Steve Jobs and High-Tech Spirituality

Delighted to host today a guest post by Kip Kosek, author of the just-released-in-paperback Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and American Democracy. Kip contributes to a thriving conversation about the influence of alternative spirituality on the architects of the iconic products of our age, including those from Apple. For more on this topic and on Steve Jobs and religion, check Elizabeth Drescher's post at Religion Dispatches.

by Kip Kosek

What does Steve Jobs, who died on October 5 at the age of 56, have to do with American religion? Of course, there’s the robust “cult of Mac” that venerates each new Apple product as a sacred gift sent from the divine land of Cupertino. Yet Jobs was more than the architect of an obsessively loyal customer base. He was also part of a creative nexus that brought together the alternative spiritualities of the counterculture and the advanced technologies of the personal computer.

As Fred Turner explains in his illuminating book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, hippies and hackers had a lot in common. The counterculture’s preoccupation with energy fields, aliens, and Eastern religions resonated with the invisible networks and virtual reality imagined by early personal computer developers. The Whole Earth Catalog, an eclectic resource of ideas and products for back-to-the-land types, was an inspiration for the Internet, “sort of like Google in paperback form,” as Jobs later put it. In the mid-1970s, Jobs traveled to India and declared himself a Buddhist. From a certain perspective, Apple’s design principles embody a Buddhist aesthetic of simplicity, even nothingness. The iPod wheel as the Wheel of Life.

Jobs was not the only trendsetter whose search for transcendence dovetailed with his faith in technology. Kevin Kelly, an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and later a founder of Wired, has produced several provocative speculations about the spiritual consequences of high-tech. A Christian, but an unorthodox one, he believes that artificial intelligence will produce a revolution in religion. His essay “Nerd Theology” suggests that “as we make other minds, these minds will change our mind about God.”

In his spiritual outlook, Kelly is an anomaly, as was Jobs. Relatively few Americans have embraced Buddhism or pondered the theological implications of Watson. Nonetheless, the extraordinary innovations that shape our technological lives are inseparable from the computer pioneers’ participation in the American religious fringe. They thought different. Now we all do.

An Amish Paradox That Isn't All That Paradoxical

Art Remillard

It seems that the only time I ever see the Amish here in central Pennsylvania is when I'm running late for an 8:00am class.  It's predictable.  Buzzing along the backroads, fretting the inevitability of time, I round a bend and there plods a horse and buggy.  "Shucks!"  I shout (or, if I'm really late, it's "Drat" and "Fooey").  So I wait impatiently for a straightaway, then zoom along in a triumph of twenty-first century technology.  Oh, if only my better angels would quell my road rage.  Then I might take this opportunity to think about my slow moving neighbors' religious distinctiveness.

From their horses and buggies to their clothes and quilts, the Amish identity is among the most recognizable in America.  But their backward march along technology's trail occasionally detours into the modern world.  Many farmers around here hire Amish men who cannot drive themselves to work or Wal-Mart, but don't hesitate to ask their employers for rides.  It's all part of what Charles E. Hurst and David L. McConnell call the “Amish paradox,” characterized by an ongoing negotiation between avoiding the modern world and working within it. Drawing upon their ethnographic research done in Holmes County, Ohio, the authors reveal the differences and tensions existing among the Amish over the uses of technology.  In some communities, for example, prosperous families might hire drivers.  Elsewhere, vehicle travel is banned except for emergencies.

The authors also address Amish attitudes toward sports, and in particular, softball.  For the unbaptized youth, softball is all the rage, which causes some concern.  "Softball requires a considerable outlay of money and time for equipment and travel," Hurst and McConnell explain, "and it calls for uniforms and even haircuts that do not sit well with church members.  The custom of playing under the lights or even on Sundays also runs against Amish beliefs, and there is the fear that exposure to argumentativeness and showmanship that characterize non-Amish sporting events will undermine the Amish emphasis on cooperation and humility."

Who knew that softball could have such perilous consequences?   Maybe they could try running.  That seems far less complicated, particularly if you have the right clothes...and shoes.  A friend of mine recently ran the “Amish Country Bird-in-Hand Half Marathon” in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and forwarded me some pictures.  On this hot and humid day, a crowd of scantily dressed runners mingled with Amish men who wore their standard attire.  That is, except for one participant, who deviated from the footwear norm.  Look closely at this picture and you'll notice on his feet a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. It all makes sense.  As I've said before, these "barefoot" shoes are marketed using Edenic imagery that tells athletes, "You Are the Technology."  In other words, don't believe the shoe companies.  Your feet are the anti-modern solution to fast times and injury prevention.  Maybe we should just call them "Amish shoes"?  After all, this curious image represents a meeting of old and new, where the lines become indistinguishable.  Put another way, as far as shoes are concerned, the march of progress has come full circle, where an unshod Amish man was waiting all along.  I just hope that when he gets back into his buggy, he won't make me late for class.

God Groups and Facebook Faith

Darren Grem

Yesterday, The New York Times posted on "Room for Debate" about "The First Church of Facebook." Here's the intro:

Nearly a third of Facebook users in the U.S. now list a religion in their profile, and they are highly engaged with religious pages — commenting, “liking,” socializing. Many religious people celebrate this new medium for outreach, but early this year Pope Benedict XVI issued a warning: "It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives."

Facebook replaced Christmas letters. Online dating replaced “friend of a friend” setups. Can online communities like Jesus Daily take the place of offline religious life, like what happens at synagogues and churches?

