A Question for Christians....I saw an article about the actress portraying Mary in the Nativity movie..?

Question

The article was comparing the actress to Mary. The 16-year old actress, according to the article, is expecting a baby w/ her boyfriend. The article was talking about how the actress' life is similar to Mary's- they were both pregnant out of wedlock at a young age, Joseph was a carpenter, the actress' boyfriend is a carpenter. Now, before anyone accuses me of judging, that's not what I'm doing. But, it kind of bugged me that they were doing that. It seemed to me like it was lessening the importance of Jesus' birth. You can't compare a teenager getting pregnant to the divine conception of Jesus Christ. Maybe it's just me.... I'd like other Christian's viewpoints on this. Thanks!!

Answer 1

i read that article only a few minutes ago and thought the exact same thing. They are comparing the two and they have nothing to do with eachother. Unlike the actress, Mary did not get pregnant because she slept with her boyfriend. I think that article will lead people astray and lead them away from the real gospel. That is what Satan wants...distortion of the truth. The movie, however, looks like a pretty good movie. When I see it though, I may be bugged the whole time thinking about that article. God bless you!

P.S. I am in no way judging the actress here. I'm proud of her for choosing life for her child. I'm only commenting between the comparison between herself and mary that the media has made.

Answer 2

People often confuse the actor with the character, and there is a tradition by which actors who portray holy people are expected to live exemplary lives. The interviewer was obviously looking for an angle that would interest readers. The superficial resemblance between the actor's life and the story of Mary looked like a good hook. What else should they have talked about? Do people really care about the actor's personal life? More likely they want more of the Mary story. But there isn't any. They've already padded it heavily just to get the movie to feature length. It may be good padding but they run the risk of being accused of spreading lies about a religious icon. So keeping the interview fluffy and irrelevant is safe.

Incidentally, story padding has a long and honored Jewish tradition. It's called "midrash". It's not disrespectful, just pious daydreaming that embellishes a bare story to provoke new insights. Christians could learn stuff from that.

Answer 3

I agree with you and I just saw that too. A sixteen year old actrice getting pregnant is a lot different than the divine conception of Mary. I see what there saying that there are some similarities but they should have been a bit more careful about how they phrased it. Also I like how she said that she wasn't going to have an abortion.

Answer 4

Interesting question.

Actually, you do seem to need to let go of a certain premise in your query. It sounds obvious to me that the article was ABOUT the actress, not ABOUT Jesus. It is a very easy trap to fall into when there is a word connection or reference to Jesus. Hey, I am allowed to write an article about clear semi-conductors in computers if I want to, without ever mentioning Jesus. I doubt you'd take the time to argue that I was somehow, in the UNmentioning, lessening the importance of Christ. Of course not. You know that every article has one subject and one subject only. You'd probably even champion my right to create an article about semi-conductors if I wanted to. Here, the subject was the actress. Now if the article was about Jesus and they instead talked about the actress, then you'd have a more deeply valid concern.

That said; let's realize that Mary, as important as she is to Christendom and history, was just human. Sure, we can layer all sorts of beliefs onto this that might well be good practice. We can call her chosen. We can treat her as a saint. We can believe she died without sin. We can pray for her intercession. We can follow her example. We can even lump all this together and revere her as a bit of a superhero if we so desire. I'd never take away anyone's right to do so. Yet, let's not forget the lesson we are loosing if ever we treat her as MORE than human. Heck, we have a hard enough time wrapping our minds around the idea that Jesus was simultaneously ALL deity and ALL human, subject to the wonders and frailties on both sides of the gamut. It's not really a giant leap of either faith or consciousness to more readily, more easily acknowledge the unavoidable humanity of Mary. She was a person, just like you and me.

So, yes, one CAN compare a pregnant teenager with Mary. Mary went through some of the very same things a pregnant teenager goes through. She carried the baby. She nurtured the baby. She was taxed and counted in each census. She undoubtedly had troubles with the Joseph, as well as good times. There are a lot of similarities. You are focused on the differences. I'm afraid to say that an article about the comparisons will always be about the similarities. If it were about the differences, there would be no article. The second that we say that any character in the Christian Bible is beyond compare, even Christ himself, is the second we lose the perspective of exactly why Jesus would come "down" to Earth to begin with, why God the Father would CHOOSE to make him human incarnate. He has to be part of our story to be understood. The same is true of Mary. Either one could have come by as an alien from outer space with absolutely no frame of reference for us to understand them. That didn't happen. We were given humans to understand, inherently, as humans, to see as examples we could actually follow, use to reach attainable goals.

Go! Compare! Rejoice! The steadfast humanity in our Lord and those around him is what makes His story differ from stories about Thor or Jupiter or Hades or Cruithne. We must always be aware of what that means. We must always be aware that we all, not just Christians, are deserving folk...deserving enough to have God walk among us. Focusing on Mary's blessings and not her humanity would fall short of this and doom us to never understand.

Answer 5

The world is trying to do any and everything to belittle Jesus' existence.( well Satan has his controlling the sound waves). They know He is the King of this world and the Universe. do u ever think why they are trying so hard to push Jesus out of everything like school, work , life? If he isn't such a big deal..why are they trying so hard to get rid of him. which is truth.Darkness hates the light.
You say this actress is pregnant and has a similarity with Mary yea, its coincidental, but the Mary in History was pregnant suddenly by the Holy Spirit and not by sexual intercourse like this actress. That's the difference that distinguishes that issue.

Answer 6

Keanu Reeves consistently acts the comparable, no emotion in any respect. fantastically lots all of those stupid Disney youngsters are undesirable actors. Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson, Brad Pitt, Angeline Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron, Tom Hanks, and Kate Beckinsale are reliable at switching issues up.

Answer 7

This only shows you how far the heathens in Hollywood will go to make a buck. How do they know how old Mary the Mother of Jesus was, the Bible does not say. The Mary on the movie screen is not a virgin. and the baby she is carrying, no matter how precious it is, is not the Begotten Son of God.

Answer 8

Hollywood is not Christian, and does not care much about what they say as long as the money rolls in,to compare this actress and her boyfriend to Jesus and Mary is like comparing tin to gold.
one main difference is that Mary was a virgin when She conceived Jesus.

Answer 9

I think they're just making the comparison and yes i think it is subtracting from the value of Christ. Unless if that girl was a virgin when she was impregnated visited by an angel and told she is carrying the messiah then there is nothing more than a coincidence.
you can be similar to anyone in the world. Without the spirit of that person your nothing more than a copy

Answer 10

She's an actress, playing the part of Mary.
That's where the comparison ends.