Billboard Showing Joseph and Mary in Bed Causes Ruckus in New Zealand
A church billboard showing Joseph and Mary in bed has been defaced, within four hours of going up.
On the billboard Mary and Joseph are in bed with Joseph looking down in a dejected manner and Mary looking disappointed.
The caption reads: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.”
The billboard, at St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, was almost entirely painted over by a man standing on his car on Thursday afternoon. A ONE News camera caught him in the act .
The church says the billboard intended to challenge stereotypes about the way that Jesus was conceived and get people talking about the Christmas story.
“We actually think God is about the power of love as shown in Jesus, which is something quite different than a literal man up in the sky,” says Archdeacon Glynn Cardy.
But Lyndsay Freer, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, said the poster was offensive to Christians.
“Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph,” she told the New Zealand Herald. “Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful.”
The problem facing both churches is that in New Zealand over 32% of the people say they have no religion.
In fact a recent atheist fund raising campaign to put posters on buses that read “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” received almost twice as much money as they needed in the first two days.