Contributors were invited to address whether or not online communities -- such as Facebook groups, blogs, and other social networking outlets -- will come to replace brick-and-mortar churches. Presumably this is more of an issue in the Protestant world, although it has a certain salience for Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, and Jews, as well as for those who blend faiths as they seek out spiritual community (see, for instance, the reference to "Bu-Jews," or those who try and mix certain aspects of Buddhism and Judaism).

"Supplementary" sites of religious experience and community, of course, have a long history, especially in the American context. So does fretting about religious siphoning and competition from the more tech-savvy or consumer-minded. On that, it seems like they're debating a settled point. Religious leaders and groups have spent years and decades, if not centuries, creating "communities" in physical places where meaning, direction, solace, empowerment, and all the emotional and social experiences we call "religion" can be found or fomented. That's a religious infrastructure that's fairly hardwired, both on the map and in the mind.

The better question, then, seems to not be about whether all that will go the way of the steam shovel and cowboy.*** Rather, it seems to me -- as it does to a few of the contributors -- that it's better to ask: What drives someone toward a Facebook faith? What is to be found there? What happens to someone when they seek out an online God group? Who and what stands to benefit - or lose - from an online religious experience? Does it create religious encounters, interchange, conflict, segmentation, segregation? What does it mean for religion in the private, public, and political spheres? Additionally, how do we, who study "religion and spirituality" write or think about online religion? Are our present conceptual models -- informed as they are by past forms of tech-mediated religion, from the book to TBN -- applicable or workable in the Facebook age?

I suppose it all comes down to a basic question: Looking back in fifty years' time (or perhaps even less), will the rise of online info-tech and social networking platforms have proven to have been revolutionary for religion?

*** Thanks to my son, Will, for introducing me to these provocative examples of creative destruction.

Adventures in “Christian” Retail

by Charity R. Carney

Disclaimer: This is a teaser. I’m working on a larger piece about experiencing employment at a Christian retail chain this summer. I took on the job because 1) we needed the money and 2) I was curious. I have been documenting my day-to-day life there as a full-time employee and am working up a full-length piece with an academic emphasis and analysis of marketing with religion, the gender politics of the place, as well as how they handle money and workers’ rights. Enjoy.

Update: Part II is of this series is now up here. Part III, the finale, is here. Extended responses informed from his own academic work on capitalism and American Christianity, from Darren Grem, are here and here.

I worked retail this summer. “Christian”-run retail. When I walked into the interview for the position at the local store that is part of a national chain (we’ll call it “Christian Chain” or “CC”), the manager was a bit baffled by the Ph.D. sitting in front of him. “Honestly,” I assured him (and meant it), “I want to work here and my family needs the income.” I (naively) believed that CC, a company that nationally proclaims its Christian values and give generously to conservative Christian causes/movements, would provide a good work environment and would reveal to me how Christian employers manage the workplace. It would give me insight into the world of Christian retail. And it has. Plenty of insight. So here’s a taste of what I witnessed in terms of the corporate model CC follows. The larger piece will include issues of sexism/sexual harassment and employee’s work schedules/worker’s rights but, like I said, teaser.

On money and mythology at CC: This company handles its resources in the most Luddite and inefficient way possible. There is one computer in the store where I worked. It was locked away in the back room and was used only to make/print out weekly schedules. All ordering is done by hand using a pencil and three-ring binders and a complicated system of “base” numbers and “minimum” orders. The poor soul who works in the back room has to then take all of the binders from each department and enter them into the one (aged) computer before a deadline in order for stock to come in.

There are no SKUs--no barcodes--no scanning devices. Thus the hand-written ordering. This is where the mythology comes in. I inquired about the lack of computers in the store and the ancient cash registers that required each item to be manually punched in and discounts to be manually entered as well. I was told that the cash registers WERE NEW. The explanation varied based on who responded to my questions. Some employees (especially those higher up) explained that it was just CC’s way. That it had maintained the same system since its birth (over 20 years ago) and that CC does not change. I found this idea interesting for several reasons. It requires more work from employees, thus costing the business more money. It is a business after all and so shouldn’t it be concerned with profits and losses? But it may also connect to the idea that workers should have sweat on their brow constantly in order to truly earn their wages. The Protestant ethic, so to speak. Work for work’s sake.

Several other (lower-paid) employees told me that the lack of barcodes was CC policy because barcodes represent the mark of the beast. Wha?! I know, this seems far-fetched. But this is a widely held belief amongst employees and thus should not be discounted. Some are dissatisfied with this reasoning but accept it, again, as being CC’s way so it cannot be questioned. (More on this in the longer article.)

Another strongly held belief is that the company does not have barcodes because then it does not have to have uniform pricing. Sales, then, do not have to be reflected at the register unless the customer notices that they are not receiving the discount and asks for it. A few employees see the lack of technology as a ploy for the company to make extra money.

There is an odd dichotomy at work at CC: they are focused on saving money (they are very concerned with hours and wages and do not move an employee to full-time unless they really need them and the employee makes enough demands) but they use a system that ultimately costs them money because it requires employees to work double or triple the hours at a task that in other stores is not nearly as involved and grueling.

Ultimately, what I’d like to consider in a larger format is what does it mean to be a Christian-run corporation in the modern marketplace? CC has held on to antiquated ideas regarding its particular brand of commerce, and the reasoning for that steadfastness varies based on what myth or history an employee chooses to subscribe. Also, the Christian values on which the chain claims to rely are not reflected in its treatment of employees or the employee’s treatment of each other. This begs the question: how much are “Christian” businesses relying on the image of being Christian without truly employing (or even hinting at employing) Christian ethics in their stores. This I will explore in more detail in the article with a discussion of sexual politics at CC and the overextension of employees to the point of completely disregarding their rights. Good times.