{"id":3797,"date":"2009-12-17T10:57:06","date_gmt":"2009-12-17T10:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html"},"modified":"2009-12-17T10:57:06","modified_gmt":"2009-12-17T10:57:06","slug":"billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html","title":{"rendered":"Billboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In New Zealand, a controversial billboard<\/a> outside a church is sparking anger — and even protest: <\/p>\n

\nIt was designed to provoke conversation with non-believers.<\/p>\n

However, a risqu\u00e9 poster depicting the Virgin Mary lying in bed with Joseph – suggesting they have just had sex – has sparked outrage with Catholics.<\/p>\n

The billboard shows Mary with a disappointed look on her face, with a caption underneath stating: ‘Poor Joseph – God was a hard act to follow.’<\/p>\n

The huge poster, referencing Mary’s virgin birth of Jesus, has been placed in the centre of Auckland, New Zealand.<\/p>\n

It was designed to catch the eye of non-believers, according to the St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church.<\/p>\n

However, Lyndsay Freer, spokesman for the Auckland Catholic Diocese, said for a church to put up a poster which implied the Virgin Mary and Joseph had just had sex was inappropriate.<\/p>\n

‘This is disrespectful and offensive to all Christians,’ she said. ‘It’s over the top. Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph.<\/p>\n

Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful.’<\/p>\n

Protesters have now painted over the faces of Mary and Joesph in outrage.<\/p>\n

But the vicar of the St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, was unrepentant.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that his form of progressive Christianity is distinctive and ‘is one of robust engagement’.<\/p>\n

A poll today revealed 47 per cent of people questioned found the advert inspired conversation and 53 per cent regarding it as offensive. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can see the billboard for yourself at this link. <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In New Zealand, a controversial billboard outside a church is sparking anger — and even protest: It was designed to provoke conversation with non-believers. However, a risqu\u00e9 poster depicting the Virgin Mary lying in bed with Joseph – suggesting they have just had sex – has sparked outrage with Catholics. The billboard shows Mary with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-this-that"],"yoast_head":"\nBillboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Billboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In New Zealand, a controversial billboard outside a church is sparking anger — and even protest: It was designed to provoke conversation with non-believers. However, a risqu\u00e9 poster depicting the Virgin Mary lying in bed with Joseph – suggesting they have just had sex – has sparked outrage with Catholics. The billboard shows Mary with…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-17T10:57:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Billboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Billboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"In New Zealand, a controversial billboard outside a church is sparking anger — and even protest: It was designed to provoke conversation with non-believers. However, a risqu\u00e9 poster depicting the Virgin Mary lying in bed with Joseph – suggesting they have just had sex – has sparked outrage with Catholics. The billboard shows Mary with…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-12-17T10:57:06+00:00","author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html","name":"Billboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-12-17T10:57:06+00:00","dateModified":"2009-12-17T10:57:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/billboard-depicts-mary-and-joseph-in-bed.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Billboard depicts Mary and Joseph in bed"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}