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The Gospel According to Neo

Posted by michael on from the overanalyzing dept.

Xel writes "Josh Burek, writer for The Christian Science Monitor and A.K.A. the guy who sits 4 cubicles from me, has written an excellent essay on religion in The Matrix: The Gospel According to Neo. Sure, this topic has been covered ad nauseum, but it's refreshing to see such a thoughful examination aimed not at geeks alone but a broader, more traditional, and more traditionally religious audience. It also has a nice little glossary at the end where even pasty-faced and vinyl-clad Matrix worshippers may find some easter eggs they didnt know."

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  1. What the CS Monitor is by mnemonic_ · · Score: 5, Interesting
    About the CS monitor (if you've never heard about it before, it's probably not what you think it is).

    Is the paper a religious periodical?

    No, it's a real newspaper published by a church -- The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Mass., USA. Everything in the Monitor is international and US news and features, except for one religious article that has appeared each day in The Home Forum section since 1908, at the request of the paper's founder, Mary Baker Eddy.

    In an age of corporate conglomerates dominating news media, the Monitor combination of church ownership, a public-service mission, and commitment to covering the world (not to mention the fact that it was founded by a woman shortly after the turn of the century, when US women didn't yet have the vote!) gives the paper a uniquely independent voice in journalism.

    Then if the paper's basically secular and for everybody, why is "Christian Science" in its name?

    Eddy insisted, against strong opposition from some of her advisers and church officers, that the words "Christian Science" should be in the paper's name. According to one of her biographers, Robert Peel, to Eddy, "the designated title was an identification of the paper with the promise that no human situation was beyond healing or rectification if approached with sufficient understanding of man's God-given potentialities. Nor did the 'good news' of Christianity involve the prettification of bad news, but rather, its confident confrontation" (witness Monitor correspondent David Rohde's widely followed reporting in late '95 on alleged massacres by Bosnian Serb forces).

    More about the CS Monitor's origin and purpose