Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children
By John-Henry Westen
NEW YORK, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A review of New Line Cinema's The Nativity story by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger of the Franciscans of the Immaculate in the United States, points out that the film, which opened December 1, misinterprets scripture from a Catholic perspective.
While Fr. Geiger admits that he found the film is "in general, to be a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery." He adds however, that "not only does the movie get the Virgin Birth wrong, it thoroughly Protestantizes its portrayal of Our Lady."
In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible predicts the coming of the Messiah saying: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Fr. Geiger, in an video blog post, explains that the Catholic Church has taught for over 2000 years that the referenced Scripture showed that Mary would not only conceive the child miraculously, but would give birth to the child miraculously - keeping her physical virginity intact during the birth.
The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."
Fr. Geiger contrasts The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ, noting that with the latter, Catholics and Protestants could agree to support it. He suggests, however, that the latter is "a virtual coup against Catholic Mariology".
The characterization of Mary further debases her as Fr. Geiger relates in his review. "Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology."
Beyond the non-miraculous birth, the biggest let-down for Catholics comes from Director Catherine Hardwicke's own words. Hardwicke explains her rationale in an interview: "We wanted her [Mary] to feel accessible to a young teenager, so she wouldn't seem so far away from their life that it had no meaning for them. I wanted them to see Mary as a girl, as a teenager at first, not perfectly pious from the very first moment. So you see Mary going through stuff with her parents where they say, 'You're going to marry this guy, and these are the rules you have to follow.' Her father is telling her that she's not to have sex with Joseph for a year-and Joseph is standing right there."
Comments Fr. Geiger, "it is rather disconcerting to see Our Blessed Mother portrayed with 'attitude;' asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage, choosing her words carefully with her parents, and posing meaningful silences toward those who do not understand her."
Fr. Geiger adds that the film also contains "an overly graphic scene of St. Elizabeth giving birth," which is "just not suitable, in my opinion, for young children to view."
Despite its flaws Fr. Geiger, after viewing the film, also has some good things to say about it. "Today, one must commend any sincere attempt to put Christ back into Christmas, and this film is certainly one of them," he says. "The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ, but it is at least sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square."
And, in addition to a good portrait of St. Joseph, the film offers "at least one cinematic and spiritual triumph" in portraying the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. "Although the Magnificat is relegated to a kind of epilogue at the movie's end, the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is otherwise faithful to the scriptures and quite poignant. In a separate scene, the two women experience the concurrent movement of their children in utero and share deeply in each other's joy. I can't think of another piece of celluloid that illustrates the dignity of the unborn child better than this."
See Fr. Geiger's full review here:
http://airmaria.com/
And I am sure that they didn't know which way was 'up' either!
Good morning, MHGinTN! Thank you for your kind words....
No -- why? The gospels are filled with things that we are to do, whereas we are also free to not do them.
It all depends on who is doing the electing. My side says that God has already done all the electing, from before the foundations. It's done, in the can, case closed, etc. I "thought" that the Catholic view was that God fast-forwarded His TIVO to see who would accept Him, and then declared them the elect, but did that also from the beginning. In both cases the elect were all set originally, but by different means.
It appears you may be introducing a third option. If a person must REMAIN elect, then that erases any idea of predestination of any sort. If one's state of election is constantly in flux, then what is your concept of predestination?
"flesh accounts for nothing" is a mistranslation. It actually says "flesh profits nothing", and therefore refers not to the flesh of Christ, but to the flesh of the eater, which indeed gains nothing from the communion bread gastronomically speaking.
I don't have any problem with "profits" vs. "accounts". What's the difference? Look what the actual verse says:
John 6:63 : The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
The bread and the wine are not, (and do not lead to), spirit and life, His word is. Of course, if we take your view, then we could say that if the eater's flesh profits nothing, then the works of that flesh also profit nothing.
Both 1 Cor 7:21-23 and Romans 6:17-18 speak of liberation from sin and "slavery of righteousness" is not an indication of lack of an ability to choose wrong, but rather lack of desire to choose wrong.
Yes! They are about the results of changed hearts.
The context of 1 Corinthians 7 is general obedience to the "calling", thus it exhorts our free will; likewise Romans 6: "yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification". If it is "slavery" it is a voluntary form of it.
