What nativity sets do you have up at your house this year? I'm sure none of ours are as artistic as the one of the Vatican thread, but lets see what you have.

In our house this year, we went a little simpler. We normally have several sets, but this year just 2.

One is, well, I'm not sure it even qualifies.


Yes, it has Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but looks more like the flight to Egypt than the nativity.


The other is my youngest's Little People nativity set.


What I really like about hers is that while most Nativity sets rightly have Christ as the center, they are also arranged so that the viewer can see the characters, while hers has the Christ child as the center for everyone and noone is looking at the viewer, but only at the Christ.


Outside, I do have a nativity set, and this one is legit.


I few years ago, I didn't like that we just had lights, so I got a small metal nativity that sat in the flower bed. Didn't like that it was hard to see and didn't stand out, so got the larger one. Our neighborhood went from 0 nativities outside to now at least 4. Being Presbyterian though, don't let the hyper-Calvinists know. We'll be getting hate mail for violating the 2nd commandment.


What do yall have?

My United Methodist church growing up installed a statue of Jesus surfing. My pre-school (Episcopal), had a statue of Jesus as the Good Shephard. The hyper-Calvinists, as I stated, would have a problem, but most don't.

Anyway, that isn't the purpose of this thread. What nativity sets do you have in your house this year?

Pro Sandy - those look great! Ours is a small collection of ceramic pieces, similar to a menagerie that is on top of our pot belly stove (old house). I will try to get a pic. I think we need to upgrade though! We talked about adding an Advent Wreath (Catholic thing).

+pablo

wbt5845 said:

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I laughed. There is truth in what you put out there.

Now, now, now...the Dutch Reformed gave us Rembrandt. He painted Jesus on the cross painting himself into the picture basically being apart of the crucifixion. As in this is what my sins did and this is why Christ died.

But, our concern is art portraying Christ in the worship
service. We are cautious about graven images in the second commandment being in the top ten.

Remember Israel put up a sign of God's strength in the pagan image of a golden heifer that God was not pleased with.

What Jesus do we portray? Muscle Jesus? Skinny effeminate Jesus? South Park Jesus? Baby Jesus?
Thank God the Bible was written with words because a picture can say a thousand of them that could mean most anything. Thank God this happens once a year for us. Thank God that it's not happening all the time. It's about emphasis and overemphasis...We are what we emphasize.

Pro Sandy said:

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What nativity sets do you have up at your house this year? I'm sure none of ours are as artistic as the one of the Vatican thread, but lets see what you have.

In our house this year, we went a little simpler. We normally have several sets, but this year just 2.

One is, well, I'm not sure it even qualifies.


Yes, it has Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but looks more like the flight to Egypt than the nativity.


The other is my youngest's Little People nativity set.


What I really like about hers is that while most Nativity sets rightly have Christ as the center, they are also arranged so that the viewer can see the characters, while hers has the Christ child as the center for everyone and noone is looking at the viewer, but only at the Christ.


Outside, I do have a nativity set, and this one is legit.


I few years ago, I didn't like that we just had lights, so I got a small metal nativity that sat in the flower bed. Didn't like that it was hard to see and didn't stand out, so got the larger one. Our neighborhood went from 0 nativities outside to now at least 4. Being Presbyterian though, don't let the hyper-Calvinists know. We'll be getting hate mail for violating the 2nd commandment.


What do yall have?

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Which? You mean those who don't believe in evangelism that make up like .5 percent of all of Christianity? That's what hyper-Calvinism means. It's heretical.

You must not be confessional because neither the PCA, nor the OPC, nor the conservative confessional Dutch reformed believe that nativity scenes are blasphemous.

You are confusing worship service and everyday life artistic expressions. There are very few that have problems with nativity scenes on your lawn. It's a straw man.

https://opc.org/

Oh no, candles on the main website.

Look, we follow the church calendar. We light a candle every week in advent season.

The Church of Christ thinks it's blasphemous to light candles during the worship service.

My mom collects them. Her favorite is a ceramic set that her and my father bought when he was a LT in germany. He built a manger and she painted them. It is pretty impressive. Even more impressive is that the entire thing survived all of the moves that come with being a military family.

My brother now picks one up from every place he is stationed. So she has some really neat ones from Africa, Iraq, Mexico, Israel, multiple from Europe. They range from your traditional versions to minimalist to local cultural interpretations to one from a first nations group that looks a lot like the Vatican's display this year.

Right now we just have a wooden set on the dining room table, but with young kids we don't want anything breakable right now.

We will get nicer ones once the kids get older though. That Bavarian set looks incredible.

FalconAg06 said:

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I support a small group of artists in the Bavarian region who make blonde haired and blue eyed nativity sets and sculptures. They do fantastic work and would be more than happy to share their contact info with anyone

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Do these people have a website? These look incredible.

