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/
Before I hit "view replies" I decided on my own answer. It is that "the Holy Spirit determines the canon through God's Church". This appears to be in complete agreement with Blogger's answer. We really shy away from giving credit to any men, including our own. :)
Mistakes? Mark 7 is about Pharisees, not Christians following in the steps of Christ.
The only mistakes being made are self-styled 'popes,' toting various editions of Bibles and proclaiming their personal truth.
Ah, so you're in the 1) camp.
:)
To love them MEANS to provide for them. Loving them also means teaching them in the ways of the Lord. The Bible is clear on this. There is no separation between these.
Yes, that's exactly the way I see it. God established the Canon through His Church. Those at councils put an official stamp on it, but it was God who did the work.
I agree, but the way you worded it does not reflect the above. You said God commanded you. Is 'love' a command for you?
loving them also means teaching them in the ways of the Lord
But as a Reformed you also believe that they will or will not be believers if God so predestined them to be, regardless of what you do, right?
So, whether you teach them or not, the outcome is already decided. What's the point of teaching them?
Yeaaaaahh! :)
Well, this issue has been pretty extensively litigated on this thread, and I don't think I can add anything new. I am satisfied with the arguments I've seen concerning such issues as non-unanimity of acceptance, the Jewish view, historical errors, contradiction with other scripture, and Christ's own words about scripture in the Bible (Law, Prophets, Psalms). All of these have been well covered on both sides. I do believe the scriptures are whole as I know them.
I AM very glad to see that we agree on the principle that the Canon is a result of the work of the Holy Spirit, and that you are fine with giving Him credit. I don't mean that backhandedly at all, just in comparison to other things that have been posted to me.
I have faith that God determined His Canon and revealed it to His Church. Obviously, not all followers have apprehended God's revelation equally. We each have our beliefs. As to the NT Deuts, apparently they were less controversial. I don't see the problems in the NT that the OT Deuts give rise to. Even though I understand that Orthodoxy did not accept Revelation until much later, I would offer the evidence that we agree on the NT. Given the split at the Reformation, it seems those books must have been pretty solid in God's Church since none were changed or removed. Further evidence is that Luther TRIED, but the laity of the church stopped him. That is the Spirit in action.
imho, not that different than I Cor 14 in deciding whether a given prophetic msg in the local congregation has merit, or not.
Just that 300 years was a goodly amount of years to be prett settled on what God had confirmed as His Word with signs following and what had proven durable in terms of maturing Chrisians and deepening their relationships with God.
Well of course. You do exactly the same thing in deciding which saints to quote to make your points. There is nothing wrong with this, but we BOTH do it.
FK: "But as I posted to Joe recently, I find it absolutely amazing that in the 10,000 posts here and the 12,000 on the L&E thread that I have seen Apostolics quote from the Dueterocanonicals MAYBE 3 times altogether."
When two people discuss issues, they must meet on a point of common agreement. What good would it do to my point of view to quote a book that YOU do not accept as Scriptures? You would promptly deny that it had any force of argument. Thus, we Catholics and Orthodox condescend to your level of what is Scriptures so as to prove a theological point.
Well, we very much appreciate your condescension. :) However, the logic fails. Most obviously, you all post the Fathers to us ALL the time, knowing full well that they are not authority for us. I don't think any on my side have any problem at all with this. They are part of your authority and we respect that. We answer the same way as we would against, well, anything. If in your eyes Tradition is equal to scripture, then the OT Deuts would be equal to the Fathers. We would handle it the same way. Yet, NONE of you very learned Apostolics (no sarcasm), none, zip, zero, nada, quotes from any of the OT Deuts, that I have seen, except on the RAREST of occasions.
None of the verses you cited mentions "sheep", OR "children" for that matter. The descriptions are not of the truly saved, but of pretenders (some of the goats). We are told that the pretenders will be exposed, especially in the end times. We are told to not be like unto them. Goats can wander among the sheep, but they are not sheep. They never were and never will be. They must be divided.
Matt 25:32 : 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
---------------
Those who know God have choices. From what you write it seems clear that you deny that we have choices.
Not at all. We absolutely do have choices, more so after we are saved. But even then, we have choices, but they are subject to parameters. With my age and experience, I cannot "choose" to be a professional baseball pitcher. Likewise, the saved cannot "choose" to leave the true faith permanently. There are always parameters.