I have to disagree, since it seems you are referring to a general "outward calling". Another example would be that God wants all men to be saved. In these passages, I think it's different because the reference point is a heart that has already been literally changed. Thus, there is no freedom to throw that away permanently. In the passages you cite, there is a definitive "before" and "after". So, I think it is much more specific than general obedience. I think he is describing who the new person is.
The new slavery is NOT voluntary because we are not our own and we were bought at a price. Nobody asked me if I was for sale, it just happened. :) Praise God that it did.
Ouch!... thats gotta hurt..
Morning m’Lady.
This discussion of ‘water’ and spirit I find interesting ... I use the phrase ‘water world of the womb’ quite often in my pro-life pleadings. Anyone observing a birth knows that the child is coming forth from a water world into the air world. To be born again is to be born of the Spirit; this is all made clear in John’s Gospel, from chapter one right through chapter three.
Perception is everything, I suppose. Yet you should know that Pope Benedict XVI effected a change this year in the Stations of the Cross that RCs make a part of their Easter observance; a rather controversial change (and upsetting for some): He removed all reference to Saint Veronica who, according to legend and Catholic tradition, out of loving compassion wiped the bloody visage of our Lord with her veil as he struggled under the crushing weight of His Cross along the Via Dolorosa.
The reason given: The traditional account of Saint Veronica does not have a scriptural basis.
A striking insight, my dear friend! And certainly true!
But why this and not other/or all NoN scriptural tradition(s)?..
Must be some logic for this unique change and not others..
Why, even the colloquial Serbian Lord's Prayer is a copy of the KJV version ("...as it is on earth and in heaven" instead of "in heaven and on earth...", "as we forgive those..." instead of 'as we hgave forgiven those..." and "deliver us from evil." instead of 'rescue us from the Evil One.").
These errors contain subtle theological distortions whose sum-total results in one large distortion.
The oldest bibles, the Alexandrian text-type 4th century Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus show variations, but are not as altered, redacted and edited, indeed manicured, as all the later ones, including the 5th century Codex, which is a mix of Byzantine and Alexandrian text-type; the rest (the so-called Majority Text), literally a couple of thousand of them, ar basically all Byzantine text-type and are highly unreliable.
Corruption and manipulation has been in Christian NT copies from the earliest days. Because there are no originals to compare it to, and because the oldest manuscripts come is shreds (we call them fragments to give them more dignity) which are still copies of copies, the only way to compile an orthodox (lower-case "o") bible is by textual criticism, and that is like trying to solve a major mystery by circumstantial evidence with no reliable leads.
For a Bible to be considered unadulterated Word of God, it must be beyond the shadow of a doubt in the strictest meaning of the phase. And, thus far, that is not possible except on blind faith.
This is not because we doubt God, but because we doubt men. The Apostles may have very well written pristine inerrant Gospels, because they were inspired. But copiers and falsifiers who copied them were not.
Does scripture still carry the powewr of God unto Salvation?... Can a man be lead to Christ with the available scriptures, in your estimation? Or, like the Mormon apologists I’m debating on another thread, do you think a more perfect telling of the Gospel is needed and those who have lived in the past are lost due to the errancy of men and the gnarl ‘Messoretic’ Jews made of the Tanach? How weak is your god?
the question is more whether the scriptures were ever intended as a means unto themselves to lead folks to God.
if you read Holy Scripture God has always favored a priesthood for the purpose of bringing people to the message Scripture contains.
Kosta is right, HD and it is for that reason, among others, that Kawaii in 13,132 is too. The nearest thing we have to knowledge of how and what the very early Church believed is contained in the Traditions of The Church and writings of The Fathers which provide us with the context within which to understand, as best we can, and live out the scriptures we do have.
I realize that my spiritual stance is off-putting to many because I eschew the doctrines and traditions of men. But the Spirit leads each of us according to God's will. And it is truly a wonderful thing to see agreement on so many core beliefs - that can only come from Him.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. - I John 4:1-3
But each has a different “official” doctrine or explanation based largely upon what is allowed in the "toolset."
Meanwhile, I’m over here – footloose and fancy-free – exploring wherever I am compelled to look. My prayer is to know everything God wants me to know, but no more.
