It’s March. It should be cold. But the last few days have been so beautiful that my daily routine has moved to the back patio. There’s nothing quite like a good cup of hot tea, a fresh bowl of moassal, calm and brisk 60 degree weather, and God’s Word to help bring focus and reflection.

I couldn’t help but take the chance to invite you into my morning routine from the last few days… you know, before the rain starts and spoils it all!

If I may, I would like to take a moment to voice my frustration. Not with anything particularly important. But frustration nonetheless.

Usually, I’m a big fan of competition between business. It usually leads to lower prices and better products and I’m all about that. (Come on wireless providers, someone take the plunge into affordable wireless PC connections!). But sometimes, companies that compliment each other well and together offer something great, do something stupid. Like trying to deliver the whole package themselves.

See, like people, companies are often good at one thing, while being weaker at something else. Hence wonderfully symbiotic business relationships. But, when those companies decide they want to compete with each other, rather than work together, I, the customer, lose!

Who else could I be talking about besides Apple Computers and Google.

I’m a huge fan of both of these companies. Apple does the whole personal computers and handheld devices really, really well. And Google does pretty much everything internet really, really well. Maps, docs, calendars, wave, voice? Hello! It’s freakin’ amazing. Google’s integration on the iPhone couldn’t be any more convenient. Google is even Safari’s default search engine. Of course, because that’s the search engine we all use and love.

But now, Google has gone and done something stupid. They decided they wanted to make their own browser (Chrome, which is pretty great), and their own OS (also Chrome, which is kind of a joke), their own mobile OS (Android, which the jury is still out on) and now their own branded handset which goes head to head with the iPhone (the Nexus One). By the way, did you know that Google doesn’t have call centers ready to answer people’s questions about their products? Yeah, even the $500 Nexus One handset. And of course, now customer service satisfaction is at a dismal low. Probably because it doesn’t exist.

(Interestingly enough, you know who does have call centers and one of the highest customer service rankings anywhere? Apple Computers.)

Of course, Google couldn’t just stick with what it was actually good at. Instead, they had to move into this whole new realm of physical devices and thereby forcing Apple to make other plans. (Possibly even with Microsoft!)

Now, Apple has bought a maps related company. Presumably in anticipation of edging Google Maps off their devices in the future. And, there’s even talk of replacing Google as the default search with Bing. Bing! Are you freaking kidding me? I know, it sounds crazy, but that’s what the rumor sites are saying. That steaming pile of crap they call a search engine is not what I want to use. I want to use GOOGLE!

And seriously, Apple, are you going to send thousands of camera equipped vans all over the world to give us street views for your maps application? No! Of course not! You’re product isn’t widely adopted enough!

Ugh!

So, Apple—please don’t be afraid of Google. Continue to embrace what they do well and give us what we want. Integration with Google and it’s horde of amazing products.

Google—Your web stuff is awesome. But your whole cloud computing, netbook, ChromeOS thing isn’t going to work out unless you also plan to give everyone dedicated, 100% internet. I spend too much time away from a wifi hotspot. ChromOS, useless. Stick to what you do well and don’t run my mobile computing experience into the ground by making other great companies choose lesser solutions.

Microsoft—Just start over completely.

In Conclusion

Competition isn’t always good.

This rant has been brought to you by my frustrations with the unfolding situation between Apple and Google. Now that it’s out of my system, hopefully it won’t come up again any time soon.

Tim Keller, in Counterfeit Gods says:

An idol is something we look to for things that only God can give. Idolatry functions widely inside religious communities when doctrinal truth is elevated to positions of a false god. This occurs when people rely on the rightness of their doctrines for their standing with God rather than on God himself and his grace. It is a subtle but deadly mistake. The sign that you have slipped into this form of self-justification is that you become what the book of Proverbs calls a “scoffer”. Scoffers always show contempt and disdain for the opponents rather than graciousness, This is a sign that they do no see themselves as sinners saved by grace. Instead, their trust in the rightness of their views makes them feel superior.

Does that sound personally familiar to you? It has to me. Perhaps not as severely right now, but in the past, definitely. Sometimes we may not even realize that we have placed some of our hope in something other than the Gospel.

