebellion and fall from God’s purpose and the rainbow, a sign of God’s promise to man to keep His covenant. The combination of the two applied to a computer company logo heralds technology’s ability to annul the curse. Or even worse to convert the fall of man into a promise of improvement.

Technology promises to relieve us of the burden of being merely human, of being finite creatures in a harsh and unyielding world.

-Albert Borgmann

Technology promises that while human life may get worse, it will always get better. It certainly has made life easier. But has it caused us to misplace our hope? Has it merely masked the symptoms of a deeper illness?

The gospel of Steve Jobs may give people temporary hope or distraction from the impermanence of life, but it can’t save people.

Having been regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God. For “all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen off, But the word of the Lord abides forever.” And this is the word which has been announced to you as the gospel.

-1 Peter 1:23-25

The only recourse we have to our fading humanity is the living and abiding word of God. Only God’s word has the life power to enliven us and change our nature, making us living and abiding forever.

Related articles
by - 8 Comments

Three Ways of Knowing God

As Christians we are seeking to know God, but in what way or to what degree?

“He made His ways known to Moses; His acts, to the children of Israel.” -Psalm 103:7

God’s ways are different from His acts. His acts are His activities; His ways are the principles by which He acts. The children of Israel knew only His acts, but Moses knew His ways (Psa. 103:7).

-footnote on Hebrews 3:10, Recovery Version

Continue reading →

by - 14 Comments

How does God move?

The kingdom of God was the central message in Jesus’ earthly ministry. The Gospel of Matthew particularly highlights this aspect of the Lord’s teaching, mentioning the kingdom 55 times. Luke follows closely behind at 44 times. God’s move is to bring His kingdom to the earth. The book of Acts, a book on God’s move, begins and ends with the kingdom (1:3, 28:31).

So how does that actually happen? How does the kingdom of God come?

Continue reading →

by - 0 comments

The Social Commentary of a Burger

The burger is a symbol of everything American. Straightforward, egalitarian, substantial, and good-natured, they can also be a little bloody at times. A great burger, regardless of regional differences, instills a sense of optimism and fulfillment, that all is right at the table or the counter or the wood-grain, screwed-to-floor, fast-food booth. At its best, it eliminates the need for conversation or the urge to glance up at the TV over the bar.

Archetypal American (firstthings.com/blogs/leithart)

by - 1 Comment

My Home is God Himself, Hymn

Lyrics adapted from Frances Brook
Music arranged by Henry Thomas Smart

My home is God Himself; Christ brought me there,
And bade me dwell in Him, rejoicing there;
He bore me where no foot but His hath trod,
Within the holiest at home with God.
O holy place! O home divinely fair!
And we, God’s little ones, abiding there.

Continue reading →

by - 7 Comments

The Must of Regeneration and the Meaning of Life

Recently I read an article in the NY Times called, “The Meaningfulness of Lives.” The author argues that the meaningfulness of your life consists in whether or not your life tells a compelling narrative. What makes a compelling narrative is subjective and objective value.

Continue reading →

by - 2 Comments

Regeneration and Continuing in the Really Life

Our experience of regeneration determines our subsequent experiences of life.

The experience of regeneration initiates something that continues for eternity. Regeneration orients us for the rest of our life and becomes the standard by which we evaluate all other life experiences. When we are awakened to what transpired within us at the time of our salvation, we begin to value “that which is really life.”

…lay hold on that which is really life. –1 Timothy 6:19

Regardless of how apparently real or contributory others’ lives are without Christ, they live in a psuedo reality, a virtual world. They may be successful. They may be an activist. Their life may tell a compelling narrative. Yet in God’s eyes none of it is real, in a relative sense. Yes, it actually happened, but it happened all in the realm of shadows- pointers to another reality in Christ (Colossians 2:17).

Regeneration is a point of embarkation. It confers on those who experience it a prize and an authority (Colossians 2:8, John 1:12-13). The prize- we become among those privileged to enjoy Christ as everything. The authority- we have the right to continue in this all encompassing experience until Christ is all to us. He is our food, drink, breath, clothing, house. This doesn’t mean that we withdraw from the physicality of existence and become a hermit or nun. It means that every life event becomes a dual experience. We eat our breakfast and are reminded to eat Christ (John 6:57). We take a deep breath and simultaneously maintain our spiritual life pulse by calling on the Lord’s name (Lamentations 3:55-56).

However, it’s possible as Christians to live outside of the continuing experience of our regeneration. We should not receive this new life and then remain in our old context with life as usual.

4 views on the experience of regeneration:

1.  Remedial

You’re bad and need to have a change or improvement. This may be likened to having bad eyesight and getting corrective lenses. Regeneration then is a life-saver thrown to you in the sea of moral depravity. Regeneration is described as a washing but also as a birth. The cup is cleansed but also filled. This is the objective only view.

2.  Transient

As long as you  behave, do good works, and remain in God’s favor then this experience is yours. But just as it came, it could go. There’s no feeling of stability, power, or safety. This is the reversible birth concept.

3.  Nostalgic

You have your ticket to heaven. You received everlasting life but plan to live a long life, maybe until 80, and then at the end when you need it, this life will kick in and cause you to live forever.  This was an event in time past with no durative consequences. A distant moment of glory. Your come-to-Jesus moment. He came into your heart, but stays inert, the same, unchanging with passive indifference, like a lump of graphite embedded under the skin. Later you’ll say, let me recount to you my experience 20 years ago.

4.  Dynamic

This is what I tried to describe at the start. Another life, Christ Himself, enters your spirit and begins a revolution. This life is not static or inert. It moves, grows, and transforms you from within. This life becomes a realm in which you conduct your existence. This life is incorporated into all your daily ventures so that your experience of what you received at the time of your regeneration is as real and vibrant years after. Everything becomes a reminder and an opportunity to continue in your experience of regeneration.

This fourth description makes for a compelling and exciting Christian life. Being Christian then is not boring, blasé, or dull. And it is not merely a new title we adopt to commemorate a one time experience. It is a progressive and expanding endeavor of experiencing the divine life that we received, all the time.

Related articles
by - 5 Comments

Watchman Nee Hymn

Watchman Nee’s hymns are some of the deepest and moving I have ever heard. I wish more believers today enjoyed not just his ministry of the word but also his wealth of hymns.

I recorded this on my iPhone in one sitting without looking at the number of stanzas, so please forgive the fact that I don’t play the whole thing through.

1.  Lord, when the Father ne’er was known, / The Father came through Thee below,

That we who lived in ignorance / Might through Thyself the Father know.

Continue reading →