“Touching is Believing” -- The Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs

RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
By Jonathon Merritt

PUBLISHING---Ashton Kutcher’s two-dimensional portrayal of the Steve Jobs may not have spawned a box office hit, but masses of Americans continue to be fascinated with the late Apple executive. But while many aspects of Jobs’ life have been probed in books and films, few portrayals have centered on Jobs’ faith. Until now. Brett T. Robinson, visiting professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame, has just published a new book that details how Jobs intermingled the technological and the transcendent. "In Appletopia: Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs", Robinson argues that religion–from Zen Buddhism to Catholicism to mystical futurism–defined Jobs’ design methodology and approach to business. Steve Jobs saw the personal computer as a “spiritual liberator” rather than a dehumanizing machine. [link]