I've been listening in the last few days also. Hope this clickable banner is not prohibited..
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/
This post hasn't nothing I can see to disagree with - other than the free will being an illusion.
Where we disagreed was in the "intervention" part.
If I understand you correctly, some are picked for intervention and some are not, and this choice is, as I put it, capricious - no difference in elect/non-elect in any way.
And I believe in your view man has no choice even to resist being intervened with (if that's proper grammar).
I see your subtle difference here, but I still think you end up forced to have the whimsical God in the end. And free will but an illusion.
Okay, you are the only Protestant who ever fessed up that Protestantism is 'cozy.' Just take and give nothing back. Thank you!
We should pray, witness, and tithe
But why should you? You're already 'saved,' and God is driving...You may if you desire to, but you could be committing 300 adulteries a day, as Luther says, and know that God will just wipe those off your 'hit" list. Cozy.
It is an illusion to the man. He thinks he is free, but he's gone and put shackles on his own wrists and in his perversions parades them around as bracelets. His freedom is a god in his life. No "God" will tell him what to do, or he is free to choose to worship the god of his own choice. I make that small g god because, what he always chooses with his "freedom" is a god that looks just like the god he wants rather than the true God. He wants a god who is permissive, gushy with love, never angry, and thinks he's a swell person. He has bound himself up with a delusion that he is exercising free will. In reality, he is very unfree.
Can we who have been chosen go against God in the matter of salvation? Well, since God gives us the faith, I don't see how we can - but again, it isn't God saying "you can't turn back." It is more that we won't once we have been quickened by the Holy Spirit and graced with faith to believe. ALL that the Father giveth me SHALL COME - and of He who comes I will in no wise cast out.
There are some tensions in Scripture, but not insurmountable. I know that there is a balance between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility so that lost man dying and going to Hell is truly responsible for his own condition. He isn't going to Hell because God didn't choose him. He's going to Hell because he wants nothing to do with God and His revelation.
Evangelistically, I believe we should make no distinctions. I have no idea who God elected. For all I know, everyone living today has been elected. God called me to teach. God called us all to tell. I do my job and leave the salvation business up to God.
What the doctrine of election does for me is really a blessing. 1) I know that ALL credit goes to God. 2) I know that He will never cast me out. 3)I am humbled that I was chosen and awed by God.
Just a thought. Maybe not a great one here, but something I was thinking of. I'm sure you believe in the basic concept of our judicial system. You have someone guilty of a crime, the evidence of the guilt is made apparent and then they are found guilty. The judge then makes a choice. What should the guilty party's sentence be? For many, a righteous judge will give the most just punishment the law allows. For others, he gives a suspended sentence with no punishment.
That is like what God did in this way. All of us were guilty as charged. If given a choice, we would always turn back at some point to sin. It is just our nature.
We violated God's righteous standards. His law. But He being the chief legislature had two requirements 1)The crime must be punished; 2)The price was death.
Yet, out of His mercy and love, the judge chose to send His son to pay the penalty by dying on the cross.
Well, here we are, still as sin bound as ever. Loving every moment of it. Blind. Worthless. Miserable. And we defiantly will not even acknowledge the gift.
But God has a desire that we know Him. The only way he can do this is by electing some to salvation. From this, they can see his mercy and grace as well as justice and wrath.
I don't know the mechanics of it all. But it is what the Bible teaches that God did.
He paid my sentence and then changed my heart. Others were not so blessed - as he didn't change their hearts. He didn't say they couldnt come. They just never would. And so, they remain guilty and the crime ends up being paid for in their own spiritual death rather than the substitutionary atonement of our Lord's own life.
Thanks for all your effort and thought and time and consideration in Post 3956. I mean that sincerely.
What can I say? I have read scripture a great deal, and it came alive for me in a different meaning and way than you. If I approach scripture like a theology textbook, then there are better lawyers than I and they can make great arguments either way - complete with footnotes and precedence and annotations. This, to me, is not religion. And personally, I've found it a counterproductive use of scripture.
Paul, when I read him, is far from a predestinarian (if that's a word). And Jesus's ministry is of such a different view of God that I cannot recognize it coming from your interpretation. Thus is the quandry of proof-texting.
No, God is not what I want 'emotionally.' Of course, I could say the same for other's view. It's difficult at times, but I think we should avoid psychological attributions for others when we can spot them.
There's an old aphorism: "God must have really hated me; he gave me everything I wanted." This applies to me more than a God of my psychological needs.
