Steve Jobs is an icon. He has (almost) single-handedly transformed personal computing, revolutionized smart phones, created an intense market desire for the tablet computer, and changed how we shop for electronics. Few people have had the colossal business and cultural impact over the past three decades as Steve Jobs. I will never forget when my family got our first desktop Mac in 1984, and I am now looking forward to the iPhone 5 (this September…please!). I have an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook Pro. Yes, I’m a Mac-geek. But at least I’m cool!

And I am also an evangelical Christian. You might be thinking, “So what! What on earth does being a Christian have to do with Apple computers or Steve Jobs?” More than you may think. I write books, speak publicly, and teach classes on philosophy and theology, which means I love motivating people to think deeply about the important issues of life. And Steve Jobs, one of the most powerful people of our day, has offered a secular “gospel” to our culture. My goal in this post is not to criticize Jobs (that would be foolish!), or to promote Christianity, but to contrast their respective worldviews so you, the reader, can decide what you think is true.

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My high school students have no idea how to die.

How do I know? In class this week we’re reading an old school emo poem with the puzzling Greek title “Thanatopsis.” A seventeen year-old poet named William Cullen Bryant wrote his “vision of death” in 1813, a time when teenagers were apparently thinking about death more often than their modern peers. With the Puritan legacy in his rear view mirror, he defies the Christian worldview of his ancestors and basically says that when you die, that’s it. Young Bryant suggests that you shouldn’t worry about dying because you will join the gazillion other corpses rotting underground who are part of one big annihilated family—and he feels this should be rather comforting to you.

Quite frankly, it isn’t.

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