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/
That book I cited quotes quite a few eminent prot theologians. You disagree with them about scripture.
All of that being true, and it is, then who decides what is truthful or not?
You think you decide.
Scripture tells us the Church decides
No matter which way you slice it - thick or thin - you are not an authority about Scripture.
That is a simple statement of fact. It is not an insult. I am not an authority either.
Jesus established a Hierarchal Church. It has authority to teach and settle arguments about Doctrine - that is the main purpose of Ecumenical Councils - which you reject.
It would be interesting to know how many in here think themselves bound by your personal opinions about Scripture vs how many there are in here who think the Church - Pope and Bishops binding, bind them.
Just curious...
1Pe 2:8 and, "A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.
*Brother, we not only believe it, we know what it means :)
Fro you, maybe your belief is in a phantom doctrine. Who knows?
As the Catechism is available for free online, there really isn't a defensible reason for your assertion we don't believe in the atonement.
I. JUSTIFICATION
1987 The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" and through Baptism:34
But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.35
1988 Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ's Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:36
[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.37
1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."38 Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.39
1990 Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God's merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.
1991 Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.
1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:40
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.41
1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:
When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight.42
1994 Justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that "the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth," because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will not pass away."43 He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.
1995 The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the "inner man,"44 justification entails the sanctification of his whole being:
Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. . . . But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.45
*Brother, do not, out of ignorance about what we believe, assert we do not believe in the atonement
He findeth first his brother Simon, and saith to him: We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looking upon him, said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is Peter.
*All you have to do, in sola scriptura's war against the Catholic Church, is to, well, ignore Scripture...
Sorry, I meant the Fathers (of the Church) in the first line you quote.
If you appeal to a 'scientific' understanding of personhood, then I submit that you really need to read the Fathers of the Church, particularly the Eastern Fathers. Theology is not a synthetic discipline like mathematics or abstract logic, but a positive science. The 'lab equipment' is the human nous, purified by repentence and asceticism. If you want a scientific, dare I say, empirical, approach to theology, you can find it in the Cappadocian Fathers and in St. Gregory Palamas. Your appeal to a 'scientific' notion of personhood, which is, in fact, not what the Fathers mean by 'person' (more properly hypostasis) as applied to either Tridaology or Christology simply confuses matters by giving words a non-standard meaning.
And you are wrong about unbegotteness: the Son and the Spirit have no beginning either, being coeternal with the Father. (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. . .)
More than twelve centuries before this, the same dogma was proclaimed in the words of the Nicene Creed, "who for us men and for our salvation, came down, took flesh, was made man; and suffered. "And all that is thus taught in the decrees of the councils may be read in the pages of the New Testament.
(d) These ideas retained their force well into the Middle Ages. But the appearance of St. Anselm's "Cur Deus Homo?" made a new epoch in the theology of the Atonement.
But it may be observed that the truth which they contain is already found in the Catholic theology of the Atonement. That great doctrine has been faintly set forth in figures taken from man's laws and customs. It is represented as the payment of a price, or a ransom, or as the offering of satisfaction for a debt. But we can never rest in these material figures as though they were literal and adequate. As both Abelard and Bernard remind us, the Atonement is the work of love.
I do find it a hoot that the Catholics try to say, "Well this is what the Protestants also believed." I can find NO writings on Protestants altering the western view of the atonement. The atonement was a price that had to be paid for our sins.
HD, you'll find this post interesting apropos of your comments:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1757380/posts
That's Nestorianism. There are not *two* Christs: "Christ the Word" and "Jesus the Christ". There is only one Christ. And that Christ is eternal and also born.
OK, so when YOU say that Christ is eternal and yet born, that is perfectly clear. When I say what I said, I am a Nestorian. Since it is Christmas I will take that as a joke. :)
-A8
Jesus said that He and the Father are one. So again, was He talking to Himself? I'll bet that I would agree with whatever your answer is, which is why I can't understand all these charges you are leveling at me.
No. The person of the Father is not the same person as the Son. They are one, but not one in person, but rather one in being.
which is why I can't understand all these charges you are leveling at me.
I'm saying that your position is Nestorian, because your position is Nestorian. What is it that do you not understand about that?