No, it's much tougher to know God as Jesus taught. Forgiveness is a lot more difficult. "Repenting" and then realizing what true repentence means is much more difficult.
Dying to self, forgiving others, realizing your own forgiveness. This is all much more difficult. True surrender of self is a very hard commandment.
So, if I pick what I'd rather, or what is easier, I wouldn't pick the God I know.
However, if I pick Truth, then here I Am.
Thanks again for your very generous post..
LOL!!!
That same phrase about his birth blew my mind too. Where did THAT come from? (that is wasn't your usual, run of the mill birth). That's a new one on me!
As for Hollywood coming up with an accurate account of Jesus' life.....it ain't gonna happen.
I agree with almost all of this post. It's just when you arrive at the C&C God that I cannot agree. This is just not the God I see Jesus teaching, the God that I recognize when I read scripture, the God that the Apostles speak of, that the Church has always taught.
And most importantly, it's not the God that I know in my heart and in my life.
I've been listening in the last few days also. Hope this clickable banner is not prohibited..
I'm behind you on that one, annalex, but only if we make it verses from Scripture and an empty cross (as big as you want.)
You're right, however. Our culture is sick because much of our culture is godless (or so it thinks.)
Really truly excellent post, Blogger.
I may swipe from it considerably. 8~)
It is in your view of God allowing eternal hell to serve as an example and/or:
But God has a desire that we know Him. The only way he can do this is by electing some to salvation. From this, they can see his mercy and grace as well as justice and wrath.
An example implies, no requires, the possibility of learning something, of changing based on experience gained from the example. Absent this, it's is not an really an example.
If I take two identical twin brothers and kill one in front of the other randomly, what have they learned from this example? No matter what their crime, one has learned I killed him, the other that I did not kill him. This is not a lesson or learning experience in the normal sense. It's not a textbook example.
The spared twin may be grateful, may even have a Stockholm conversion, but viewing me as 'merciful' is not a reasonable conclusion. I certainly wasn't merciful to his brother, and he is identical in all respects. In fact, the very forceful point, I tell him, is that there is no reason at all I chose to spare him and there's nothing his brother could possibly have done to stop me from killing him - they both deserved killing and still do.
Except under psychological breakdown he wouldn't be grateful, nor loving towards his brother's killer and his tormentor.
Morever, your view is that there is nothing that he can change based on this example; I'll change him into exactly what I want him to be, no matter what. It is this lack of free will or of any discernable rhyme or reason that I see as the major flaw in your description of God. YOU may not see it as cruel, to kill one in front of the other arbitrarily - as an example - but it is the only intelligent conclusion that I can see.
I accept that you don't see this God as cruel. The main thing I object to is people teaching this view of God to others with the possible result that they will believe this is what Jesus taught, what Christianity truly is. I think this is harmful and the first rule of religious teaching should be do no harm.
There is a classic clinical psychology experiment. In it they take test dogs and deliver small shocks to them. For some the shocks follow a pattern - either they are in one specific location or after some particular behaviour.
The subjects in these cases stay alert and learn what to do or what to avoid.
For another set of subjects, they apply the shocks without any pattern or possibly discernable reason. The dogs in these experiments at first are alert and jump away from the shocks. But before long they stop jumping away. What they "learn" there is nothing they can do; they stay put and get shocked, then give up and become helpless whimpering puddles of pooch.
Now we are not animals, and religion is not solely about reward and punishment; however, to be an example, to teach something, anything, requires the possibility of learning or choosing, and cannot violate reason or some discernable cause and effect.
Because of this, I believe your underpinning - 'example' in your theology - fails.
Now, with my thanks for your time and patience, I leave the floor to you..
There is nothing that we have that hasn't been given to us. What we give back is what God had already provided.
But why should you [give back]? You're already 'saved,' and God is driving
Why not. He gave us everything. Can't we give back a little?
I have a memory from the L&E thread that is just barely strong enough to mention, but I thought that the Orthodox view was that Mary was filled with grace at around age 3, when she entered the Temple. I also want to say Palamas, but I have no quote. :) If I'm all wet then I apologize. I'm just trying to keep the differences straight in my head. :)
That is an outstanding comparison, Blogger. :) Fair is fair. I'm going to remember it. :)
"[Blogger to Kosta:] Oh, and I have a feeling that Luther's "Sin Boldly" which you all love to quote is somewhat akin to Athanasius' "Jesus died so we can be God."
That is an outstanding comparison, Blogger. :) Fair is fair. I'm going to remember it. :)"
The difference, of course, being that Luther's comment can lead to damnation while +Athanasius' states theosis, FK.