SLAM said:

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FalconAg06 said:

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I support a small group of artists in the Bavarian region who make blonde haired and blue eyed nativity sets and sculptures. They do fantastic work and would be more than happy to share their contact info with anyone

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Do these people have a website? These look incredible.

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I'll text you Dawg

PabloSerna said:

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Pro think we need to upgrade though! We talked about adding an Advent Wreath (Catholic thing).

+pablo

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We did have an advent wreath, wife threw it away because she was embarrassed by it.

Our church had an advent workshop, but because of COVID, it was just "pick up the supplies and do it yourself." We didn't pickup the greenery and our advent wreath was just the florist foam and candles. We lit it every Sunday, but the kids picked at the foam so much it was quite ugly.

Patriot101 said:

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Pro Sandy said:

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What nativity sets do you have up at your house this year? I'm sure none of ours are as artistic as the one of the Vatican thread, but lets see what you have.

In our house this year, we went a little simpler. We normally have several sets, but this year just 2.

One is, well, I'm not sure it even qualifies.


Yes, it has Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but looks more like the flight to Egypt than the nativity.


The other is my youngest's Little People nativity set.


What I really like about hers is that while most Nativity sets rightly have Christ as the center, they are also arranged so that the viewer can see the characters, while hers has the Christ child as the center for everyone and noone is looking at the viewer, but only at the Christ.


Outside, I do have a nativity set, and this one is legit.


I few years ago, I didn't like that we just had lights, so I got a small metal nativity that sat in the flower bed. Didn't like that it was hard to see and didn't stand out, so got the larger one. Our neighborhood went from 0 nativities outside to now at least 4. Being Presbyterian though, don't let the hyper-Calvinists know. We'll be getting hate mail for violating the 2nd commandment.


What do yall have?

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Which? You mean those who don't believe in evangelism that make up like .5 percent of all of Christianity? That's what hyper-Calvinism means. It's heretical.

You must not be confessional because neither the PCA, nor the OPC, nor the conservative confessional Dutch reformed believe that nativity scenes are blasphemous.

You are confusing worship service and everyday life artistic expressions. There are very few that have problems with nativity scenes on your lawn. It's a straw man.

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Son, calm down. I'm PCA and agree that the PCA doesn't have a problem with nativities. PCA also isn't hyper-Calvinist, so I clearly wasn't talking about myself.

Our PCA does an advent wreath. My family is actually lighting it tonight. The 6 and 8 year olds have been practicing the verse they memorized for it.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Looks like Din has lost The Way. Not wearing his mask.

The child does have a spot on our tree.

one MEEN Ag said:

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FalconAg06 said:

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I support a small group of artists in the Bavarian region who make blonde haired and blue eyed nativity sets and sculptures. They do fantastic work and would be more than happy to share their contact info with anyone

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Is there any reason why you specifically support Germans making aryan Jesus?

But seriously...

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What's the problem? Look at Japanese and MesoAmerican depictions of the Blessed Virgin and Jesus, namely our Lady of Akita, and la Virgen de Guadalupe.

I liked the way the art looked, and wanted to support the artistic community.

craigernaught said:

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I don't think blonde Jesus is weird. I like seeing Jesus depicted in different ways

But it seems like you mentioned it because you're fishing for a fight.

Maybe I'm wrong.

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What fight? I posted it and left until someone messaged me

It is beautiful artwork, but your original post made it seem that you were seeking out blonde haired/blue eyed Jesus nativity scenes.

This is a can of worms. Some people have strong opinions one way or another.

I personally prefer attempts at historically accurate portrayals of Jesus/everyone in the scene. It helps break the implicit narrative that Jesus was 'one of us' when you see white/asian/black Jesus. Pretty hard to hate a different group of people based on skin color when Your Savior isn't the same skin color as you.

Not saying you do any of these things, but re-skinned Jesus is part of the backdrop that makes it easier to not love your neighbor and create and 'us vs them' mentality.

Now that being said, it's a minor squabble. Nobody should be denigrating nativity scenes over it.

Quote:

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What fight? I posted it and left until someone messaged me

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His point is that you basically said you really like white versions of Jesus and go out of your way to support artists who make them...and that's a very strange thing to say because the racial aspect is certainly top of your mind.

You posted pictures of it. You said Bavarian, which no one would have thought would make, for example, black versions of Jesus.

It's basically a dog whistle.

Let's not throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.

While no one has a good enough description to pick Jesus out of a police lineup, we can certainly rule out a couple extremely low probability instances.

Namely, blue eyed and blonde haired Jesus in the Middle East.

To clarify I don't think there should be a litmus test for "correct" iconographic depictions of Jesus. There have been many small-o orthodox icons of Him, some very different. My godfather is an iconographer, he sent me a huge mosaic once of different historical depictions...ever seen a beardless Jesus? Some ancient icons had Him this way...

I just think redrawing Him with intent to satisfy some preconception or is the issue.