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

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 12/4/2006 | John-Henry Westen

[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/

[Kolokotronis]

I’m about to get ready for the Divine Liturgy so more later, but I do want to make a brief comment on this:

“God’s NATURE displayed IN SCRIPTURE and IN CREATION is AT LEAST

DYNAMIC!

GOD’S NATURE IS DYNAMIC !!!!PLUS!!!! a host of things—but it is NOT BIBLICALLY A HOST OF THINGS MINUS DYNAMIC.”

I think you are absolutely right. But lets make a distinction about God’s “Nature”. What we believe we perceive or know about God’s nature is as a result of our observations of the results of God’s uncreated divine energies, grace if you will, as the Greek Fathers put it. We can, apophatically, gain some understanding by saying what God is not, but beyond that, we simply cannot “know” or share in God in His divine essence (ousia)though through grace and Christ we can come at least to a recognition of God hypostatically as Trinity. This distinction between the divine essence and divine energies takes on a major importance when we consider our own hoped for eternal life. We WILL NOT cease to “exist”!

Later.

[kosta50]

I am convinced that Aquinas was not by any means an Aristotelian, but the language and methods of Aristotle formed a common context for the discussions. Unfortunately his successors seem to have adopted Aristotelianism not merely as a framework within which to discuss Christianity with pagans, but rather accepted it as the way to explain God to themselves and other Christians. This manner of thinking about theology, scholasticism, had a profound effect on Western religious thought and compounded the already existing differences between Eastern and Western Christianity

That's an excellent summary, Kolo.

[Quester]

What God makes God doesn't change.

Does God not change us ?

Isn't the idea that He doesn't ... rather Calvinistic ?

[kosta50]

Of course time would continue to exist, ... for the islanders would age (as would the rest of the universe), ... which is an effect of time

It may be a function of time in a mathematical expression, but not the effect of time.

Age is caused by celluar divisions and cell deaths, by chemical reactions, blastic and clastic phenomena. The 'age' itself is simply a recorded change over a cyclical (repetitive) events (day-night, days. weeks, years...etc.).

The aging and the rearrangement of the universe will continue with or without such a record, but the sound of a falling tree is a physical phenomenon that is absolutely related to the falling tree, whether there is someone to hear it or not.

Everything in the universe is cyclical. Time is simply a count of those reptitions; age is a recorded change in an object compared to those recorded repetitions.

Counting repetitions is an arbitrary activity independent of the cyclical phenomenon. The rotations will continue whether we count the repetitions or not.

[Quix]

At any rate, we must remember that we are the new Israel, not the new Athens.
= = =

INDEED.

[Quix]

Actually, I wasn’t certain whether it was ‘merely’ semantics, or not. And, it was a happy thought that, perhaps it was just that. But I was tired and needed sleep so I didn’t belabor it. Certainly I realize that the issues are more substantive than semantics in general.

[Quix]

We can, apophatically, gain some understanding by saying what God is not, but beyond that, we simply cannot “know” or share in God in His divine essence (ousia)though through grace and Christ we can come at least to a recognition of God hypostatically as Trinity.
= = =

Just because I have a way above average vocabulary does NOT mean I know all YOUR BIG words, Kolo. LOL.

“The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above.

Suggestions for apophatically:

= = = =

Thanks for your kind post.

I believe God REVEALED IN SCRIPTURE; THROUGH HIS SPIRIT LEADING US INTO ALL TRUTH AND specifically in our lives gives us a LOT of insight into His Nature—though certainly not exhaustively in detail to the nth degree.

[Quix]

LOL. Calvinistic—indeed.

Which is one of my significant discomforts with Hyper-Calvinism. Thanks for articulating it.

[Kolokotronis]

Apophatic theology is a type of theology by which we learn about God by observing what God is not. It is a particularly Orthodox way of doing” theology. One of the best examples of this is the quote I always refer to from the Cappadocian Fathers about God not “existing”. +Gregory of Nyssa, +Clement of Alexandria, +John Chrysostomos and +Basil the Great are among the Fathers who used this method. It is particularly tied to the idea that we come to whatever understanding or relationship we have to God by an experience, through Christ, of the uncreated divine energies which are also called grace.