"A person is perfect in this life when as a pledge of what is to come he receives the grace to assimilate himself to the various stages of Christ's life. In the life to come perfection is made manifest through the power of deification." +Gregory of Sinai
"But we also know that the fulfillment of the commandments of God gives true knowledge, since it is through this that the soul gains health. How could a rational soul be healthy, if it is sick in its cognitive faculty? So we know that the commandments of God also grant knowledge, and not that alone, but deification also" +Gregory Palamas
"The grace of deification thus transcends nature, virtue and knowledge, and (as St. Maximus says) `all these things are inferior to it.' Every virtue and imitation of God on our part indeed prepares those who practice them for divine union, but the mysterious union itself is effected by grace. It is through grace that `the entire Divinity comes to dwell in fullness in those deemed worth,' and all the saints in their entire being dwell in God, receiving God in His wholeness, and gaining no other reward for their ascent to Him than "God Himself." +Gregory Palamas
"[Blogger to Kosta:] Oh, and I have a feeling that Luther's "Sin Boldly" which you all love to quote is somewhat akin to Athanasius' "Jesus died so we can be God."
That is an outstanding comparison, Blogger. :) Fair is fair. I'm going to remember it. :)"
The difference, of course, being that Luther's comment can lead to damnation while +Athanasius' states theosis, FK.
"A person is perfect in this life when as a pledge of what is to come he receives the grace to assimilate himself to the various stages of Christ's life. In the life to come perfection is made manifest through the power of deification." +Gregory of Sinai
"But we also know that the fulfillment of the commandments of God gives true knowledge, since it is through this that the soul gains health. How could a rational soul be healthy, if it is sick in its cognitive faculty? So we know that the commandments of God also grant knowledge, and not that alone, but deification also" +Gregory Palamas
"The grace of deification thus transcends nature, virtue and knowledge, and (as St. Maximus says) `all these things are inferior to it.' Every virtue and imitation of God on our part indeed prepares those who practice them for divine union, but the mysterious union itself is effected by grace. It is through grace that `the entire Divinity comes to dwell in fullness in those deemed worth,' and all the saints in their entire being dwell in God, receiving God in His wholeness, and gaining no other reward for their ascent to Him than "God Himself." +Gregory Palamas
"Three realities pertain to God: essence, energy, and the triad of divine hypostases. As we have seen, those privileged to be united to God so as to become one spirit with Him - as St. Paul said, 'He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with Him' (I Cor. 6:17) - are not united to God with respect to His essence, since all theologians testify that with respect to His essence God suffers no participation.
Moreover, the hypostatic union is fulfilled only in the case of the Logos, the God-man.
Thus those privileged to attain union with God are united to Him with respect to His energy; and the 'spirit', according to which they who cleave to God are one with Him, is and is called the uncreated energy of the Holy Spirit, but not the essence of God..." +Gregory Palamas
Orthodoxy 101, FK. Simple. :)
"You aren't denying eternal preexistence with that statement are you? Using "origin" sounds like beginning. God has no beginning."
No. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the Creed states. There was never a "time" when the Holy Spirit didn't "exist". Actually, using a word like "pre-existence" is not appropriate when speaking of God Who created existence, though I understand what you mean. We are constrained by our own existence and language to speak of God the best we can. Orthodoxy often finds its easier to say what God is not rather than what He "is".
I didn't think you were, but needed that re-affirmed.
No, Luther's statement won't lead to damnation for a Christian and it won't make a non-Christian any worse off than before. I mean how much worse off can one get than going to Hell? You can't be "more" going to Hell. Luther's point was made during a sermon and I'm sure the true meaning was not lost on his congregation. Knowing Luther and what he went through before coming to Christ, it makes perfect sense - though he was being just a tad awnry (sp???) when saying it as the "meek and never controversial" :) Luther could be.
Are you trying to tell me that all these people read the Fathers, understand the Ecumenical Councils, have a full grasp on the scriptures? I doubt it. The reason most of these people are moving to the Orthodox Church is for the mystacism, not the theological logic. You can't make a logical choice on what you don't know.
BTW, as we have discussed in the past, the very early church fathers came from pagan backgrounds carrying that baggage with them. While their writings are interesting and beneficial I wouldn't put too much stock in them when comparing it against scripture.
Taste and See...
Thanks but no thanks. You will never convince me there is no original sin or Christ didn't atone for our sin through His sacrifice. I want nothing to do with this religion but don't be offended. There are some Protestant denominations that I want nothing to do with either.
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