One of the advantages of eschewing the doctrines and traditions of mortal men is that I follow wherever the Spirit leads, without guilt or shame. So if I am drawn to the Pseudepigrapha (including Enoch) - I read it – ditto for the Talmud, Catechises, Jewish Kabbalah, science or whatever.
But I take nothing as Truth unless the Spirit personally authenticates it to me.
As if to underscore the importance of the canon, He faithfully authenticates all of the books of Scripture. And yet He sets off an alarm within me when something is lost – such as God’s name, The Rock from the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 – or added, such as the word “most” to an erroneous quote from the NASB translation of Luke 1:42 in reference to Mary but not Jesus.
So I trust God, I believe Him, I count on Him – not men.
A central leaning He has given me is that God the Father has indeed revealed Himself in four ways: through His only begotten son Jesus Christ, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures and through His Creation.
Oh, I thought you believed that a person was saved and elect outside of anything he could do. Are you now suggesting that one must have a certain amount of self-generated faith to become saved???
I further do not understand how God can rule that "Fred" is justified in His eyes, only to have that ruling overturned by the, presumably, higher power of Fred, through later actions.
Being justified depends on our relationship with God. Are we in a relationship with Him or not? This is not about some irrevocable bus ticket good in 30 years... It is about a loving relationship, or lack of it, over the course of our lives.
St. Paul wouldn't recognize himself after being run through the lens of the Church. :) He absolutely taught Sola Fide. Apparently, there are two separate Pauls.
Although that is humorous, you have hardly proven that Paul teaches sola fide. This would suggest that James and Paul taught opposite things, as James does NOT teach sola fide. Of course, that explains why Luther wanted James removed... The earliest Christians certainly didn't believe that. I guess all of those Christians must not have been paying attention to the only person teaching sola fide, in your opinion.
On the one hand, I am saying that the core concepts of Christianity are understandable (perspicuous) to the average disinterested reader.
You have not proven that, either. This thread is proof that the "core" concepts are not in agreement. Other forums that I go to are even more separated on issues such as the trinity. While there are a number of Protestants who share Catholic beliefs like the trinity, many do not see it in Scriptures. While you may feel that a person can take the book and read it for himself and determine what it should mean, that has not been the way of Christianity found in the Bible.
Look. Christ left a body of men and gave them authoritative powers - not a book that people would refer to and judge for themselves what Christians are to believe. That should give you cause to re-analyze your stand. If not, what can I say? Look at what Christ left His Apostles. Figure it out. Decide for yourself if you are continuing in that manner.
Regards
The reason given: The traditional account of Saint Veronica does not have a scriptural basis.
Not that St. Veronica should be dismissed, but he has made honored the difference between Scripture and tradition by this action - much like the Jews make a distinction between the Torah and the Talmud.
Such as....?????
Holy Water.. Incense.. and other stage props in the drama..
Like that..
This simple truth is the power of the Gospel, that you and I are called to tell others of His love and Grace, so that the Holy Spirit may minister to their hearts and call them forth to be born again. I know from the witness of others that the scriptures have the power to open the heart to the Holy Spirit. I also know from my own experience that the witness of Christ in the lives of others brings people to the Savior. To call that the work of a priesthood now is to miss the essence of Salvation. To maintain a healthy relationship with The Lord, we are admonished to gather together under the leadership of 'bishops' and 'priests', else Paul would not have given instruction as to the character nature required for these posts in the Church of believers.
The scriptures may indeed prepare the heart, but the 'leading others to The Lord' is the essence of why Jesus gave the story of the cursed fig tree. The simplicity of the Grace in Christ shows God to be most powerful on our behalf. To them who are perishing, this simple Gospel is foolishness.
the devil is in the details, literally speaking, when it comes to believing what the bible says, as subtle change create subtle alterations in theological concepts. The sum-total of those is a distortion of early Christian beliefs. It amount's to nothing short of satan's disinformation, and it's intended to mislead and further distort.
We can only know what the early Church believed and how it worshipped by using the oldest biblical sources and Church descriptions of worship, beliefs and commentaries. We also know what the Church believed and how God was worshiped in the earliest centuries of the our Faith through our unchanged liturgical services. The Orthodox liturgy goes back 1,700 years (Saint Basil) and even further (Saint James).
These services untilize the Bible as the basis, interpreting it as the early church did. This is how the earliest Christians prayed and how they believed.
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