[Alamo-Girl]

The universe appears to be expanding but then it all goes back to 10⁰ point of view. From the earthly vista, Potlemaic navigational system, based on heliocentric assumptions, still works (because science doesn't discover the truth, but creates working models). And from a position on earth, his observations and assumptions appear valid. Just as Newtonian physics work on earth but breakd down in space.

We are traveling at about 1,000 miles/hr through "space" and would never know it. But we are really not going anywhere because we are spinning in circles, literally speaking!

In fact, the entire universe seems to be going around in circles, leaving evidence of cooling at the completion of each round!

I rejoice that you and I agree on the most important, Spiritual matters, kosta50! That we have disagreements in science or math is very minor by comparison.

I do accept that your view of physical reality is irreconcilably different from mine. It is not necessary that you and I must agree on all the details in order to be in Spiritual accord as brother and sister in Christ!

But, for the record, here is a presentation of my point of view:

The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles. The earth rotates once every 24 hours.

Therefore, even if you are sitting still, you are nevertheless traveling at 1,100 miles an hour (and that's not considering how fast the particles within you are traveling while you are sitting.)

The orbital length of earth traveling around the sun is 149,600,000 miles, traveled in 365.25 days. That is 67,000 miles per hour. So if you are sitting still, you are nevertheless traveling at 1,100 + 67,000 = 68,100 miles per hour.

The sun orbits the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 486,000 miles per hour. So your total speed so far is 1,100 + 67,000 + 486,000 = 554,100 miles per hour.

But that is not the whole story, because the universe itself is expanding – and not only expanding but accelerating.

The rate of expansion of the universe is exponential and is figured from this initial ratio: the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of energy. 10.9x10¹² Kelvin degrees / 2.73 degrees (the temperature of the universe today.) Age of the universe

A galaxy 1 million light years away would seem to be moving away from us at a rate of 60,000 miles per hour. For every 3.26 million light years further out that we look, the galaxies seem to be moving away from us at an additional 162,000 miles per hour. Tracking the expansion rate of the universe In sum, the universe is at least 156 light years wide.

Astronomers size up the Universe

To get the picture try to imagine the Universe a million years after the Big Bang. Light travels for a year, covering one light-year. But at that time, the Universe was about a thousand times smaller than it is today meaning that one light-year has now become stretched to about a thousand light-years.

When this expansion is taken into account the Universe is bigger than it would appear to be.

Neither finite nor infinite

Because of this stretching, radiation from the early Universe cannot be said to have travelled 78 billion light-years.

What it means is that the starting point of a particle of light, a photon, reaching us today after travelling for 13.7 billion years is now 78 billion light-years away.

Now, to translate that scientific insight in Scriptural terms, I assert that we should read Genesis 1 with the understanding that God is the observer and author and that He is speaking to us (in our language abilities) of His own Creation from the beginning (verse 1)- i.e. the inception space/time coordinates.

IOW, if He sent a message to us on a photon the instant He began creating the physical realm, we would have received that message 8 billion years later from our space/time coordinates. And because every time the universe doubles in size, the perception of time is cut in half, if He sent us a message on a photon on the beginning of the second day, we would receive it at 8 billion + 4 billion = 12 billion years later from our space/time coordinates.

So how does it work out, Scripture v science? Well, let’s see from our space/time coordinates how close it is:

Day 1, 8 billion years duration - Scripture says that God created light on the first day which according to this rule would be in the last 15,750,000 years. God said “let there be light.” Here’s what science says (this is among my favorites so I’ll excerpt more:)

The universe may be flat but it is musical

The MAXIMA, BOOMERANG, and DASI collaborations, which measure minute variations in the CMB [cosmic microwave background radiation], recently reported new results at the American Physical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. All three agree remarkably about what the “harmonic proportions” of the cosmos imply: not only is the universe flat, but its structure is definitely due to inflation, not to topological defects in the early universe.

