Billboard Provokes Christmas Controversy

By Johnny Cat in Advertising, Christmas, Religion on Dec 18, 2009 at 1:31 pm

JosephSt. Matthew-In-The-City Anglican church in Auckland, New Zealand considers itself a liberal place of worship, and this year it erected a billboard that was intended to provoke thought about the literal meaning of Christmas.  So far all they’ve provoked is the collective rage of area Christians.

Archdeacon Glynn Cardy defends the church’s message:

“This billboard is trying to lampoon and ridicule the very literal idea that God is a male and somehow this male God impregnated Mary,” said Cardy, who described his church as having very liberal ideas about Christianity.

“We would question the Virgin Birth in any literal sense. We would question the maleness of God in any literal sense,” he said.

On the billboard — painted to mimic the fresco style commonly used in church murals — Mary and Joseph are in bed side-by-side. Joseph is looking down. Mary, looking heavenward, appears sad. The caption reads: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.”

Link to NPR story.  (Photo: Sarah Ivey)


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  1. Gauldar
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    I’ve been to Christchurch. It’s a beautiful looking city… although it’s incredibly boring. This would be front page news there.

  2. Gauldar
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    Oh, sorry, Auckland. My sister lives there, I’ll have to see how big the stink actually is over there. I don’t see what the problem is, it’s like taking as much offence at the representation of god being an old man in a robe and sandals. I probably wouldn’t understand anyway.

  3. TM
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    This church is a joke.

    “We would question the Virgin Birth in any literal sense” ?

    If I understand this correctly, this church then believes Jesus is not God but is a man. And therefore His death is pointless in terms of ‘salvation of mankind’. If they believe Jesus was a nice dude with some nice ideas, fine. But that’s not Christianity. That’s not even a religion. Church FAIL.

  4. Another Tim
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    “We would question the maleness of God in any literal sense”

    Apparently, they don’t read the Bible either? Or did they miss the countless references to God as Father, He, or Daddy (Abba)?

    What morons–and I doubt they are actually Christian.

  5. kev
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    The only thought this inane billboard provokes is “exactly what sort of cleric feels the need to ‘lampoon’ (or outright insult)the beliefs of his own religion?

  6. zeytoun
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    Another Tim,

    So does god have spirit testes? spirit XY chromosomes? a spirit phallus?

    If not, in what literal sense, would the god of the bible be male?

  7. Katthe7th
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    Wow. That is completely tasteless. And yes, what other religion has clerics in good standing that openly ridicule key tenets of the faith?

  8. Xinavera
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    I love it. Let’s point out a few more logical fallacies in standard religious doctrine. The fact that a church is doing it makes it all the sweeter.

  9. Dave D
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    This is pretty amusing, but they CANNOT be surprised by controversy when they intentionally set out to challenge peoples’ assumptions.

  10. Effervex
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    Amazing how humourless most religious people are. It’s just a billboard. A comical billboard.

    Also, the billboard was defaced within 5 hours of it being erected – in broad daylight no less. Intolerance must be a virtue among the religious.

  11. scot
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    As usaul, liberals exposing their complete ignorance of anything realistic. They should all go to the globull warming conference and freeze.

  12. felixthecat
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 6:33 pm

    The church was hoping to get people to question a literal interpretation of the Bible, as well as using the Bible to justify hate and cruelty. People spend more time arguing about literalness, than focusing on the importance of the message of Jesus, sacrifice, and redemption. The church argues that not only is a literal interpretation of the Bible a distraction, but that it is impossible to reconcile the various stories of Jesus’s birth without performing mental acrobatics which lead to intellectual convulsions (same thing with the Easter story- I challenge anyone to tell me reconcile the differences in the four Easter stories presented in the Gospels.

    If we are ever to mature as a culture, as human beings, as rational adults, we must move beyond literalness, and grow-up.

  13. evilmonkeynz
    Dec 18th, 2009 at 11:16 pm

    @felixthecat, good call.

  14. Cola
    Dec 19th, 2009 at 1:42 am

    Woohoo! The atheists can’t be blamed for this one! *high fives all around*

  15. saijan_333
    Dec 19th, 2009 at 2:21 am

    I’m surprised no one else feels sorry for Joseph. If someone else impregnated my wife in any kind of way i would be pretty upset to say the least.

  16. Gutza
    Dec 19th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    “Auckland Catholic Diocese spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said the billboard implied the Virgin Mary and Joseph had just had sex and was inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive to Christians.”

    In the eyes of the Catholic Church sex between spouses seems to be disrespectful and offensive nowadays. Makes you wonder how Auckland Catholic Diocese spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer thinks she was conceived herself… hopefully not in such an inappropriate and disrespectful manner for the church she represents — imagine the scandal!

  17. Gauldar
    Dec 19th, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    If sex between a couple is a sin, why do they even bother being pro-life?

  18. Dandy
    Dec 20th, 2009 at 1:10 am

    I don’t see what the big deal is – if we are made in his (human) image as the Bible says, then he is either male or female.

    But if he is an all-seeing, all knowing, all-over-over-the-place kind of God, then he isn’t human so he can not be either human male or female.

    Of course the above do not preclude a non-human God from momentarily taking over or creating a human body to use temporarily for impregnating, which makes the question even more fun if we are still made “in his image”…

  19. ted
    Dec 20th, 2009 at 3:18 am

    The problem is in the idea that Mary had sex with God, and not just average sex, but female-orgasm-wow sex.

  20. semi
    Dec 20th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    11@scot

    >As usaul, liberals exposing their complete ignorance of anything realistic. They should all go to the globull warming conference and freeze<

    Non-sequitur. (look it up!)

    Time to get back in the rocking chair, gramps.

  21. Matthew Robert Payne
    Dec 20th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    I don’t know what they are all on about It is not offensive to me and I am pretty full on as a Christian

  22. Touk
    Dec 20th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    Personally I think its a scream. After 2,000 years, its hard to come up with new material.


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