This week crowds of worshipers outside Apple Stores around the globe will finally be able to lay their hands on the latest object of their devotion: the iPhone 4. The public was given its first official look at the device a few weeks ago when Steve Jobs descended from his holy digital mountain with the updated phone in his hands. Reports have already circulated about spontaneous rallies of Apple fans, and we've seen the video footage of consumers reacting with fits of ecstasy as they hold their new purchase.
The frenzy created every time Apple releases a new product highlights a growing but under-reported phenomenon: the power of consumer brands to supplant traditional religions in peoples' lives. Many Christians believe the greatest threat to the church today is postmodernity. Others zero in on relativism. Some believe the enemy is secular humanism. Others think it's Islam. I disagree with all of these. In my view, the greatest challenge facing the contemporary church is consumerism. By that I do not mean consumption. It's not wrong to consume things. In fact, as contingent beings we've been designed to consume for survival. The only human that doesn't consume is one that has reached room temperature, in which case they are now being consumed. (Do I hear "The Circle of Life" in the background?)
The consumerism I'm concerned with is the kind that functions as a worldview. It forms the uncontested assumptions of our lives, and when it intersects with faith our perceptions of worship, mission, community, belief, and even God are fundamentally altered. These are all subject I tackle in my book, The Divine Commodity (Zondervan, 2009).
One aspect of consumerism that is particularly powerful is branding. (Add to it commoditization and alienation and you've got the unholy trinity of consumerism.)
Douglas Atkins, author of The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers, says, "Brands are the new religion ... They supply our modern metaphysics, imbuing the world with significance ... Brands function as complete meaning systems."
Without question one of the most potent brands in America today is Apple, and new research has shown that Apple has achieved the same impact on the human brain as religion.
Martin Lindstrom is the author of Buyology. He says:
Apple is (as we've proven using neuroscience) ... a religion. Not only that -- it is a religion based on its communities. Without its core communities, Apple would die -- it is already facing strong pressure as the brand simply is becoming too broad (losing) its magic. What's holding it all together is the hundreds if not thousands of communities across the world spreading the passion and creating the myths.
Adding to the evidence that Apple is actually a religion, psychologist David Levine, a self-identified Mac nut, says:
For many Mac people, I think [the Mac community] has a religious feeling to it. For a lot of people who are not comfortable with religion, it provides a community and a common heritage. I think Mac users have a certain common way of thinking, a way of doing things, a certain mindset. People say they are a Buddhist or a Catholic. We say we're Mac users, and that means we have similar values.
For more about the religious (even cultic) power of Apple, I suggest reading this article in "Wired" that details the messianic characteristics of Steve Jobs. There is also a documentary on the subject called "Macheads." In the trailer the film declares, "It's more than a computer, it's a way of life."
The identity-forming power of brands like Apple means the act of shopping has immense significance in a consumer culture. As Benjamin Barber writes, "If brand name can shape or even stand in for identity, then to figure out 'who you are' you must decide where (and for what) you shop." This may explain why shopping is now the number one leisure activity for Americans. As we peruse the shopping mall or stand in line at the Apple Store, we are not simply looking for an MP3 player, a computer, or a phone -- we are looking for ourselves. Shopping occupies a role in society that once belonged only to religion: the power to give meaning and construct identity. "To shop," Pete Ward observes, "is to seek for something beyond ourselves," and this desire "indicates a spiritual inclination in many of the everyday activities of shopping."
One question I pose in The Divine Commodity is this: If brands have become religions, is the opposite also true? Have religions been reduced to brands? I believe the evidence suggests they have. Researchers like Barna, Gallop, and others are finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate the behaviors and values of self-identified Christians from non-Christians with one exception: what they buy. Total sales of religious goods in America is nearly $7 billion annually. That is a whole lot of "Tommy Hellfighter" t-shirts, "Jesus Is My Homeboy" underwear, and "Fruit of the Spirit" energy drinks. One church leader has linked the merchandising with our new understanding of conversion: "Conversion in the U.S. seems to mean we've exchanged some of our shopping at Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, and Borders for the Christian Bookstore down the street. We've taken our lack of purchasing control to God's store, where we buy our office supplies in Jesus' name."
