Christians love an allegory. First Neo tells the agents he won't bring Morpheus to them. Then Morpheus says the rules of the matrix can be bent and broken but there are consequences. Remind you of anything? Then those pesky agents are everywhere and always trying to kill people who know the truth. The Oracle knows what's gonna happen but won't be involved. The mean guy is named Cipher which almost spells Lucifer. Neo risks his own life by going back into the Matrix to save Morpheus. Neo has to die to defeat the agent and then he comes back to life. And there's a character is named Trinity. It is way too much to be resisited and it has spawned many a sermon illustration.
18 comments:
This is so true. Isn't it funny that it's one of the most violent films ever too?
Can you please do a post about how Christians love to hate TV and blame it for all the ills in society? thank you
Interesting. At my Christian university the Matrix was only discussed in philosophy class. Mostly because the writers smashed together bits from across the playing board of philosophical thought. True, the movies had terms like Trinity and Zion, but I must be dense because I never once thought of any correlation to Christianity.
1. never heard the matrix used as a sermon. 2. tried to get into the first one but couldn't understand the plot. 3. never watched any of the sequels because the first one went over my head 4. pilgrim's progress is my favorite allegory.
I have to say I did hear the blue pill - red pill analogy a few to many times when it came out
They've done that at my youthgroup lock-in. Interestingly, like anonymous hinted at, it's actually much more gnostic.
Now the *old* generation hard core Christian culture, before the kinder gentler Matrix loving variety, thought The Matrix was too "New Age Movement" right up there with Star Wars being the beginning of the end of theism since "the force" is neither good nor bad.
But that was before Seeker Sensitivity came along...
When your pastor starts making sermon illustrations using the matrix, it is officially the first sign that you need to find a new church.
Thousands of pages of writings from all of the church fathers and other great thinkers that have gone before us, and we're using the Matrix?
Wow.
Man, I'm a Christian and The MAtrix trilogy is some of my favorite film ever, but the latter has little to do with the former. And I am plenty aware of the Christian symbolism and allusion made. However, I'm far from being ignorant, since the primary influences behind the story were not Christian at all — in fact, most were very "secular" sources of philosophy and science. Still, religious, especially Christian, symbolism and allusion have always been huge parts of the Western tradition of literature, so in that sense these films follow in that tradition. I also think that some of the ideology in these films can be interpreted to actually carry across a Christian message (i.e. Neo's eventual victory over Smith occurs when he decides to stop fighting and let Smith beat him, analogous to Christ's teachings of peace, repaying evil with good, and so forth, among other examples). Congruently, I also thing that the ideology of the films can be interpreted to have a strong anarchist or primitivist message, and certainly a Marxist and feminist agenda if looked at through the proper lenses. Heh.
Wasn't the Matrix based on EST which was based on Scientology which is based on L. Ron Hubbard's crazy schizo brain?
Christian culture embraces an allegory of an allegory written by a pagan?
Oh yes, in this case at least, but absolutely not in the case of Harry Potter.
I thought it was funny that Christian culture liked the first one but not the 2nd or 3rd.
It's hilarious that christianity has adopted this movie as an allegory for them considering that it was a direct on screen adaptation of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", a story that has nothing to do with christianity.
Matrix is full of conflicting metaphors and imagery, but as a fairly militant non-believer, I always thought of "the matrix" being more of a metaphor for religion slash mind controlling system - i.e. religion is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Substitute conservative politics, right wing propaganda etc... The red pill v blue bill choice is the choice of whether to abandon the comfort religion might bring you (which for most is their inability to deal with fear of their inevitable death) in favour of ending the fairy tale, accepting you are being used, and embracing reality, whatever the cost. I wasn't aware this was a particularly popular movie amongst the faithful - fortunately I find it relatively easy to avoid such people. It surprises me somewhat, but perhaps my interpretation here is an atypical one.
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