The results were presented as plots of slight temperature variations in the CMB that graph sound waves in the dense early universe. These high-resolution ‘power spectra’ show not only a strong primary resonance but are consistent with two additional harmonics, or peaks.

The peaks indicate harmonics in the sound waves that filled the early, dense universe. Until some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could “decouple” from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.

Day 2, 4 billion years duration – Scripture says that God created a firmament to separate the waters above from the waters below on the second day which according to this rule would be in the last 7,750,000,000 years. Here's what science says:

Universe’s Dark Energy is at least 9 billion years old

Previous observations revealed that the early universe was comprised of matter whose gravity was trying to pull it all inward and slow down its expansion. But the spreading out of the cosmos started speeding up around 5 billion to 6 billion years ago. That's when scientists believe dark energy started to win the cosmic tug of war.

Day 3, 2 billion years duration– Scripture says that land and water were separated and that plant life was created on the third day which according to this rule would be within the last 3,750,000,000 years. [Note that Genesis 2 declares that God created plants before He put them in the earth which is among the many evidences I have asserted that Genesis 1-4 are speaking to creation of both the physical realm and the spiritual realm.] Science says that cell membranes formed some 3.9 billion years ago, bacteria about 3.5 billion years ago.

Rocks tell tale of warm early atmosphere

Here the rocks reveal an odd twist in the story -- eventual regeneration of the greenhouse. Recall that 3 billion years ago, Earth was essentially Waterworld. There weren't any plants or animals to affect the atmosphere. Even algae hadn't evolved yet. Primitive photosynthetic microbes were around and may have played a role in the generation of methane and minor usage of carbon dioxide.

As long as rapid continental weathering continued, carbonate was deposited on the oceanic crust and subducted into what Lowe calls "a big storage facility ... that kept most of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere."

But as carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere and incorporated into rock, weathering slowed down -- there was less carbonic acid to erode mountains and the mountains were becoming lower. But volcanoes were still spewing into the atmosphere large amounts of carbon from recycled oceanic crust.

Day 4, 1 billion years duration - Scripture says that the sun and moon were made for lights and seasons on the fourth day which according to this rule would be within the last 1,750,000,000 years. Whereas science says earth formed some 4.5 billion years ago it was within the last 2 billion years that earth became livable, i.e. ozone layers formed and became oxygen rich about 1 billion years ago to support physical life and death, btw: History of the Universe, 2 billion years ago

Day 5, ½ billion years duration - Scripture says that moving life, aquatic life followed by birds were created on the fifth day which according to this rule would be within the last 750,000,000 years. Science says that continental drift occurred 750 million years ago, followed by the formation of sponges, jellyfish, flatworms, anthropods, mullusks, fish, early vertebrates, sharks. Invertebrates moved onto land about 350 million years ago. Timeline of the Universe Science does not (yet) date birds back this far.

Day 6 – ¼ billion years duration. Scripture says that land animal life, man being last were created on the sixth day which according to this rule would be within the last 250,000,000 years. Science says that the following emerged in this period in this order: dinosaurs, mammals, birds, primates, cows, man, society. Timeline of the Universe

Seems to me that mere mortal man couldn’t have been that accurate about either the nature of time or the sequence of this physical creation back when Genesis 1 was first scribed.

In sum, not only is everything in the universe moving, but space/time itself is expanding, nothing is at rest and that is why Relativity is so important and why precious few scientists embrace a geocentric model or any other model that has an object at rest in the universe.

For instance, the observed speed of gas orbiting around a black hole was measured at 2,000,000 miles per hour. The black hole itself is 39,000,000 times more massive than our Sun. Radio Astronomers Set New Standard for Accurate Cosmic Distance Measurement

We are all travelers in space/time. A “null path” is an empty path and can be visualized in special relativity as an object traveling at the speed of light. For the object, no time passes. The observers of the object will sense time passing.

