'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children

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."

Here's a thought I've been pondering on. Is it possible that in fact Rome keeping the scripture from the people did contribute to the Protestant revolution in this way. By keeping the bible from the people through centuries of barbarism in the West, which the East didn't experience, the people and even the lower clergy forgot their proper role in the working of The Church.
Scripturally, Kolo, Christians are to keep other Christians accountable. There is a certain order to things. However, think upon what had been going on for a few centuries in Catholicism in terms of immoral Popes, the "babylonian captivity at Avignon", Simony, Pluralism, Indulgences,etc., The church hierarchy had basicically become secular and had ceded their spiritual authority though they tried to utilize it as overlords over all of Europe. Gotta king who is going to do something politically that you don't like, excommunicate him? Wanna fight a war? Well, as Pope you have all of the power and influence in the world to lean on the right people and send out people yourself in order to "getter done." Need money? Not hardly, you're the Pope! Spend spend spend as much as you want and on whatever you want. Then go through and collect from the peasants who are there to serve you. I would submit that at that time the "Church" at Rome had ceased being the church at all and the only holiness one found was in pockets and in spite of Roman emphasis of the day.

Enter Luther. Luther was a man who was raised to be an attorney, but in a fit of superstition and fear promised to be a priest if St. Anne would get him out of a thunderstorm. Once there, to his credit, he took his role seriously. Yet, the more he tried to be a churchman, the more aware he was of his own sinfulness. Who tells us we are sinners in need of change? Is it Satan? Would Satan have said, Luther, you're a sinner and you need to change. Or was it God? Well, in honesty, there was a bit of both working in Luther at the time. God was showing Luther his own sinfulness in comparison to God's holiness. Satan was then taking all of the rules and regulations and superstitions and hammering Luther with them. Luther did confession to the point that his confessor became a bit aggravated with him. He tried a bit of aesceticism. He wanted to be closer to God and free from his own sinfulness but the more he did the further away God felt from him. In his desire to be nearer to God, Satan was taking the impossibility of works reconciling man to God and putting a nice little twist on it that was beginning to make Luther resent God as an impossible task master. NOTHING in the Roman system led Luther to believe otherwise. It was only through his study of Scripture that he was freed.

Luther saw "The just shall live by faith." And the words were freedom. God was no longer an impossible task master but as Luther wrote:
I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

Christ desires unity in His church. But at what cost? Would you give up your beliefs in order to be unified with the Protestants? Would you drop your objections to Rome completely in order to be united with it and ignore the areas of difference? We saw earlier on where the church at that time, as far as hierarchy goes, could easily be described as satanic. A pope who not only had illegitimate kids and mistresses but supposedly had an orgy in the Vatican does not appear to be one who is operating in Christ's authority. The Shepherds of the church of Rome had become the evil Shepherds of Ezekiel 34. And God Himself raised up other Shepherds who took the authority for what they had to say strictly from the written record that God left in Scripture. Surely, Kolo, in comparison to what was, the Protestants should be seen as a vast improvement in terms of holiness and truth.

Does this mean that Luther and Calvin were perfect? Far from it. Both did some awful things. But, they were also men of their times and they didn't do anything that hadn't been done many times before in the name of Christendom. Just as when we die, none of us have reached the full santification that is entailed in being just like Christ without sin, doubt, etc., On earth, their sanctification was not fully complete either. Today, they are well aware of where they were in error as far as their treatment of their fellow man goes. There are also issues of doctrine that I believe both men erred on, but not of essential nature. I am closer to Calvin than Luther on the Lord's Supper for instance and would probably be found somewhere between Calvin and Zwingli. I believe that this is Scriptural. Other Christians disagree. For us, this is not an essential but a secondary doctrine. Important but not crucial.

society became feudal in the West, so did The Church there such that the people's role in The Church became like their role in society...serfs subject to the whim of their overlords.
This happened earlier than feudalism. It began happening in the 300s with Constantine. Whenever the church becomes synonymous with the state, there are going to be issues. It wasn't so much feudalism then, though organizationally it was to play a significant role, but rather power. Christendom, led by its Popes, kings, and princes conquered new territories and MADE THEM "Christian". My ancestor, Charlemagne was a big proponent of "Evangelism by the sword". Not one of Christianity's finer moments, but it is what it is.

