Wikipedia says New Line Cinema is making the movie "enjoyable for Christian families" by heavily referencing the four gospels and ensuring "Protestants, Catholic and Jewish theologians" were consulted. Dunno if this is another case of "wikipedia truthiness," but that sounds ok. Certainly makes it sound better than Borat's antics, which shows it's not just Jesus who can be a victim. Yet I think there's a place for all this, Jesus or not, cuz mass media can be both an enemy and friend. At least it gets people thinking or talking in a certain direction.

I'm pretty sure this is just like any other movie...the book is always better

I don't tend to look at it as Hollywood speaking "on behalf of Christians," mostly because I idealistically view a film as an individual's creative endeavour. Filmmakers are telling a story, just like they tell endless other stories in movies. They don't need the permission of the people/religion that they choose to portray, although they should try to understand the perspective of those people/religions. I know this isn't what you meant, but just for argument's sake, I don't buy into telling people that they shouldn't write books about characters who come from different cultural backgrounds than the author (this happens a lot with books about aboriginal characters). The filmmaker should do his/her research well, then be allowed to express his/her honest interpretation, even if Christians don't agree with it.
-Emily (reporting live from Victoria)

Hopefully it's tasteful. I didn't enjoy The Passion at all. Some groups just totally miss the ball with Christian-themed media. It's like they just want to jump on the Christian-right bandwagon just for the sake of feeling like they can make a difference for their religion while still making a quick buck. Take the new Left Behind video game , where you can take the streets of NY during rapture and kill all non-fundamentalist Christians if they don't convert. Beautiful guys... sure it's "Christian" themed but sure gets the message totally wrong. Whoever came up with that idea should get the dunce cap.

Check out this link from the spirit 105.3 website. it's got feedback from some of their listeners who saw the premiere of the movie. all of the feedback is positive - although, i'm sure there's a strong possibility that all of the negative comments were edited out. :) http://spirit1053.com/body/Pages/l2-NativityMovieReviews.html