The Gospel of Steve Jobs | Jesus Creed

From Andy Crouch’s insightful piece about Steve Jobs:

As remarkable as Steve Jobs is in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (ruthless and demanding) leader—his most singular quality has been his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope. Nothing exemplifies that ability more than Apple’s early logo, which slapped a rainbow on the very archetype of human fallenness and failure—the bitten fruit—and made it a sign of promise and progress……

teve Jobs was the evangelist of this particular kind of progress—and he was the perfect evangelist because he had no competing source of hope. In his celebrated Stanford commencement address (which is itself an elegant, excellent model of the genre), he spoke frankly about his initial cancer diagnosis in 2003. It’s worth pondering what Jobs did, and didn’t say:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.This is the gospel of a secular age. It has the great virtue of being based only on what we can all perceive—it requires neither revelation nor dogma. And it promises nothing it cannot deliver—since all that is promised is the opportunity to live your own unique life, a hope that is manifestly realizable since it is offered by one who has so spectacularly succeeded by following his own “inner voice, heart and intuition.”….

But the genius of Steve Jobs has been to persuade us, at least for a little while, that cold comfort is enough. The world—at least the part of the world in our laptop bags and our pockets, the devices that display our unique lives to others and reflect them to ourselves—will get better. This is the sense in which the tired old cliché of “the Apple faithful” and the “cult of the Mac” is true. It is a religion of hope in a hopeless world, hope that your ordinary and mortal life can be elegant and meaningful, even if it will soon be dated, dusty, and discarded%2

via The Gospel of Steve Jobs | Jesus Creed.

My Thoughts While Running

During my run today, I was thinking on some things that have been on my mind lately. I do this everytime I run but today I felt like I could share some of those thoughts.

As many of you have been aware, I have been troubled the past week or so – down in a funk so to speak (if you have no idea what I am talking about, read my blog post)  – and it has been difficult to shake. As much as I try, I just seem to keep sinking back into this funk a bit.  I am truly my own worst enemy when it comes to things like this.

After thinking on this over the past few days and some conversations with some folks, I am beginning to see that the only way out of this is to simply persevere and keep my focus as it has been. If I lose focus or allow the funk to completely consume me, I will simply give up and what will that accomplish?  I know this sounds strange but that is how I am beginning to see it.  I simply need to keep going or I won’t go anywhere at all.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. –2 Timothy 4:7 (NIV)

It may be a simplistic way to look at it but keeping the faith is what has allowed me to keep running.  I have a goal in mind and my eyes are focused on that goal.  There were days when I wanted to give up on running but if I did, I would not accomplish my goal.  There were days when I felt like I couldn’t go any farther but I pushed on and kept going and I am closer to my goal.

I realize my experience with my funk is the same way. I need to keep going and fight the good fight, so to speak, and work towards finishing the race. I have the faith in God to see me through this and I know God will strengthen me for whatever faces me – I just need to keep the faith. I believe that is the root of my funk – a bit of a faith crisis.  Yes, even ministers and seminary students experience them from time to time – we are human after all.

So what does all this mean? It means I see the way out of this funk.  I see the answers that I am seeking and I know God is firmly in control. All I can do is keep the faith and keeping running – both the race of life and my running training.  It will all work out in the end.

Simplistic maybe?  Realistic, yes.

Why Are You a Christian?

Faith and religion are not the same thing. Although my faith may falter, it has nothing to do with the constancy of God’s love. Religion, which is the expression of faith, may find different expressions appropriate in different times and places and to different people, and the variety of these expressions can enlarge our perceptions and deepen our faith.

In my readings and in reading the news, I have heard of people who describe themselves as life-long members of religious organizations – organizations that are highly respectable and guided by the teachings of Christ.  I respect their conviction but it is conviction and not faith that guides them.

I come close to defining and decribing faith when I remember the great preacher Phillips Brooks, who was asked by an earnest questioner why he was a Christian.  He thought seriously for a moment, then replied, “I think I am a Christian because of my aunt, who lives in Teaneck, New Jersey.”  Or another way to look at it, a Christian is someone who knows one.

If I have faith, it is because I have  met faith.  I have seen it in action.  And this faith is never a vague kind of thing.  Heaven is not good because life is bad.  The quality of our lives while we live them is preparation for heaven. 

Why are you a Christian?