More importantly, the equivalence principle – which derives from Newton’s observation that all objects fall with the same acceleration and thus how fast an object accelerates (inertial mass) and its gravitational mass are the same. Thus falling towards high gravity objects (such as black holes, the earth, etc.) and velocity are equivalent.

That is why an object near a black hole may sense a week passing in the same duration that a man on earth would experience forty years passing.

It is also the reason why, if you were traveling through space at the speed equivalent to one earth’s gravity – while for you 25.3 years would elapse, a whopping 5x10¹⁰ years would elapse on earth.

And that is why I and so many others like me view space/time as a continuum, i.e. for us time is a dimension.

[hosepipe]

G.I.R.L... (snapping fingers tracing a "Z")..
You MUST lay off the coffee..

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL! I reckon I was a bit lengthy to say the least, but I didn't know quite where to stop when explaining time wrt relativity in view of Scripture. sigh... Sorry about that.

[hosepipe]

[ I reckon I was a bit lengthy to say the least, but I didn't know quite where to stop when explaining time wrt relativity in view of Scripture. ]

Actually you were quite brief/crisp, some/many books on time go on for 400 pages or more and say nothing of substance..

In the eternities(some day) it will be refreshing to not care a wit about what time it is.. but be more concerned with the "timing" of a matter..

[betty boop]

I find it fascinating the way God prepared mankind for The Faith and the coming of Christ from the earliest times.

I do too, Kolokotronis. Then again, we shouldn't be surprised that this is the case. After all, the Logos was in the beginning, by and for Whom was everything made. I imagine it has been completely effective since the very beginning, even before the Incarnation translated it directly "into the world."

I find it so fascinating that certain Greeks seemed to have anticipated parts of the Christian revelation in so many ways. Heraclitus, for instance, had developed the definite language of faith, hope, and charity -- pistis, elpis, and philia respectively -- a half-millennium before the coming of Christ. The idea of the helkein (a word that appears in John's Gospel), or the drawing of the soul/nous by the God "beyond" the cosmos in the meditative complex, was central to Plato's conception of the direct mutual participation of man in the divine, which is the true basis of the right order of the soul, and the source of its immortalization. Plus as Alamo-Girl has already pointed out, the Greek term Logos -- a multilayered symbol that comprehends the meaning of spoken word (i.e., the Word of the Beginning), and also of truth and reason, anticipates the opening declarations of the Gospel of John.

And all this several centuries before the Incarnation of the Logos, the Son of God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, the monogenes -- another Greek word denoting the "first-born Son of God." Before the coming of Christ, the monogenes referred to the Cosmos itself. After Christ, the monogenes was understood as the man Jesus....

Seems the Greeks did a whole lot of "spadework," preparing the cultural ground for the reception of Christ, just as John the Baptist prepared the pneumatic, or spiritual ground, for the eventual reception of our Lord.

I too find these things so fascinating! Thank you for your beautiful essay/posts, Kolokotronis!

[Mad Dawg]

Out of time, out of energy, and finally out of town, for a few days -- and then in MAJOR pain (which turns out to be as much a gift as a burden.) Life is always an adventure!

Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying the global warming.

Through the ministry of the Church and especially that of the Dominicans, and by the intercession of the Theotokos, I've had the most amazing few days. Some things aren't worth arguing about, not because they're not important, but because the Truth is not reached so much by arguing about Him as by throwing oneself on His mercy.

There is no argumentative way to justify saying what I am certain of, namely that our Lady saved my life, and no way to persuade people whose monochromatic faith has no flowers and in whose religion no birds sing that that conviction of mine strengthens rather than weakens my absolute and utter reliance on the Lord who trampled down death by His death.

But there it is. Angels sing when man doesn't, and if angels and men were ever silent the rocks would take up the song.

Bro Kolo:
This global warming's a big pain, isn't it? The good news is (well, not THE Good news ...) that I still have a very heavy cloak from my holy dude days - and I wore it to the lighting of the new fire so I didn't freeze.

Oh, and Brother Quix:

C h a r i s m a n i a c !

So there! Nyah! (But I mean that in only the most loving way ...)