Once the people did read the bible, that knowledge gave them power and that power, once unleashed lead to a true revolution.
Very very true.

The Church in the West, untethered from the restraining ecclesiology of the East, reacted rigidly as overlords are wont to do. By the time The Church realized the extent of the reforms necessary, a full blown "French Revolution" was underway and it was too late to stop it.
They couldn't have stopped it earlier. God had engineered it. He took what was a mess and salvaged it. Read Ezekiel 34. Shepherds who do not follow the Good Shepherd are not of God at all.

In the meantime, the reformers, having cut themselves off from The Church and its "oneness" and "apostolicity"
I would submit that they had returned to the apostolicity of the church and the oneness. Just because there are many different brands of Protestantism doesn't mean on essentials we are not largely unified. Second, genealogies mean nothing if the cores have been stripped from them. I could say, I am a descendant of the kings of France and therefore am entitled to rule over the French. But though I am a biological descendant, there is nothing in me that equips me or authorizes me to lead as I am very much "not French." The Popes may be able to trace a genealogy of sorts back to the days of the early church. I would submit that their genealogy however is a broken mess. It is not an unbroken succession. Would one really consider Pope Benedict VIII who bought the papacy, Pope Benedict IX who had people murdered, Pope Boniface VIII who ordered the slaughters of every man woman and child in a certain town as did Pope Clement VI, the Borgia Pope who we have already mentioned, and many others descendants of Peter?

Just as not all are called Israel who are physically descended from Abraham, so not all are called Apostolic that are linearly descended (and most arguably) from the Apostles. A Spiritual descendency is what is important here. Our beliefs should find root in what the Apostles learned and taught in Scripture. So rather than being cut off from Apostolicity, I submit the reformers regained it.

Finally, why are there so many sects of Protestantism compared to very few varieties for Orthodoxy and Catholicism? Well, first, the shepherds over the church had done a horrific job of being shepherds. The needs of the flock were not being met spiritually, physically, or in any other way. Rather, the people were being exploited. I believe God allowed the fragmentation (while preserving unity on essentials) so that no one man or group of men could be overlord over the whole body. Second, by allowing some fragmentation it was as Iron sharpening Iron. Some Protestant sects have unfortunately become heterodox. But if you do a search on the net for statements of faith on the major denominations you will find considerable and substantial unity. We may not have a Pope or Bishop over the whole group of us, but such does not imply that we are wandering sheep without a Shepherd. We are Shepherded by Christ and the Word of God. When groups of us do wander, it is usually because we have ceded the Shepherding over to some philosophy of man and away from Scripture. Some Protestant denominations are dying because they have embraced man's methods and shunned the Word of God. They want a feel-good "fun" religion rather than one that, yes can be quite fun but can also be quite painful at times as one confronts sin in one's life.

Oh well, you asked for my input. There it is. I'm off to do my Saturday things now. Later. B.

Part of what drives me blitheringly to distractions is that such . . . seemingly unassailable assertions as:
"dissent from the One Church is or provides a tool for the bad guys."

are also inherently cheeky; prideful; authoritarian on hollow foundation; parochial to the max; smug; offensive.

I got no further than this.

I don't see that it is inherently cheeky. If it's not true, yeah. But until we establish the truth, how can we say it's inherently all those bad things.

Or another way, to say it's inherently cheeky is to contest the proposition. It doesn't show anything useful about it unless we add (as it SEEMS to do, but I don't think that was intended) "And if I don't like it, it's not true" as another step in the argument.

Sometime I'll list what I don't like about what I hold to be true.

The problem is to avoid saying,"Let's talk ecclesiology, but your position is outrageous!" To me what's inherent to the job of talking ecclesiology is the willingness to consider potentially painful notions despite the pain.

Somebody (lots of people) says I'm an idolater. Can you really think that is not painful to read or hear? But I don't say,"That opinion is laughable, you are silly," at least not at first. I try to articulate what we think about dulia, hyper-dulia, latria. (And then usually I get told that that distinction is bogus. And am still not supposed to be hurt.)