-A8
Borncatholic. What you have made are assertions. I disagree with your assertions. I disagree based upon my understanding of Scripture. You believe what you believe by faith alone. the "Church" has told you that the "Church" decides what Scripture says. The Apostle Paul, however praised the Bereans for searching the Scriptures to see if what he said was true. Jesus told people, not church hierarchies, to SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES. Paul said that ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY INSPIRATION AND IS PROFITABLE. John said that we have no need of a teacher. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. Over and over and over and over and over again the clear testimony of Scripture is that we, individuals, are to search the Scriptures for the answers to theological and other issues. You have chosen to ignore that because your CHURCH teaches you differently. Fine. That is your prerogative.
As far as the councils go, I only disagree with them insofar as what they say is contradictory to Scripture or the implications of their statements can be misconstrued to contradict Scripture. They are mere men. They are no holier than anyone else. They don't have the "edge" on Scriptural interpretation. Insofar as they listened to the Spirit's direction, I believe they made the right decisions. But, many times they cast Scdripture aside and moved into areas of speculation which netted bad doctrine which was then added to and expounded upon and ended up with Mary being exalted to the point that in the EWTN store there are more statues and items dedicated to MARY than to Jesus Christ.
Your church is wrong. I'll go even further. Your church is anti-Scriptural and frankly Anti-Mary and Anti-Christ. Your church has rejected the key reasons that Christ came. He came to save us. He came to save us purely from His grace, unmerited favor. He came to fulfill the law in that the law was only our teacher. It could never save us. Jesus HIMSELF said that he who believes in him HAS eternal life. Not He who believes, and does penance, and is baptized as an infant, and takes communion, and is confirmed, and has last rites, and "venerates" my mother, and blindly accepts whatever the Popes and second sons of european aristocrats decides is true, and belongs to a hierarchical institution - has eternal life. The Catholic church therefore bears NO RESEMBLANCE to biblical Christianity. I will not back down from that.
With that said, are their Catholics on their way to heaven? YES! They are there because of their faith in Jesus as Savior. That is a testimony to the mercy and grace of our Lord. He doesn't care WHAT is over the door of our church building. He cares about whether we have a relationship with Him and nothing more.
Bornacatholic - I do not call on you to leave your church. I don't care if you go to Mass or what you do. I do call on you to read the Scriptures. Immerse yourself in them. As the Holy Spirit to guide you. Jesus said that is what He is here for. Take advantage of that. Don't pick up commentaries. Don't pick up catechism sections. Just you and Jesus. If you come to the same conclusions, then fine. But at least you will have stepped aside and objectively pursued the evidence. Right now, you are only parroting what your church says is evidence. And you are condemning everyone else in the world that disagrees with your church for doing so.
Notice that you use your own personal interpretation to justify relying on your own personal interpretation. That's called "begging the question", arguing in a circle.
-A8
So, from all this we have Mary being married to both the Father and to Jesus, but it was the Holy Spirit Who impregnated her. This just screams "Tom Hanks movie" to me. :)
I hate to post and run, especially while I do enjoy our discussions. However, I'm heading off for the Christmas holidays. May everyone here have a joyous Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
Yeah, that's the key. You can discern what the Holy Spirit is saying by looking at what you already believe. That fool-proof method has produced 20,000+ Protestant sects, and church split upon church split.
-A8
-A8
Uh, the Catholic church has gone through a few splits of its own. Much larger, I might add, than any of the Protestant splits.
Okay then, Let's just throw Scripture away. Why don't we do that. Let's use only what a bunch of second sons of European Aristocracy have said over the years and see if we can come to agreement there. Oh, but wait! That's already being done.
It doesn't matter what I believe. It doesn't matter how I interpret it. It matters what Scripture says. I do not appeal to myself. I appeal to Scripture. You appeal to the SSOEA. I'll take my appeal to words on the pages of Scripture over your SSOEA any day.
It may be safely said that this is precisely what has come to pass. For the theory put forward by Anselm has been modified by the work of later theologians, and confirmed by the testimony of truth.
*Hmm, I guess you neglected to copy and paste that...
I'm shocked :)
In any event, that is how Doctrine develops in the Church established by Jesus and guided into all truth by the Holy Spirit He sent upon it.
There was an Original Deposit of Faith and the Holy Spirit guides us into a deeper understanding of that Original Deposit. It is just what one would expect from a Church that is living, not a moribund deracinated intellectual project frozen in the 16th century.
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