Many churches look at the churches around them as competitors, rather than partners. Or theological diversity as a threat to their ministry. I doubt this is anything short of a sense of religious idolatry.

Even if our theology is right, and our church is healthy, our attitudes toward other people’s theological ideas and churches reveal a good deal about what our own thought and theology means to us. “Scoffing” and “disdain” for anyone is not a good thing. But it’s especially revealing when those things are directed at people who share the same salvation we do.

I saw this for the first time yesterday and it was both strikingly accurate, and telling of the kinds of films that win critical acclaim in the most ‘official’ sense.

This will speak for itself. And yes, I am wearing a pink shirt under that button up. Wish me luck, people!

(Can’t see the video? Watch it on YouTube!)

I have often heard people (even Christians) poke fun at various religious beliefs which seem to be especially outrageous. Reincarnation (Hinduism), the third coming of Christ (Unificationism), virgins awaiting the newcomer to heaven (Islam), Xenu and evil extra-terrestrials (Scientology). And sure, like any religion with a supernatural element, any objective, unfamiliar assessment (which may well not exist) of it will lead one to scratch their head and think how silly it sounds.

But while most Americans don’t seem to bat an eye at the basic concepts of Christianity, I submit that Christianity would be, in fact, the craziest.

When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God’s son? The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory; and the fact that the claim is believed – whereas one is otherwise so strict in examining pretensions – is perhaps the most ancient piece of this heritage. A god who begets children with a mortal woman; a sage who bids men work no more, have no more courts, but look for the signs of the impending end of the world; a justice that accepts the innocent as a vicarious sacrifice; someone who orders his disciples to drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of a beyond to which death is the portal; the form of the cross as a symbol in a time that no longer knows the function and ignominy of the cross — how ghoulishly all this touches us, as if from the tomb of a primeval past! Can one believe that such things are still believed?

from Nietzsche’s Human, all too Human

“Sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god.” This is the cornerstone of Christianity’s would-be madness. Though none of us bats an eye, or even wonders at it.

If the statement “It’s so crazy, it must be true”, were ever true, it would be so of Christianity. In this way, Christianity is completely unique among world religions. Of course, it has its similarities as well. The core principles are absolutely all its own and unlike anything else.

Man would sin against God and lose all hope in himself for reconciliation, but in the face of that, God himself would become the reconciliation for man.

In the climate of the many world religions out there, For me, and many others, the uniqueness and, in a sense, the absurdness of Christianity adds a drop into the bucket of evidence which helps to strengthen my faith. Ironically, quite the opposite of Nietzsche.

1 Corinthians 11:1

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

Paul writes these words to the Corinthians. He has just explained some of how he chooses to interact with the Lost. Giving up many of his own liberties, at times, to better meet those people where they are. And so he tells the Corinthian church to imitate him, as he imitates Christ.

This verse is often used in the more direct sense that we should imitate our leader’s as they attempt to imitate Christ. This is an apt application of the scripture. But it occurred to me this morning as I was reading that we could also probably apply this in a broader sense as well.

As believers we all are imitators of Christ. We all have his Word and his Gospel. While the early church needed leaders to be a kind of ‘walking scripture’ to remind them of the Truth (they didn’t have very may written copies yet, and no one had a copy all to themselves which they could study daily), we now have the written transcripts and almost all of us have one all to ourselves. Those leading figures in our community remain important, but perhaps not always in the exact same way.

Because of this, we are all in a position to learn from each other and pour into one another. In some ways, we are all to each other, as Paul was to the Corinthians. We are all imitators of Christ to each other.

It stands to reason, with some limit, that we ought to not only look to our assigned leaders for our example, but also each other as to how to imitate Christ. To assess what is honorable in each other and imitate that.

Perhaps I have a great will and ability to read and study God’s word, while you have a great will and ability to seek God in prayer. These are both honorable things, and looking to each other, we should see what is good and attempt to emulate that as well.

I suspect this would help us to have a healthier view of following and serving God in our various ways, rather than idealizing church leadership and viewing that as the ‘pinnacle’ of following Christ.