A Houston pastor is putting a new spin on Apple Computer Inc.’s popular iPods, telling his Baptist congregation that the simple gadgets contain a religious lesson: Life can also be simple.

“The reason the outside of the iPod is so simple to use and so beautiful to look at is because of the way they designed the inside of the iPod,” Metropolitan Baptist Church Pastor Sal Sberna told his congregation Sunday during his second of four sermons on “iPod Theology.”

“All you do on the outside is push the little button, drive the wheel and pick what usefulness you want out of your iPod,” he said. “And so when Jesus talks to us about simplification, it must start on the inside.”

Sberna said preaching about the hugely popular iPods has helped attract people who otherwise might not attend church. The tens of millions who own iPods translates to a huge potential audience for his Sunday sermons, he added.

“I am always looking for something that a majority of people can relate to,” he said.

Sberna, who has two iPods, isn’t shy about his vision of reaching a younger, professional audience with hopes of increasing his 4,000 member congregation to 20,000. He’d like everyone in his congregation to own an iPod with a goal of one day offering his sermons through podcasts.

“When I go to iTunes, I select all that I want. When I go to Jesus Christ, he gives me all that I need. It’s that simple,” Sberna told his congregation Sunday morning. “Why have you not bought one of these things. These are so cool. They cost a little bit of money, but they are worth the money. Let me tell you something about salvation, it’s free but it’s not cheap.”

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“When I am sitting here and I am rocking out with my music … you don’t know what I am listening to. That is between me and the iPod,” he said. “That’s between me and God. That’s between you and God. All I can be responsible for is myself.”

Honey Bunches of Oats is the best cereal.

I like “unimpressed microphones.”

Alex: yes, some of us might have such an obligation (though we might differ on what “consume” means here). But it is, as you say, a scientific one, for the purpose of understanding only. Careful, though, lest you become the comical picture I have in my mind: walking in on a nutritionist gorging herself with doughnuts, claiming she’s just trying to “understand what it’s like to eat doughnuts”. After a while, you start to think maybe she just wants to eat them. Beware musical hypocrisy!

“Just as the iPod comes equiped with many different languages and is marketed to many different countries, so should the Bible be translated into many different languages and Jesus be marketed all over the world!”

“The fact that there is a coinstantiation of the white and black iPod teaches us that there is both good and evil in the world (it represents the yin and the yang), but also that good was prior and thus more fundamental than evil, for the white iPod came first and is more rockingest. In the same vein, the fact that the black iPod, which is the obvious and deliberate representation of evil by Apple, is so beautiful teaches us that evil may often be disguised as something apparently beautiful.”

“On the other hand, in the Garden of Eden God commanded us to not partake of the apple products, the iPod being one in fact, so even though, ‘These are so cool. They cost a little bit of money, but they are worth the money.’, it seems that God has forbidden the use of the iPod. However, Adam and Eve did eat the apple which too was forbidden, and as a consequence Jesus came and saved the world; so maybe by using the iPod we will summon Jesus’ return. Actually, the scriptures are clear on this - it’s all in Revelation.”

Oh man, maybe I should start a mega church. I’d probably rake in about 16,000 people just for talking about iPods and their very clear and purposed analogical relationships to spiritual truths, and probably another 9,000 people just because the church name will be “iChurch”. All sermons will be available via iTunes podcasting services. Furthermore, in an effort to give to the poor indirectly by stimulating the economy, all members of the church will be encouraged to shop as much as possible. All members will be required to have purchased an iPod before being admitted to the church and subsequently being baptised and all that.

What do you think? Sounds like a great money-making machine eh? Maybe then an iPod really will only cost “a little bit of money.”

Jon - I like your thoughts about media consumption responsibility.