Our language is rich in terms of abuse and of emotional expression. We have a thousand ways of saying,"I don't like this." And while I am sometimes touched by the pain of others (more so if they don't immediately say it's my fault, and if I weren't a jerk they wouldn't hurt and wouldn't feel a divine call to make me hurt) it's not an argument. We are fallen, and the good hurts us while the bad delights us, and that's as true of intellectual objects as of physical. Pain is not dispositive or even indicative.

As for the rest of your post, to the extent that it touches the idea of "One True Church" it is, I think exposition, statement of the proposition and a few of its consequences. But please note that the bulk of my response dealt with your writing that the position (or a lemma from it) was inherently cheeky, prideful, authoritarian, on hollow foundation, parochial, smug, offensive, and gosh darn people just don't like it.

It is precisely because all these things mean so much to us and are so personal that we need to try to avoid giving needless offensive and need to be aware we will probably give it unintentionally. When you type something in all caps, it "sounds" like you think I haven't thought long and hard about it, or even heard it until now. That feels like you are dissing my thought, study, and prayer. It also sounds like you think your position necessarily follows from the thing you deliver in Caps. (I'm not saying that's what you intend, I'm reporting on what my receiver . kicked out, not on what your microphone and set transmitted. This is what I "copy")

But other peple have read dand pondered the same text, and gotten something else out of it. Having the same text thrown at them again and again isn't going to make them change their minds.

How many times must I read words that sound like -> I <- am being accused of 'pretending and pontificating' before I am allowed to conclude that you don't really want to discuss, to examine and re-examine? It is VERY hard to resist that notion (But I am resisting it, never fear ;) ), and it is painful to think that you have not considered that somebody would think such things about Holy Orders in general and the Papacy in particular -- or about, say, becoming Catholic, and do those things NOT with pretense and pompous pontification but in very great, stomach hurting, almost puking, anxiety (which is what I had when I was made a priest - as I thought - in the Episcopal Church because I was committing myself to answer what I thought was a call to draw near to a consuming fire that could consume me (bad enough) or lead others, through my sins, to sorrow (even worse).

What being ordained meant to me was a continued, over and over again rededication of myself to God's will, to rooting out my will, and holding it up to God for healing and conversion, to continually handing myself over the best I could.

I know Pope Alexander is reported to have said, "The Papacy at last is ours; let us at least enjoy it," and when I stop laughing (Yo! Homies! I'm Da POPE! Bring on the shizzle!), I think that's vile! (and He got his, I'll bet.)

But I simply cannot think that every, or even most, ordained, or consecrated or crowned (!)(tiared?) religious figure underwent those ceremonies in pomposity or in anythhing but revereent fear. We have read the books. We KNOW what God says about people who pervert His ways.

(If it was up to me I'd be Bill Gates or something involving money and sailboats. )

SO "pretending and pontificating" ups the emotional ante, makes the conversation harder, is followed by my feeling abused and wanting to abuse in reply.

I am NOT trying to blame here. I am "reporting from the interior" in hopes that I can make a case about how we must talk if we are to talk about difficult touchy things. Maybe we are, unbeknownst to ourselves, pretending and pontificating. Just because the idea is painful to me does not mean it's not true. But then the tactical question changes: What will conduce us to see that painful truth? What won't is abuse and what looks like abuse, or even, carelessness.

Dawg rests, for a while.

They don't have to be apparitions. They can be our own mental projections, our wishes, our illusions as well as our delusions. When someone says "the Spirit guides me," I raise my eyebrows.

Yes, there can be misleading spirits.

That's why we're told to test the spirits by the word of God to make sure we are following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." -- 1 John 4:1

If we begin with the presumption that the Holy Spirit DOES in fact work in the lives of God's children and leads them in sanctification, then the discussion becomes not "if" this is true, but if our personal experience is the true experience.

And again, our assurance comes by reading Scripture and recognizing ourselves as Trinitarian believers in Jesus Christ.

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" -- 2 Corinthians 13:5
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." -- 1 Thessalonians 5:21
"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." -- 2 Timothy 2:15

And, IMO, that's why a presbyterian structure of the church is optimal -- a system of checks and balances among equals, rightly dividing the word of God, subject to a community of like-minded elders and presbyters.

Apologies for butting in univited (or is it 'unpingend?'). Kolo, Protestant revolt was directed, initially, at corrupt practices of a powerful Church in the West, and not at its theology. The aim was to reform the practices and not the Church.