You believe in 'captive' love; love that imposes.
You better believe it! :) By myself I would spit on God's love for me. God imposes a changed heart upon His elect and then they are free to love Him as He intended.
You keep bringing up the example of not allowing your children to walk into traffic or jumping off the cliffs...nonsense. God allows calamity and evil. God allowed Adam and Eve to 'jump off the cliff' and ruin it for themselves and all subsequent generations.
Yes, God allowed Adam and Eve to sin, as He does with us all. But this has nothing to do with the only thing that matters here, eternal destiny. In my examples, Adam and Eve never 'jumped off a cliff', unless you believe they are in hell today. I don't think that's true, and I don't think you do either. Adam and Eve sinned, which did earn them eternal death, if there was no Savior.
We must be free to give back to God what God has given us freely. Otherwise we have something other than love.
In terms of love, we do exactly this. Believers send the love He has given us back to Him. But that is not a return, as in "no thanks". After giving Him love we do not lose it, in fact we get more in return from Him. This is not like giving a gift back. The same is true of saving grace. Once given, we have it for life. We cannot return it.
Those whom you love you will protect, but if they want to leave because they don't love you, you must let them go. Love is not imposing. Love only gives — freely.
Well, it doesn't work that way at all in MY house! :) If one of my teenagers wanted to run away from home because he/she didn't love me, there is no way I would let them go if I had the power to stop it. NO WAY. At that point my love would be doing some pretty industrial strength imposing! :)
I keep getting the impression that you all use the Father-child Biblical analogy to refer to parents with adult children. I don't think this is accurate at all. Consider: human parents with small children, and human parents with adult children. Which relationship is closer to the gulf between all humans and God? It's not even close, is it. We are like sheep, right? I'd say that's a far cry from being like dolphins. :)
[DF:] Or, rather if they are, they weren't really elect after all, right? Accordingly, someone could say the sinners prayer and get lost, but then they weren't really saved, right?
I'm afraid "no" on both counts. :) What BD and I are saying is that there is no "if they are [lost]". In this context, the hypo is that one can be "found" and then later be "lost". We say that is impossible. When we say someone was never of the elect in the first place, it means that the person was never "found" in truth, but he may have just pretended to be. There is no issue with time, just with a good or bad "guess" on the part of the rest of us. The truth never switched. Our fallible perceptions might.
So I see the POTS as really hindsight. Those that persevere are the elect, never lost; those that don't, get lost, but they were really reprobate. You don't have insurance until your claim comes due.
Any reference to hindsight would only apply to other people, not ourselves. I would say that those of the elect will persevere, and not be lost. Those who don't persevere do not "get" lost because they were always lost from birth. They are the reprobate. Those of the elect can have insurance about themselves at the moment of salvation. We can never be positive about anyone else.
Claiming X is one who won't get lost is known by God's omniscience, but by man in hindsight.
Yes, and that's why we don't make claims about other people, even though we might have a very good inclination toward thinking another is saved. We can't be sure in the way we can about ourselves.
I'll agree. That was very fortunate for our Protestant brothers...
Regards
LOL!!!
Most obviously, you all post the Fathers to us ALL the time, knowing full well that they are not authority for us. Yet, NONE of you very learned Apostolics (no sarcasm), none, zip, zero, nada, quotes from any of the OT Deuts, that I have seen, except on the RAREST of occasions.
Absolutely correct. I find it interesting that our Catholic/Orthodox friends will pick and choose their quotes from the fathers that support their cause and ignore other text that doesn't. Protestants don't mind hearing quotes from the fathers because to us it's no different than any other writings. We may or may not agree with it. But then they accuse you of citing sources when it suits YOUR purpose!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....
The same is with the creeds handed down from the "Chair of Peter". Keep in mind the Nicene Creed was developed well before the great Orthodox/Roman schism of 1000AD (give or take a few centuries) in which they excommunicated each other. Yet ask the Orthodox if they agree with the Nicene Creed and watch the fur fly.
(Digression-In fact, I wonder who would consider themselves in schism. Do the Orthodox feel the Catholics are wrong or visa versa?)
