The carnal mind always maps out for itself a way in which self can work and become great, but the Lord’s way is quite the reverse.
—Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, October 5.
Over at the Wall Street Journal today, Andy Crouch said what needs to be said about Steve Jobs, who died October 5th. Crouch, an editor-at-large for Christianity Today, said Jobs was a prophet.
But a totally secular one.
An innovative entrepreneur, certainly. I’ve said my good by and expressed my thanks. But Jobs was no messiah, for all the hope he preached or all the tools he created.
As Crouch points out, the Apple logo itself signifies the fall, the apple of Eden. It promises us we can still take a bite out of the tree of knowledge. But of course we can’t.
Any technology “implicitly promises to reverse the curse, easing the burden of creaturely existence.” And Jobs made the symbol of the fall itself into a symbol of promise and progress. He made a “ding in the universe,” as he wished to, but he never believed there was anything beyond this life.
Such a man can be celebrated for his achievements, but pitied for his world view. He believed in the “magical, revolutionary power of Apple precisely because he believed in no higher power at all,” Crouch notes.
A secular gospel like this “promises nothing it can not deliver since all it promises is the opportunity to live your own, unique life.” Jobs’ genius was to make “your own, unique life” easier, not more important.
Crouch notes Job’s famous Standford speech:
No one has ever escaped [death]. 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……
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.”
Such self-serving vision is sad. It offers no hope for us or glory for God. Technology embraces neither difficulty or danger, yet it is in those moments that our service to others is great and our dependence on God is greater. This is the great commandment.
So as cool or as magical as an iPad might be, it changes nothing about who we are. The tools will bend toward our will, for good or for ill. Even with a personal assistant on our iPhone 4S.
Crouch puts it this way:
[Jobs’] gospel offers no hope that you cannot generate yourself and only the comfort of having been true to yourself. In the face of tragedy and evil—the kind of tragedy that cuts off lives not just at 56 years old but at 5 or 6, the kind of evil bent on eradicating whole tribes and nations from the earth—it is strangely inert.
Perhaps every human system of meaning fails or at least falls silent in the face of these harsh realities, but the gospel of self-fulfillment does require an extra helping of stability and privilege to be plausible.
Amen. Even the plausible is impossible outside of grace. Our best hope lies outside ourselves.
And vanity is only idolatry in the end.
the daysman 
I’m not sure I very much disagree with what I perceive to be the thrust of Jobs’ statement as posted above. As I read it he is exhorting us to be all we can be, e.g., be completely human and therein choose to be true to our selves. Did not God make us human? Is not being authentically human (whatever that means can be debated, to be sure) being more like God created us to be? I have been taught the more we are fully, authentically human – – live out of our true, authentic selves, rather than seek after other’s approval and pursue Fr. Keating’s “false programs for happiness” (the world’s values)
– – the more we reflect God’s intention for us and thereby more fully
embody the God in whose image we are made. Perhaps.
I see your perspective.
It is the lack of context, or perhaps even transcendence, which Jobs displayed generally that concerns me, and the author of the original article as well.
Crouch’s article compares Jobs quote with a very similar observation by Martin Luther King, who used the opportunity to reflect on his own death to point beyond it to something eternal.
You know me well enough to know I don’t live my life for others opinions (although I don’t object to a little good dogma now and then), but there is more. More hope in the face of death, for example.
And of course at least one person has escaped death. 🙂
What I see as void in the whole view above is the relationship factor. Excluding himself from God and from others, to ” 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.”
Others and especially God help you hear your inner voice more clearly, God carries you through the bad times. Others hold your hand and sometimes cheer you on.
Sad…
If the book of Genesis teaches us anything it teaches us that not only have we fallen short of the Glory of God,but we’ve also fallen short of the glory of Man.And we did it precisely by following Jobs’ type advice; i e listening to our hearts,our “human nature”.Yes,our fallen human nature “knows what we want to become” and it’s trying desperately to thwart any possibility of that happening. More than “become” we need to be remade.
One other thing:when Shakespears’ character said “be true to yourself” is it generally interpreted to mean stick to your guns about who you are? Or could it mean be honest to yourself,ie don’t lie to yourself.Big difference!