This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is up. As always, it is an interesting mixture of blogs. However, I was especially struck by one of the posts. Last week, Bryan of Argues with Signs posted a rant condemning a Christian business, LifeWay Downloads, for not immediately supporting the Macintosh with their internet music business. I saw Bryan’s article last week and almost commented then, but decided not to make the time. I dismissed the irrational attack on LifeWay as simply the outrage of a Mac user that his beloved computer platform was being slighted.
However, today I was surprised by those who seem to enjoy slamming Christians just for the sake of doing so. I still presume Bryan was ranting strictly because of the perceived Macintosh slight, but comments by others strike me as anti-Christian bigotry. The COV hosts finishes their reference to Bryan’s rant by asking The question is: why would we want to [download Christian music]. I doubt they would have made the same comment if Bryan’s rant was about Black folk music. Then I looked at the comments on Bryan’s site and was surprised to see blogger Andrew Ian Dodge state:
A lot of fundies don't like Apple. For various reasons, all of them conpletely gaga.
Again, I doubt this comment would have been made if the music had not been Christian music (imagine if Andrew has stated that a lot of women don’t like Apple for no logical reason). I asked Andrew if he had any basis for his statement and he kindly replied promptly:
I was mostly being sarcastic, but I have seen at least one rant that claims that Apple promotes evolution and satanism. (The latter being rubbish since Apple got miffed with Anton Levay's lot displaying Apple logos on their site.)
So there are two issues here – Bryan’s original rant accusing LifeWay Downloads of unethical marketing and the presumed anti-Christian bias of several posters. I will address both issues.
First, LifeWay Downloads behaved in a proper and ethical manner. They are entering a risky, low margin business. As such, they may or may not make a profit. If you were entering such a business, would you initially support a platform that only had about 3% of the personal computer market? Of course not. If you manage to make a profit selling to the mass PC market, then you should consider incurring the additional costs of supporting Mac users. But it would be foolish to invest this money before the business model has proven successful with the much larger PC market. As I stated before, I chalk this up to Bryan’s love for the Mac – it must be hard to see your favorite platform have such a tiny share of the market. All in all, I enjoy Bryan’s site and may add it to my links the next time I change them.
The anti-Christian bias is more troublesome. I doubt the offenders in this case thought much about their comments. I certainly do not accuse Andrew nor the hosts of this week's COV of conscious bigotry, but I hope they refrain from these type of comments in the future. I am sure there are some odd folks who think Macs are anti-Christian, but there are also odd folks who think Bill Gates is the Anti-Christ. I hardly think pointing to a few oddities justifies bigotry. Andrew was kidding, but I decided to test his theory. If there was a significant number of Christian Mac users, I should be able to find Christian software for the Mac. I did. I would also point out there is a significant difference between Andrew's initial comment "a lot of fundies" and his explanation that he has seen "at least one rant."
Right now, I do not think the problem is very large, but it is growing. This is the time to ensure anti-Christian bigotry does not become a large problem. The best cure for this anti-Christian bias is simply to publicly draw attention to it when it occurs and hope the attention cures the problem.
Andrew,
Thanks for the comment and the suggestion. I took your advice and found a few intriguing links. I may have found what started the rumors to which you referred – the Church of Satan (http://www.churchofsatan.co...) linked to Apple for years before Apple asked them to desist. I also found that a mention of Microsoft working with the devilish company of Apple (http://www.texemarrs.com/12...).
So I freely grant you that some people may believe this nonsense and I also believe your last email to me where you stated that "I am not suggesting mainstream Christians believe that" stuff. However, I suggest you come up with another term than "fundies" for those who are out of the mainstream. My favorite definition of a fundamentalist is someone with more religion than you...
Anyway, thank you a polite response to my criticism.
Truthfully, I don't think the CotV comment was as anti-Christian as it was anti-Christian-Music. I /certainly/ don't have a problem with Christianity, but I'm not sure why anyone (even christians) would want to listen to/download that stuff. *shrug*
I think it's equalliy hard to justify the second comment as anti-Christian biggotry... surely you make the distinction between "fundies" and mainstream Christians, right?
Seems like you're being a little over-sensitivite to me. There may well be a growing Anti-Christian movement, but I don't think you're seeing examples of it here.
