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Review - The Gospel Reloaded |
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The Gospel Reloaded
Exploring Spirituality and Faith in the Matrix
Authors: Chris Seay and Greg Garrett
Publisher: Pinon Press
review by Tom Gilbert
The Matrix movies
have created a wealth of discussion and debate about the
nature of reality and the meaning of life. This is unusual
for a trilogy of films heavily
dependent on wild visual effects and graphic action
that spurred box-office receipts and cranked out huge
video/DVD sales (the final installment, Revolutions,
is now available). The Matrix movies have greatly influenced
modern pop culture.
In the first Matrix movie Morpheus tells Neo it’s the “question
that drives you” and there are plenty of questions driving the spiritual
analysis in The
Gospel Reloaded (Pinon
Press). The book is authored by Chris Seay, pastor of
Ecclesia, a progressive Christian community in Texas,
and Greg Garrett, professor of English at Baylor University
and author of the
Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel Free Bird. Using
the many different religious and philosophical themes
in the Matrix movies as a springboard they delve into
the characters, the plot and even the action
and special effects elements in a wide-sweeping exploration
of the big questions.
Although both authors are Christians they don’t force a Christian
interpretation of the movies. Rather, like Paul sharing the gospel in Greece, they present
the story as an opening for discussions about life’s meaning, free will, nature of reality
and the idea of awakening to the spiritual search for God. Occasionally they stretch comparisons
a bit to make their point, but the discerning individual should be able to see the importance
of seeking the truth by looking at Christian beliefs alongside the backdrop of the Matrix story.
One of the integral points in the movie is that the world
of the Matrix is not the real world and that humans are
in fact enslaved by the machines that run the planet.
How this
came to be and the battles fought between humanity and
machines is a mind-bending plot. The
protaganist is Neo, the prophesied “One”,
a messiah-figure that rebels such as Morpheus and Trinity
believe will free the people from the tyranny of their
dream world.
The movies’ creators, the Wachowski brothers, enjoy keeping us
speculating about the true nature of reality and purposely
use elements of Buddhism, Gnosticism, Christianity
and many cultural post modern symbols (movies, literature,
comics, music) to present their message, and to keep us
guessing…and
searching. It’s not surprising that a book like The
Gospel Reloaded has been written. If you
can read it with an open mind you’ll discover that,
like the movies, the questions are often more important
than the answers.
Chief among these questions is the false idea that many in the Matrix accept:
that they are in control of their lives. If you’ve ever contemplated a life run on self-will
you should be able to exact wisdom here. From there it’s an easy step to the idea that we
are asleep to our real nature. Discovering that there are always leaps of faith (presented in a literal
way frequently in the movies) and that the path is easier to identify than to follow are ideas
that should resonate with anyone who has begun a spiritual quest.
Another aspect this book explores is the history of oppressed
or enslaved peoples becoming themselves oppressors. The
writers call this “humanity’s skeleton in our
collective closets”. The irony of the Matrix is that just
when mankind achieved its highest technological advancement
- the creation of artificial intelligence - the machines
turned
the tables and made the masters the servants. It’s
an important issue: we cannot seek freedom only to then
force our views on others, as organized religions, political
regimes and corporate
technology have done all too often throughout history.
Like the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar (the ship
captained by Morpheus), if we are to be truly liberated
we must live our beliefs in
a world
that opposes us. This is not easy to do without becoming
compromised – or betrayed.
Of course, the book can’t dodge the difficult issue of the amount of violence
in the movies. They submit a few rationales for this and you can decide which, if any, makes sense.
What I kept thinking was that the movies would probably not have been commercially acceptable without
the high-tech action effects they employ.
Finding meaning out of the hodge-podge of spiritual elements in the Matrix
films can be difficult and liberating. It shouldn’t be an attempt to form your own philosophy
separate from the Truth, but rather a way to look at the revelation of the divine from varying
perspectives. At the center of your belief will be how your experience relates to the truth as
disclosed to you. Maybe the point of the movie and this book is that being open to a bigger God than
you’ve allowed will help you follow the path.
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