I will be the first to say it, I love Apple. I love how they market their products. I love how they package their products, and I love the innovation they have created, much of which has changed the face of the world forever. AT&T, not so much, but it’s a package deal. In doing so, they have also created new type of consumerism like none who have come before, and all during a recession at that.
This time from the WWDC, Apple comes out with another technological landmark product, or an update to a landmark product, the iPhone 4 with iOS 4. Not just fabulous eye candy, which Apple always seems to achieve, but innovations to a cell phone that have never been seen before, and as Apple does so well, they made it a must buy item, with even more help from AT&T.
To Buy In or Not to Buy In
That really isn’t all bad of course, but, from a Christian perspective, there has to be a reality check somewhere along the way. The arguments you could make on both sides of this debate are endless. The huge, broad, range of reasons why we as Christians should or should not consume, and how much, and of what products, could contain volumes. I just wanted to touch on one specific aspect, AT&T’s early up on their contract dates.
In the information age of 2010, we are now the most instant and disposable consumers the planet has ever seen. We can’t wait for anything, ever, and most of the time we don’t have to. The comment above from WWDC on MacWorld’s live stream just hit the nail on the head.
You mean I have to wait two and a half weeks to get an iPhone 4? Augggggh!
He was kidding, but, not really, and AT&T agreed. [Not trying to pick on Jason Snell from Macworld, I loved reading his live updates from the keynote, and I can't imagine how many tweets I read that said the exact same thing... except they were tweets from pastors of large evangelical churches, worship leaders, seminary students... in other words, the church body (yes we love our Macs)... all clamoring to buy Apple's latest.]
Buy Now, Save Later, Sign Here
At the same time Steve Jobs was giving the keynote, news from AT&T started surfacing that they would graciously allow almost anyone anyone who had a contract with them (that would be everyone who uses an iPhone in the U.S.) that extended beyond 2010, to upgrade to the new iPhone 4, right now. [For those unaware of how cell companies work, AT&T dings you for a 2 year contract every time you get a new phone, but after one year, you can get another new phone, at a discounted price, and up your contract again for 2 more years.]
By the time the keynote was over, yes, even Apple made it official. AT&T was going to allow their customers to spend money on a new iPhone, right now, instead of having to wait for the contract upgrade date to come up (mine is in August and my wife’s is in October). All it will cost you, besides the price of the phone of course, is another two years of your life, in bondage to AT&T. [Of course you can break the contract but AT&T also upped the ETF (Early Termination Fee) to $325 PER PHONE starting June 1 for anyone wanting to free themselves from Ma-Bell, and at the same time did away with their unlimited data plan.]
When Does the 2-Year Curse End?
So, where or when does it end? I started looking at it from my own point of view. Both of our phones are actually, banish the thought, only 2nd generation iPhones (old iPhone 3G’s, not the 3G-S). Our one year contract date (stated above) comes up this year and we could just wait and upgrade then. But if we do that, we will actually be EXTENDING our contracts to October 2012. If we upgraded right now, we would be out of our AT&T contract in June 2012. But hey, even Steven Jobs carries an old phone (or hasn’t updated the OS), so maybe we could do the same.
Either way, we end up committing to a 2-year relationship with AT&T (not that we have a choice in the matter), at some $2,000+ a year. A commitment that not even many parishioners will do for their own church. We could say no, enough is enough, and just sit there and read 2 Corinthians 6:14 over and over until we convince ourselves that life is possible without a 2 year contract?
I guess it is possible to be without a cell phone contract? Two households in my immediate family actually don’t have one (my sister’s and my uncle’s), so I know it’s possible. But me, I have been “under contract” in one form or another to a cell phone company for more than 15 years, that’s something like $36,000 give or take, and longer than many marriages last today. As it turns out, those contracts never do expire. Once you are in, they’ve got you, and there’s no way out. It’s like trying to quit the gym.
It’s legal, immediate, addicting, consumerism Meth, AT&T & Apple style, except an intervention won’t work. You either pay a lot now to get out ($650 for a household of 2), or you pay a ton in little 2-year chunks until the next must have device comes out. To bad I don’t actually have AT&T cell coverage where I live, then I could actually get some use out of my AT&T never-ending contract. Oh well, at least I can upgrade to the new iPhone 4, who cares if I can actually make a phone call.