[betty boop]

Exactly. Three Hypostasia, One Ousia.

Beautiful!

[Alamo-Girl]

I join in the chorus strongly agreeing with Kolokotronis’ remark:

I am convinced that Aquinas was not by any means an Aristotelian, but the language and methods of Aristotle formed a common context for the discussions. Unfortunately his successors seem to have adopted Aristotelianism not merely as a framework within which to discuss Christianity with pagans, but rather accepted it as the way to explain God to themselves and other Christians. This manner of thinking about theology, scholasticism, had a profound effect on Western religious thought and compounded the already existing differences between Eastern and Western Christianity

Just the mention of Platonism in math and physics used to send our correspondents on Free Republic into a tailspin of accusations that betty boop and I were off the intellectual rails.

But I strongly suspect that is because Aristotle’s words (e.g. four causes) have been massaged to fit a modern view of science when he was actually almost entirely in sync with Plato.

One of those posters routinely posted a work of art which had Plato pointing up and Aristotle pointing down:

IMHO, that image is an accurate portrait of the difference as it effects one’s math or science.

In an article on parallel universes, physicist Max Tegmark described the difference in paradigms this way:

Parallel Universes

A mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. If history were a movie, the structure would correspond not to a single frame of it but to the entire videotape. Consider, for example, a world made up of pointlike particles moving around in three-dimensional space. In four-dimensional spacetime — the bird perspective — these particle trajectories resemble a tangle of spaghetti. If the frog sees a particle moving with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined like a double helix. To the frog, the world is described by Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird, it is described by the geometry of the pasta — a mathematical structure. The frog itself is merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex intertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store and process information. Our universe is far more complicated than this example, and scientists do not yet know to what, if any, mathematical structure it corresponds.

The Platonic paradigm raises the question of why the universe is the way it is. To an Aristotelian, this is a meaningless question: The universe just is. But a Platonist cannot help but wonder why it could not have been different. If the universe is inherently mathematical, then why was only one of the many mathematical structures singled out to describe a universe? A fundamental asymmetry appears to be built into the very heart of reality.

The shift to an Aristotelian paradigm came with a big price. The most obvious is described in the last paragraph of the Tegmark excerpt, an isolation of science from the quest for knowledge per se. They no longer see the mission of science as Leibnitz said, to inquire into two matters:

Why is there something, rather than nothing?

And why are things the way they are, and not some other way?

The price to the faithful has been much, much higher because so often now, armed with Aristotelian logic, believers demand that God must be logical – and thus they anthropomorphize God, missing the power of God.

[Alamo-Girl]

In the eternities(some day) it will be refreshing to not care a wit about what time it is.. but be more concerned with the "timing" of a matter..

I look forward to it! Thank you so much for your insights!

[Kolokotronis]

"And all this several centuries before the Incarnation of the Logos, the Son of God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, the monogenes -- another Greek word denoting the "first-born Son of God." Before the coming of Christ, the monogenes referred to the Cosmos itself. After Christ, the monogenes was understood as the man Jesus...."

Very early on in the Divine Liturgy we chant a beautiful hymn which begins:

"Ο μονογενης Υιος και Λογος του Θεου...." (O First-born Son and Word of God....)

At the very beginning of the Liturgy, we get right into the earliest theology of The Church! It continues: "...being Immortal, condescended for our salvation to be incarnate of the Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and unchangeably became Man; and crucified, O Christ our God, You trampled Death by death, being One of the Holy Trinity, glorified, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit; save us!"

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for these beautiful insights!

Seems the Greeks did a whole lot of "spadework," preparing the cultural ground for the reception of Christ, just as John the Baptist prepared the pneumatic, or spiritual ground, for the eventual reception of our Lord.

Amen!

The sum of your examples is a formidable body of evidence that God has always been in control, whether in Judeo/Christian cultures or pagan cultures. And He always will be moving our cultures and even our words/concepts according to His will, His end, Omega.

So we should never wring our hands, but count it all joy!

Maranatha, Jesus!