What does this mean for the future of the church in America? I hear a lot on Christian radio and see a lot of Christian books fighting against postmodernism, relativism, and secularism. But if people, including Christians, are constructing their identities and lives around consumer brands like Apple, is the church fighting the wrong battle? And perhaps more disturbing, are we unknowingly contributing to the problem by encouraging Christians to construct and express their identities via Christ-branded merchandise rather than through characters transformed to reflect the values of Christ himself?
Follow Skye Jethani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/skye_jethani
Paul Lamb: Church in a Pocket: Mobile Apps for Religious Engagement
Apple - iPhone 4 - Video calls, multitasking, HD video, and more
iPhone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apple iPhone 4: iPhone reviews, news, photos and videos - CNET.com
Apple's iPhone 4G Debacle: A Timeline - PCWorld
Anyway MSFT has more believers. Apple customers are the athiests.
Idolatry, I think, is a better one.
Yes.
Christ-branded
Should have gotten a copyright.
"You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you partake of the sacrement,"
I'm glad I saw this article, it will save me from ever wasting my money on this writer's books.
Not even close.
But I do agree with much of the column that many in the Apple fan base are seemingly unable to govern their emotions as it relates to inanimate objects like a cell phone.
If I wanted to get one, which I don't., all I have to do is sit here and wait a month or two. Then walk into an apple store or AT&T, walk right up to the counter and get one. Simple and painless. And you know what else? Every freakin' month, I'd get a phone bill and tons of dropped calls. Just like all those unkempt and smelly fanatics who camp out in front of a store for days in advance to get one, minus the smell of course.
Now, if these were kids, you could dismiss it but these are adults with jobs doing this. The people we depend on to protect our streets and council our children. Almost teabag level fanatics. Good points Skye Jethani, Keep em coming. Fanned.
Yes some of us more patient people will wait till the lines die down and you can walk into an Apple retailer without waiting in line and buy one then.
I sold Apple Products for a decade working in an Apple Authorized retailer. Believe me, the average Apple fan knows what they are buying and why. Most of them are not caught up in any "reality distortion fields" and are truly upgrading to the next best thing.
As to why they don't buy an Android phone or a Palm phone. It's really how the whole package works together. From iTunes, to the iTunes Store, to the devices that work with them. Apple's products just tend to work together better and they tend to be easier to use than the competition.
Apple doesn't always get their products 100% right, but they do tend to focus on stuff that customer want like Longer battery life, better looking screens and good looking devices
As far as running in techie circles TashaDK, that's not a techie circle you describe. Sorry, it simply is not. Techie is what happens under the hood and how, not that you press a button and your eyes can glaze over until you fall asleep That's Glamor Magazine. Techie is also the freedom to express "without limits". But we are not going that far here. I'll leave it where you are at the moment with what looks good.
As for why "they" don't buy Android has very little to do with how it works together. Has to do with something as basic as "learning". Apple doesn't push learning. It pushes compliance. When it doesn't work, Apple blames the user and you accept it. Yes you do.
With Windows, Linux and Android, OS/2, Unix etc. you MUST bring something to the table to use them. These users are thinkers and they don't sweat a mental process and keep an intellectual curiosity 24/7. Not true of the walled garden that is Apple Inc.
.... back to the Pews unwashed masses!!!!!!
People are turning away from Apple because of the way that apple treats them. Apple puts out wonderful hardware and software, but the corporation seems to have forgotten that it was the legions of Apple users that brought them this success. If Apple gets back to taking care of their customers, both by continuing to create great product and by treating their customers well. If this happens Apple will continue to prosper. If they continue to treat their fans badly, well the world is littered with failed brands that used to be good.
BTW I guess you missed the people who camped out for Windows 98 and then Windows XP to purchase their new OSs at a midnight sale. How about people who camped out waiting for the new version of World of Warcraft. Yes people DO camp out to get tickets for concerts, I seem to remember hearing about people waiting for weeks for bands who haven't been together for years.
Is the guy with a storage locker full of macs really any different from the guy who buys every Ford ever made or Studebaker ever made? There are fringe people who follow any interest.
Now I did let myself get emotional about apple's lack of customer focus. It's something that is very near and dear to my heart.