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/
The "good things" you speak of are humanistic actions of this world; they are not spiritually-beneficial nor God-pleasing, as you further explained.
Anything that is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)
And more importantly, we'd have to erase Christ's sacrifice on the cross which was God-willed from before the foundation of the world for our redemption.
Ezactly correct, as God is holy and no sin can enter his presence. That is the purpose of the wedding garment spoken of in Matthew 22, 11-12
Do these people not even own a bible?
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. (Romans 5:14-18 KJV)
Carry on.
Yep, you've got the flood, Pharoah's army, all the firstborn of Egypt and the disobedient Israelis, and that's the first chapter! Let alone Sodom and Gomorrah, the Amalekites, the Midianites, the plague of hail, etc. etc.
It's clear they don't read it.
This is 2 Thess. 2:14...
""Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Nowhere in that verse is any mention made of tradition; only Scripture, only the word of God.
Perhaps you see things that aren't there.
Actually that number does not even get you beyond Genesis Chapter 7. Where do these people get these ideas from?
God doesn't kill people, only people kill people.
I cannot help but notice that Catholicism has developed into such an man centered religion that now they think that God is compelely powerless in the face of man's free will.
Well I think you have hit upon a guilty little secret doctrine.
"Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass" -- Job 14:5"And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." -- Job 1:21
" It is almost universally admitted that God determines when, where, and under what circumstances, each individual of our race shall be born, live, and die, whether it shall be male or female, white or black, wise or foolish. God is no less sovereign in the distribution of His favors. He does what He will with His own. To some He gives riches, to others honor, to others health, to others certain talents for music, oratory, art, finance, statesmanship, etc. Others are poor, unknown, born in dishonor, the victims of disease, and live lives of wretchedness. Some are placed in Christian lands where they receive all the benefits of the Gospel; others live and die in the darkness of heathenism. Some are brought through faith unto salvation; others are left to perish in unbelief. And to a very large extent these external things, which are not the result of individual choice, decide the person's life course and eternal destiny. Both Scripture and every day experience teach us that God gives to some what He withholds from others. If it be asked why He does this, or why he does not save all, the only available answer is found in the words of the Lord Jesus, "Yea, Father, for so it was well pleasing in thy sight." Only the Scripture doctrine of the fall and redemption will give us any light on what we see about us..."
lol. Three times in four verses. Paul must have been trying to tell us something.
Don't forget Jesus Christ, who "for the joy that was set before Him" willingly obeyed the "commandment" of His Father.
God's wrath was poured out upon Him, his own Son for our sins, that's how much God hates sin.
Amen. And how much Christ loves those whom the Father has given Him.
While there was a lot to dislike in "The Passion," Gibson did a great job of showing the torment Christ suffered. But many people think that torment was the wrath of human beings against Jesus, when in truth, Christ suffered the wrath of God for our sakes.
From that perspective, the scenes of Christ's suffering were riveting.
Grace is an act of God, Dr. E. It's not a commodity.
+Paul meant to say that it wasn't earned.
Take Passover, for example. The Spirit had to have a 'marker' (blood) in order to 'know' which household not to visit...the samne Spirit who knows what's in everyone's heart...
P-Marlow asks "Do these people not even own a bible?"
Sure. In Greek. And Greek bibles don't have three 'free-gifts' in four verses, but charisma or grace which KJV substitutres as "free gift"; they do have one gift in grace [dwrea en cariti], and one this gift [ton dwrhma].
That was my point all along. The terminology is the same, but the concepts are like night and day — from the very core, the Holy Trinity and Christology, salvation, etc.
The LXX books known in the west as the "deuterocanonical" (because they don't appear in the Pharisee OT) are part of what the Apostles considered Scripture (Septuagint, LXX), and therefore inspired.
Over 90% of OT references in the NT come from LXX. The books the west calls "deuterocanonical" and the Protestants "apocrypha" do develop angeology beyond what the west calls the "Hebrew Bible."
The idea that Satan is a fallen angel is foreign to Pharisaical Judaism.
You are right, that really would be conceit. I'm glad no one on my side has EVER said anything like that. :) We have never held that your guys have any less access to the leading of the Holy Spirit than we do. The Holy Spirit leads all believers, including Catholics. But of course, the results are never identical. I hope you would agree that the Holy Spirit has never zapped all knowledge and wisdom of scripture into any one man OR group at any given time since at least the Apostles, if ever. God's will is apparently that different people will apprehend scriptural truth at different rates and at different times accordingly.
FK: "We can honestly disagree on which is correct, but you can't say we are not allowed to have confidence because we don't have a pope."