The Church in the East was struggling for survival under Turkish occupation. Its modesty and humility have been imposed, and its suffering along with the people made it one with them (look at the Ecumenical Patriarchy even today!).

That wasn't always so. When the East was the seat of Imperial power, during the last five centuries of the 1st millennium, corruption and — indeed the worst heresies — came out of it.

It was +John Chrysostom who, as the Bishop of Imperial Constantinople, initiated first reforms with regard to the arrogance, lack of modesty and privileges practiced by the clergy and the laity. He made enemies with the highest echelons of the Imperial Court when he corrected the Empress for her bejeweled appearances in the church.

Protestant revolt, however, started off as an attempt to reform corrupt practices and ended reforming, in fact — rewriting, the 1,500 year-old theology.

When the Lutheran divines approached Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II, hoping to find allies in the Eastern Church, he rebuked them — three times — not over their revolt against corrupt practices of the clergy, but over their corrupt theology.

It is their theology that makes it — ultimately — a different faith and not a disagreement over the same faith (as is the case in the Orthodox and Catholic divisions). Protestant theology is Pauline Christianity.

It was Luther's reinterpretation of theology, and not attempts to correct corrupt practices, that created Protestantism. it could have just as easily happened in the East had the East not been in virtual prison and stripped of its imperial majesty.

Well said, brother Kosta. You have done your homework and have done a good job in trying to see "our" point of view. History has brought about different developments in our respective Churches. Part of "keeping the Scriptures from the people" is a bit of an overexaggeration that stems from the Church's attempt to prevent heretics from putting forth FALSE Scriptures and changing words within them. Also, there was not a major humanism and nominalism movement in the East as in the West. While this brought about rapid development in science and philosophy and the arts, it also pumped up man's ego into thinking that HE could solve the world's problems - leading to an often-rationalization of the faith and loss of mysticism in the West.

We Christians are subject to the forces outside of us in our society. While we are pilgrims in the world, we still must appeal to the world to bring it to Christ. Since the culture changed, the Church had to explain its doctrines and beliefs in a new way that would touch the heart of the "pagan" humanist. Thus, it may appear that the Church of the West has "changed". But this hides the fact that the Church's mission is to preach the Gospel - and we must then make it accessible to the people of the world. We don't change the meaning of doctrines, but sometimes, the old must pass away so that the new ways help people of today experience our Lord and Savior.

Vatican 2 wrote two documents on this issue: The Constitution of the Church and the Church in the Modern World. They explain the West's action and reaction better than I could.

Regards

"I would submit that at that time the "Church" at Rome had ceased being the church at all and the only holiness one found was in pockets and in spite of Roman emphasis of the day."

I would say not the Latin church per se, but the men who had arrogated all authority in that church to themselves to the exclusion of the lower clergy and the laity.

"NOTHING in the Roman system led Luther to believe otherwise. It was only through his study of Scripture that he was freed."

This is close to spot on. The key words are "Roman system". Look at what had become of a church which had been the bulwark of Orthodoxy through many, many centuries during which time the predecessors of my bishops were wandering off into heresy only, and luckily, to be pulled back by the influence of the lower clergy, the people...and Rome. But I will tell you, B, even from an Orthodox pov, there was great holiness in the Latin church of those times in its faithfulness to the sacraments.

"Would you give up your beliefs in order to be unified with the Protestants? Would you drop your objections to Rome completely in order to be united with it and ignore the areas of difference?"

No, of course not. But I cannot stress enough that our differences with Rome are primarily ecclesiological. The theological differences today are limited. Our differences with protestantism are primarily and extensively theological. I still maintain that it was a fundamental ecclesiological problem which lead to the Protestant Reformation; the theology came later (though not much later).

"Surely, Kolo, in comparison to what was, the Protestants should be seen as a vast improvement in terms of holiness and truth."

In terms of what, B? Certainly not the sacramental life of the Western church. In terms of the personal piety of the average Western European Christian? I shouldn't think so. That was strong before and after the Reformation on both sides. The lower clergy? I don't know. One reads all sorts of horror stories about evil priests and ministers from that erea. Of the respective hierarchies? Hard to say. There was a lot of blood spilled on both sides, urged on by the leaders.

