Many today consider movies, television shows, and the media in general to be the “new church” for this generation. This new church defines who we are as a people and what we believe to be true about ourselves and our world. It’s power is undeniable, and God is in it. We must learn how to use it honestly and effectively.
How is God at work? Here are some examples that may challenge the conventional thinking of our time. The Truman Show from 1998 and The Matrix from 1999 depict a world in which man lives in a false reality but is unaware of it. What they see before them, they accept as reality.
In Truman, Jim Carey’s character, Truman Burbank, discovers he is living in a constructed reality soap opera televised 24/7 to the entire world. Everything in his life has been a lie. In the final climatic battle, the executive producer of the show, Christof, tries to convince Truman to stay by announcing, “You will find no more truth in the real world than there is in your own artificial world.” Is that not the same message that satan tries to convince us that the world we live in offers more than the world God promises us?
In The Matrix, Keanu Reeves, plays Neo, a Christ-like Messiah, who attempts to free mankind out of bondage from the matrix. Neo lives in a world created by a computer program that mankind is unaware of. He lives with all mankind in a dream state of reality. Neo is given a choice to take a red pill or a blue pill. One will reveal the truth. Or he can take the other pill and continue to live in the false reality. It is his choice or his “free will”. However, he seeks the truth and soon discovers that everything he believes to be true is a lie. As Neo seeks the truth, others try to convince him that he is wrong or deceived. When he continues his pursuit, immediately the others try to keep him from exposing the truth (because the Truth will set you free) to mankind and ultimately try to destroy him. In many ways, The Matrix is a metaphor for how God is trying to reveal His truth to mankind. We are deceived by satan or the matrix to believe that the world we live in is the real world when, in fact, this life we believe is truth is satan’s matrix for mankind.
The Forgotten from 2004 and Juno from 2007 both embrace the sanctity of life. In The Forgotten, Telly Paretta believes her son, Sam, died in a plane crash. Her family and doctors are trying to convince her that she is suffering from a delusion because Sam never existed. The Forgotten offers a surprising twist in this clever science fiction film where we discover that an alien race is conducting an experiment to determine whether the bonds between a mother and child can be broken. Obviously, they cannot. There is a spiritual connection between mother and child. It goes beyond the physical to the soul. The Forgotten is one of the best examples about the sanctity of life ever produced. I’m sure that’s not what the filmmakers intended; nevertheless, that’s the result.
Juno is a story about a teenager with an unwanted pregnancy. Helen Page plays Juno MacGuff, who contemplates what her choices are. She seeks a family to adopt her child. Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay for the film based on her own high school experiences. Juno is an endorsement for adoption over abortion.
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