WWJD: Where Would Jesus Download?

If you're a Mac user, newbie or veteran, you probably know of MacUpdate, one of the internet's preeminent websites for Mac software updates.

And if you happened to go to MacUpdate on Christmas Day, instead of seeing a listing of the day's software updates, you would seen something distinctly different.

Now, I understand that the vast majority of the people who read my blog aren't In-The-Know Mac users, so here's a fitting comparison: imagine if you went to your local supermarket, picked up a flyer to see what was on sale, and instead of seeing the latest prices on Tide, prepared salad, or macrobiotic yogurt instead saw something akin to a Jack Chick pamphlet.

I'd imagine that the range of reactions I'd be seeing would be from utter indifference to complete outrage. And that was what you'd be seeing if you'd looked around the Mac Web.


On Suitability

I remember the first reaction to the long black webpage I saw when I loaded up MacUpdate. "Huh?" Suffice to say, when you go online looking to search for software updates in preparation for your Great Leap Forward to a new version of the operating system you're running, the last thing you'd expect to see is someone pushing Jesus in your face in the same way your little brother or sister might slam a pillow in your face in the morning.

You can defend what the webmaster at MacUpdate did by saying that it's his website to do with as he pleases; and it's not like he made you go to MacUpdate. It's a free country and if he wanted to do that, more power to him. From a strictly (evangelical/conservative) Christian perspective, you could perfectly defend what was done at MacUpdate as being suitable in that they were simply doing what they saw as being mandated in the Bible.

But then again, think of Mormons/Jehovah's Witnesses who often love to practice the time-honoured ritual of door-to-door preaching and conversion. They easily justify it as allowable in that it is their right to show others the path to the way of life that they see is superior to all others, the one that should be practiced by all others. But in all honesty, just how effective is this? I wonder, how many people have they brought over from the Dark Side as opposed to those who they've simply pissed off? And were those people worth all of the ill-will they gained from the enterprise?

There are plenty of options that could have been done with MacUpdate if they wanted to promote a Christian message at Christmas time (and don't get me started on how the idea of "putting the Christ in Christmas" is a total sham). How about a revised front page promoting various charities? How about an interfaith "Peace on Earth" message å la Apple's multilingual Mac OS X introductory movies? Those are all Christian messages, aren't they?


Now How Come Things Aren't What They Oughta Be?

A common theme that I've tried to communicate in a lot of my posts here is how people often see the world in a way in which it isn't, and act accordingly. This isn't just a problem with "the Right"; it's just as endemic among people on the "the Left" as well. Amongst the Creationists/IDists, it's people who see science as simply an affirmation of their own religious beliefs: science is no longer a method of inquiry into the natural world but merely a rubber stamp on their view of how things should be. Ditto for the people constantly trying to inject conservative Christian values into an increasingly diverse society.

The message is always the same. Conformity and homogenity over diversity. In biology, all of the discussion and debate over evolution and ecology should be replaced with the single undying mantra: God did it, I believe it, that settles it. In politics and society, it's the conservative/evangelical Christian worldview trumping the views of everyone else by default.

And that I think is the reason why MacUpdate did what they did. There's always more than one way to skin a cat (so to speak), and you are only limited in what you can and can't do by the limitations you impose on yourself. The limitations MacUpdate imposed on themselves were clear: that to believe in their version of Christ and in their version of Christianity was the only way to go.

I guess the lesson to be learned in this is that when you want others to share in your beliefs (whether it be Christianity, animal rights, social justice, or computing on the Mac), the one thing that's easy to forget is that your audience has feelings too. They have emotions and opinions that aren't going to always run parallel to your own. They're not just an abstract wall at which you can thoughtlessly hurl your opinions.

Contrary to what some people may think, I like to believe that there's more to Christianity than seeing your friends and people around you as targets of opportunity to mark up on your celestial score card.