"This happened earlier than feudalism. It began happening in the 300s with Constantine. Whenever the church becomes synonymous with the state, there are going to be issues. It wasn't so much feudalism then, though organizationally it was to play a significant role, but rather power. Christendom, led by its Popes, kings, and princes conquered new territories and MADE THEM "Christian". My ancestor, Charlemagne was a big proponent of "Evangelism by the sword". Not one of Christianity's finer moments, but it is what it is."

Western Christendom, B, Western Christendom! The Church in the East, though until the Ottoman conquest a state church, never indulged in what went on in the West nor was it ever lead around by the Pope. I know that many Protestants look to Constantine as the founder of the Roman style church you guys have lived with, but that simply isn't true. What he influenced, to an extent, was the pre-schism Church and what is now the Orthodox Church. Indeed his influence wasn't that great at all. He was in fact theologically sympathetic to Arianism, yet we all know what the Council he called did with that heresy. What you see in the West is magnitudes more a product of Charlemagne than Constantine.

"They couldn't have stopped it earlier. God had engineered it. He took what was a mess and salvaged it."

Interesting, then, that in the far more educated and cosmopolitan East, no Reformation ever took place. And when I say educated, I mean in all areas including theology. There's a marvelous story told by one of the Fathers, +John Chrysostomos perhaps, wherein he complains that he had spent the day accomplishing only two of his errands because the shoe maker insisted on debating the procession of the Holy Spirit and the baker the two natures of Christ!

"Oh well, you asked for my input. There it is."

And I very much appreciate your comments and insight. That's why I asked for it, B! :)

Thank you for your reply about Noah and no, you haven't told me about it before. This was your first reply to me.

Your reference to "storm surge" is well taken. Katrina's waters came to my front and back doors. Some not so lucky neighbors are just now finishing rebuilding or replacing the damaged items (mainly due to insurance companies not willing to pay). I know about the NE quadrant of a hurricane but I don't think that can compare to the flood of Noah. The story doesn't imply a huge storm but rather a lot of water.

I believe the 40 days is correct as that number in Biblical Numerics means probation and is used as such throughout the Bible. Even if you were correct and it was actually 4 days - no hurricane lasts 4 days.

As to Noah and his family being illiterate Pakistani farmers - Timer, this was the family Jesus would come through so they weren't of Pakistani origin, unless you just mean to reference it as a place of residence. Why do you think he was illiterate? They weren't cave men. God didn't just plunk the Adamic family down. Enoch was his great grandfather and "Enoch walked with God". Surely they were given great knowledge on how to live in this world and instructed in the mysteries of God.

Your statement of "you can convince a 5 year old of anything,a 95 year old of nothing" in reference to Abram is funny and true. That is why Jesus said "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." It's difficult to take something you believe in, have been taught as truth by respected people and then change - we become stubborn with age.

There are many myths in this world and I agree that as a story is told it can become very different over the years but that is not what happened here. The Bible is Divinely inspired, it is His Word - Jesus is The Word. It is not a myth. How that Word is taught, how it is interpreted can cause great damage. It is imperative that His Word be taught/read chapter by chapter and verse by verse for a full understanding. And even then, He only gives what He feels you are ready for. The more you work the more you receive.

Back to Noah - You said, "So later he gets drunk, parties naked, etc....". That isn't what happned. He and his wife did get drunk but he wasn't angry because his son saw him in a naked state. The phrase "uncovered his father's nakedness" means incest. Leviticus 20:11 And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness:.....

Your question of "why do kangaroos only live in Australia?"
My belief is that only farm animals, or animals in that location were taken on the ark. Whether it was a world wide flood or not, I don't know. There is another verse that used the phrase over the whole earth and it was just that area. There are signs of a world wide flood which I believe was the kataballo, the overthrow, the cataclysmic event that ended the first world age. That event is why we find fossils of African hippos, camels, etc. in Nebraska.

Your assertion of the justification for their superiority I believe is in the eye of the beholder. God Himself tells of His chosen people and that certainly hasn't given anyone an easy ride in this world age. It doesn't mean superior, it does mean chosen to be a servant to God, to take his message to others. What evil men, such as Hitler do, I believe is ordained by their father and their father is not our Father.

Thank you again

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