More offended believers:
A billboard outside a church depicting Mary and Joseph in bed with each other, apparently after having sex, has caused outrage in New Zealand.
The billboard, which was put up outside St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, shows Mary and Joseph naked under the sheets with Joseph looking rather dejected. “Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow,” the slogan reads.
The vicar of the progressive Anglican church, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, said that the billboard was meant to challenge literal interpretations of the Bible and engage non-believers before Christmas.
In the Bible the Virgin Mary becomes pregnant after an angel appears to her and tells her that she will give birth to the son of God. “The idea was to lampoon and ridicule the idea of a male God in the sky who somehow impregnated Mary,” Mr Cardy told The Times. “We would question the virgin birth in any literal sense. We would question the maleness of God in any literal sense.”
Yes, go on..."We would question..." You're almost there.
Auckland’s Roman Catholic diocese was not impressed, describing the implication that Mary and Joseph had just had sex as disrespectful and offensive to Christians.
Quite right.
No surprise that the Christian sect that is obsessed with sex (virginity, celibacy, monks/nuns, and let's not forget choirboys...)would be the one most offended with the idea of Mary and Joseph, you know, making the beast with two humps.
Posted by: DaninVan | December 18, 2009 at 06:51 PM
There is a follow-up story at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10616853: "An Auckland Anglican priest has decided not to press charges against a woman who slashed a controversial billboard outside his church... Archdeacon Cardy said he had no regrets about the billboard and the debate that it provoked. 'We are glad that discussion about Santa, food, and present-buying was momentarily usurped by a discussion about Jesus'."
My impression of Archdeacon Cardy, who was for a while my local vicar, is that he was instead glad that discussion about Santa, food and present-buying was momentarily usurped by a discussion about himself.
Posted by: Stephen Stratford | December 21, 2009 at 09:22 AM
What a pathetic excuse the Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, had, he said that it was to challenge literal interpretations of the Bible and engage non-believers before Christmas. To use two pathetic looking people in bed is sick.
Either you believe in it all or nothing, as who is doing to decide what is literal and what is not, that would cause the bible to be open to one horrific distortions..
This would cause any sensible person to run in the other direction Glynn and I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would think that it would attract non Christians to want to discuss it.. goodness I DO believe that Jesus is whom he said he was and it turns me off..
Posted by: Gaye | December 25, 2011 at 12:07 PM