Admiral,
I certainly didn't attack the music service because it's Christian. I was really looking forward to being able to enjoy the first 30 days of free downloads, and the chance to purchase some select Christian music (Rich Mullins is my favorite musician, period).
My point was the disingenuous way the product is marketed: "music downloads for *everyone*." "No special software required."
Truth be told, I do *own* a Windows XP machine, and I could have downloaded the songs from there. But by that point, I was so miffed at the misleading marketing tactics of LifeWay and the backend service that I just gave up on it.
You say that LifeWay behaved in a proper and ethical manner. I don't necessarily agree with that. If they really wanted to be ethical about it, they would plainly state in their marketing materials that Macintosh and Linux computers are not supported (and neither are computers that run NT, Win95 or older versions of Windows Media Player, or people who prefer mp3 or real media formats).
You raise an interesting question: would you support a platform that only has 3 percent of the computer market. Well, no. But <i>you don't have to.</i> eMusic.com supports both windows and mac with mp3 downloads. RealOne (or whatever they call themselves this week) supports streaming across both platforms. Even the Windows Media Player is available for Mac and PC. In short, LifeWay didn't *have* to make an either/or choice. They could have (in the spirit of true Christian behavior) made it a both/and proposition.
As to the anti-Christian comments, I usually just let them roll off my back. It's part of the nature of the Internet. I figured they would come from the post, and, truth be told, there is a lot of Christian music that *doesn't* deserve to be downloaded.
Re: Pete's Comment - See above. I would encourage him to check out Mullins and artists like P.O.D., who just happen to be Christian. In short, it's not all derivative, just like all rock music isn't Britney Spears.
Thanks for reading. I'm glad someone got something from the post.
Pete,
Thanks for the difference in perspective. Perhaps I’m seeing stuff that isn’t there, but if so, some others are seeing it too. I don’t think either of the examples I pointed out were particularly harsh, but my intent was to point them out before future examples became harsh. I know a little about the blogs in question and believe these posters are mature enough to handle some constructive criticism. Andrew has certainly responded in a very mature fashion and deserved kudos for it.
No, actually I don’t see much of a difference between "fundies" and other Christians other than the fundamentalists seem more likely to walk what they talk. I think many people don’t understand the difference between a fundamentalist and a cultist and incorrectly use the two as synonyms.
I’ll leave it to you and Bryan to discuss the music issue; I mostly listen to classical myself. Of course, much of that was "Christian Music" when it was created ;-)
Bryan,
Thank you for the response. I tried to be as careful as possible in my post – I thought your only issue was the Mac issue. From a business perspective, I doubt Macs and Linux machines ever crossed the minds of the marketing folks. I expect their technical people told their marketing folks that this service would work with all PCs and they created a campaign around that. If they were deliberately trying to fool Mac and Linux users, this would be both unethical and stupid. But most unethical behavior is done for selfish gain – what gain is there in this situation?
If there is a easy technical solution for supporting both platforms, then yes, it would have made sense for LifeWay to have implemented it. However, for whatever reason, most companies make mistakes when they first launch new products (goods & services).
Bryan,
Never heard of Rich Mullins, I'll have to check him out... I've just never run across a christian group that I enjoyed. Not because they're not great musicians, just because I don't care much for the style (which is a much longer post and probably not worth hijacking the post for)... have any suggestions of Mullins songs to try out?
DQ,
Understood... I'm usually fairly sensitive to comments that sound inspired by biggotry and these really didn't, however I do understand the point wanting to "nip it in the bud" so to speak... as to the fundamentalist issue, I suppose it's all in the definition... around here (Central Alabama) "fundamentalists" tend to be identified by extremity of opinion AND action -- generally being regarded as a little too uptight and puritanical, but there are lots of ways to draw up that definition and it probably makes all the difference in the world.
Interesting thoughts nonetheless.
You'll have to take my word that the folks at LifeWay have Macs in a number of their offices. The fact that they are doing this in partnership with another firm (run by one of DC Talk) suggests that there may be deeper reasons behind the move. Like I said, emusic.com and iTunes both show that cross-platform can be done relatively easily.
Bryan,
Thanks for the input. I went ahead and emailed LifeWay and asked them if they would explain their reasoning. If they reply, I'll post their comments here.
I think you can find a link to it with Google. I can't remember where I saw it, might have been on Pagan Prattle. I am sure I blogged it too.