The difference is that when I read the scripture, I read it with the fathers of the Church. I never read it alone. ...
Yes, that is a big difference, but we have no less confidence because we do not read it through the lens of the fathers. It's just a matter of that we use different earthly authorities. I am comfortable in saying that we each DO have confidence respectively.
Sometimes, I will take a flier too, or a private interpretation. If it's way off base, then someone of the same faith will poke me in the ribs and say "hey, the Bible says that's no good because of this, this, and this." After checking it out, I would be easy to change my view. It's already happened and I'm sure it will happen again. That doesn't shake my confidence.
But what all protestants have in common is the belief in the perspicuous self-explanatory Scripture (truncated to fashion). That belief logically demands that your faiths be identical, since they are driven by the same scripture in a self-evident fashion.
No, that's way oversimplifying. We do not hold that everything in scripture is self-evident upon a first reading. Otherwise, we would not need to study it for the rest of our lives.
A general Protestant belief that core issues are perspicuous is actually revealed in the similarity of (very) core beliefs among most Protestant groups. Of course defining what is a "Protestant group" is something that Apostolics and actual Protestants are 180 degrees apart on. I think I can now almost legitimately say that I've had numbers like 30,000 denominations thrown at me, probably, 30,000 times. It's complete nonsense. We don't have a central government to throw out sects or cults who want to call themselves Protestant, so opponents just throw all of us into the same soup. I suppose we cannot stop those who do that, but it really is intellectually dishonest.
It does not at all follow that a belief in general perspicuousness requires identical faiths from all who hold that view. Under your system one man, or a group of men, declares what the scriptures mean. At any given time that's it, no matter how much that "it" has (arguably) changed over time. We put the Holy Spirit in the place of those men, and say that He has chosen not to work in the same way. The Spirit could have chosen to reveal all things to all believers instantly, but He didn't. Instead, He decided to make it a lifetime pursuit. Glory be to God for His decision. Sure, some non-Apostolic faiths have emerged that are not even Christian, but those are the ones who have abandoned scripture. Those of us Bible-believing Protestants hold on to the scriptures and continue to grow as the Spirit wills.
Our [EOC and RCC] traditions and church organizations may differ, but we agree on the fundamental theology: Scripture as part of Tradition interpreted through the Church, salvation as a result of a lifelong struggle for sanctification, apostolic succession, obedience to bishops, etc.
Well, if that's what you call fundamental theology, then Protestants are more unified than you ever imagined. :) Sola Scriptura. Salvation is a result of grace through faith. No Apostolic succession, etc. On this level, I would guess that 99% of Bible-believing Protestants would now be just as unified as you are with the Orthodox.
In all these examples we look at the verse in context and it says what we say it says. You take it out of context and force it into a preconceived theological framework. We agree with the verse as intended.
I can't seem to remember which one of us I am quoting here. :)
For example, "all have sinned" in one place speaks of the man before the sanctifying grace of Christ and in the other "all" is interspersed with "many" and speaks of the sin of Adam anyway, and not of personal sin, -- in both places the the text allows for an exception, such as Christ Himself, or children, or Mary, or some other exceptionally righteous people.
I see you have come up with a brand new interpretation for Rom. 3:23. Very creative. However, since we still sin after sanctifying grace, what leads you to believe that this is the distinction? The verse just says "all have sinned". I could play ball with the doctrine of impossibility, according to scripture, such as in the case of Christ or (arguably) children. But Mary is in neither of those groups and there is no scriptural exception for her. The ONLY way to cover Mary is to build in something that is not there at all. You just got through telling me that you interpret from context, and yet you have none at all here. The only way you can claim context is to change scripture to make it match Tradition, thus proving once again that Tradition trumps scripture.
"Believe and you will be saved" does not say what the belief should entail in terms of works.
Right, but other scripture DOES cover that. No scripture covers Mary according to Catholic beliefs. Scripture actually opposes those beliefs. Tradition steps in to change what the scripture says.
But, as you know, my contention is that one who reads the Bible through the patristic lense and not through the lense of modernity becomes Catholic or Orthodox. He will easily overcome the Protestant prooftexts.
There's no contention about it, of course that would be the result! :) If you stand over my shoulder and tell me what every verse "really" means, then I obviously wind up with your view. I have been talking about reading it with no lens, and no bias. I maintain that such a reader will wind up MUCH closer to the Reformed view than an Apostolic one. That is logically inevitable, since you do not allow scripture to interpret itself. Instead, scripture means something else, outside of itself (Tradition).
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