Thanks, Paul of Tarsus
Or, maybe Paul actually knew what he was talking about when he wrote to the Corinthian church way back in the mid 50′s. Even though it is such an ingrained part of our culture, such an integrated part of our lives in the 21st century, maybe we should, at least question, whether we as believers in Christ should be “bound together” by such terms.
In the end this looks to be one of the best updates to the iPhone Apple has made, especially when you take into consideration the display resolution. I will probably trade my older phone in for the new version, but there is probably an iPhone 5 around the corner somewhere.
Posts Related to This Topic:
That is the basic question of this blog post. Why do we tend to separate the faith part of our lives and everything else? This doesn’t have to be real deep but I would suggest that there are some good reasons for doing so. If you don’t read any farther than this, just go to the comments below and answer the question posed in the title.
I started looking at the two main blogs I author, a faith blog (called Damascus), and one called My Life in LA (now combined into this one blog), and started thinking about how and why we often separate or put up barriers in our life between our Christian beliefs and faith, and our secular or culturally driven part of our life. This is not a new discussion, just comes up from time to time and I thought this time I would write it down.
We All Live Our Faith and Cultural Life Differently
If you say you don’t, I would love to hear from you, because I think if we take an honest look at ourselves, we all do this in one form or another. We try not to, and we try to keep our beliefs alive in everything we do, not just on Sunday morning, but it isn’t always easy. It isn’t always easy because we, for the most part, live in the society and culture of our time. Most of us don’t live in a closet.
We can’t escape it, if we are alive and breathing, most of us have a cell phone, or an Internet connection, or cable TV, or a car, or a washer/dryer, or own an iPod and listen to Coldplay, or all the other things that we tend to collect by being alive in this world today. Notice the arrows on the top of the whiteboard. We do exchange these from one to the other, but we also put God in the square box too.
The Stuff We Collect, Does It Help?
Does all this stuff help our faith or hurt it, or does it even matter? There are several sects of society you can look at and see them living without the modern conveniences we have created, like the Amish, Buddhists, Monks, or even parts of Islam and Orthodox Jews.
My wife and I work part time at a thrift store and the sheer volume to “stuff” that we see come through the building is just mind boggling. All the things that were nice and expensive in its day, now discarded as useless and worthless to someone (a new found treasure for others). I often look at how much goes the way of the dumpster and I am amazed at what a consuming society we are now.
My Reasons Why We Separate Our Faith Life
I am sure everyone could have 100′s reasons or answers to this question, but I thought I would just write a few down. I actually think in some ways, it is not a bad thing to separate our faith based lives and our cultural lives. Take my reasons for doing so on my two blogs. I separated the subjects on my blogs basically in faith, and non-faith posts. The non-faith based blog is about my life, so why wouldn’t it include my faith? With blogs at least, you are writing to a specific audience.
Although you do want one to cross over into the other, the people reading this blog probably don’t want to read about photography and farm equipment, or where I am doing my next photo shoot. Likewise, the people interested specifically in photography do not want to read my “Jesus posts” (as a friend of mine recently put it), but either can make the choice to go from one to the other.
Does this mean my heart for the Lord is not in my other blog, certainly not. That is the key, even if we are engaged in a culturally relevant church group, or a college football game, examine where your heart is, that is what is important to the Lord, not how we draw lines in our visible or public life.
A Quick Top Ten of Separating Faith and Culture
- We separate our live out of convenience for ourselves
- We want to fit in to our society
- We don’t think about it and just go with the flow
- We separate on purpose for reasons we deem important
- Money (because money is always on the list)
- To reach people across the faith isle
- Our friends who are not Believers
- Stuff (all the things we collect)
- Embarrassment (not wanting to look like a Jesus freak)
- Government or power requirement
I put in that last one because we still have to recognize that there are part of our world today that still do not want people of faith to be able to express themselves. The Summer Olympics in Beijing China are a good example. The Catholic church is allowed, under specific rules, but that is about it. North Korea, parts of Africa, and other hot spots around the world require people to separate their faith from their culture.
And yes, I would even argue here in the United States we are required to separate our faith from our society. Not in an oppressive manner at all, but through the separation of church and state, parts of our culture in the U.S. today require a parting of the ways.
That is certainly not an all inclusive list, or a comprehensive look at the issue, but some quick thoughts for a Saturday morning. So how do you separate your life?