Fact is, this argument on the Dueterocanonicals is nothing more than a joke IMHO. The early fathers rarely quoted from them or used them in their writings. Frankly I have been reading through the very early writings and have yet to come across one. (I know they're out there, just haven't hit one yet.) They were never part of the LEGITIMATE Hebrew text.
While I have not followed this entire conversation, I never saw a response to the Latin Vulgate which was translated from the Hebrew, nor have I seen any non-bias sources validating the Dueterocanonicals. I'd like to know why the Orthodox don't use the Latin Vulgate but I haven't received an answer on that. There is nothing that supports the contention of the Dueterocanonicals except Trent 1500 years after the fact. That's like saying the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception developed in 1950 was believed by the early church fathers. They just never got around to writing about it.
And you are not thinking like Paul. :) Being a "chosen one" in this sense never had anything to do with automatic salvation. In the OT they had an advantage, but no particular Jew was ever saved just because he was a Jew. Heritage is/was not salvific. IOW, election has NEVER been transferred from parent to child. Election is nontransferable among men.
Thus, being "Israel" is not necessarily genetic, cultural or racial. All the people who are 'the chosen' and graced by God are considered Israel.
Get rid of "necessarily" and now you're talking! :) THIS is Paul.
Just as the Bible does not use the word "predestination" before +Paul, the term 'the elect' refers to the chosen people by God in the Creation. It was understood to include such people as Adam and Noah, and all those born of Abraham.
Really? Then according to "the understanding" you refer to, all the Muslims are God's chosen through Ishmael. Since we know that ain't right, we can know for sure that the elect are NOT chosen by physical lineage. God's chosen are God's chosen from all nations of the earth, including Gentiles.
Even the Apostles, in the very beginning of the Acts, ask Christ if He is going to "establish the Kingdom of Israel" at that point. Their mindset was still very much Jewish.
And later through Paul we learn who Jesus meant by "Israel". All along Jesus meant "true believers", and Paul tells us that. The fact that many Jews didn't immediately get that doesn't alter Christ's intent at all. He more fully revealed His intent through Paul.
[On John 10:16] There were other Semitic tribes, descendants of Abraham, who were not following Christ. In fact, most if not practically all of Israel didn't! Judaic messiah is supposed to reunite all the tribes of Israel before he defeats his enemies.
Do you think Christ meant that all Muslims will convert then, before the end times? That doesn't make sense to me. Muslims are not sheep, they are goats. Christ was talking about the elect.
And very rarely do they quote from Philemon or 2 John or Jude...
I guess using your mentality, we should also consider doing away with Nehemiah and Chronicles, because Jesus didn't quote from them, either...
Regards
A bit of an overstatement...
The first is the so-called "Decretal of Gelasius", de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris, the essential part of which is now generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope Damasus in the year 382. The other is the Canon of Innocent I, sent in 405 to a Gallican bishop in answer to an inquiry. Both contain all the deuterocanonicals, without any distinction, and are identical with the catalogue of Trent. The African Church, always a staunch supporter of the contested books, found itself in entire accord with Rome on this question. Its ancient version, the Vetus Latina (less correctly the Itala), had admitted all the Old Testament Scriptures. St. Augustine seems to theoretically recognize degrees of inspiration; in practice he employs protos and deuteros without any discrimination whatsoever. Moreover in his "De Doctrinâ Christianâ" he enumerates the components of the complete Old Testament. The Synod of Hippo (393) and the three of Carthage (393, 397, and 419), in which, doubtless, Augustine was the leading spirit, found it necessary to deal explicitly with the question of the Canon, and drew up identical lists from which no sacred books are excluded. These councils base their canon on tradition and liturgical usage.
From Catholic Encyclopedia "Canon of the Old Testament"
Fact is, this argument on the Dueterocanonicals is nothing more than a joke IMHO.
Perhaps you are right. Actually, any religious conversation here should be a joke to you, since you apparently believe that some are elected for heaven and others are elected for hell before they are born without regard to their lives and can do nothing to change that - so what's the point of all of this, anyway? What's your reason for even entering into these conversations? A person is "saved" no matter what they think about God, salvation, Jesus Christ or the Deuterocanonicals anyways....
Regards
Thanks. I never gave much thought to the idea that other religions might have the same types of intrafaith differences that we have.
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