<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 18.0px Helvetica">Christian billboard about God!</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 22px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" style="font: 18.0px Helvetica">1. From Australia</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-family: Georgia; "> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Georgia" size="4" color="#000af1" style="font: 13.0px Georgia; color: #000af1"><a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/mary-and-joseph-post-sex-billboard-upsets-catholics/story-e6frfkyr-1225811281048"><u>http://www.news.com.au/world/mary-and-joseph-post-sex-billboard-upsets-catholics/story-e6frfkyr-1225811281048</u><u></u></a></font></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia"> </font></p> <ul> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia">Billboard depicts Jesus's mother after sex</font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia">Outraged Christian groups</font></li> <li style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia">Creator said bilboards are 'cutting-edge'</font></li> </ul><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 13.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia"><b>A RISQUE billboard that depicts Jesus's mother looking dejected after unsatisfying sex with Joseph has given Kiwi Catholics a nasty pre-Christmas surprise.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 13.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia">The huge ad erected in downtown Auckland today shows the unhappy couple in bed accompanied by the slogan: "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow".<br> <br> In the fresco-style work, Joseph looks down red-faced while an anguished Mary looks to the heavens.<br> <br> It was the brainchild of a progressive Christian church, <a href="http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/news.php?nid=212&sid=88"><font face="Verdana" size="4" color="#0066b2" style="font: 13.0px Verdana; color: #0066b2"><u>St Matthew's</u></font></a>, whose vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy says it was a cutting-edge strategy to engage non-believers.<br> <br> "Progressive Christianity is distinctive in that not only does it articulate a clear view, it is also interested in engaging with those who differ," Cardy said, with the advertisement still appearing<a href="http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/news.php?nid=212&sid=88"><font face="Verdana" size="4" color="#0066b2" style="font: 13.0px Verdana; color: #0066b2"><u> on their website</u></font></a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 13.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia"><br> "Its vision is one of robust engagement," he said.<br> <br> But the city's Catholic diocese is not impressed, saying the implication that Mary and Joseph had just had sex was "disrespectful" and "offensive" to Christians.<br> <br> Spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer told the <i>New Zealand Herald</i> it was particularly inappropriate given the inference was wrong.<br> <br> "Our Christian tradition of 2000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph," she said.<br> <br> But statistics show New Zealanders may need such edgy advertising to help spark interest in religion.<br> <br> The latest 2006 Census showed that 32.2 per cent - or 1.3 million Kiwis - profess to have no religion, up 270,000 people on the previous survey.<br> <br> That's significantly more than the 18.7 per cent of Australians who ticked the No Religion box in the same year, and higher than most other Western countries worldwide.<br> <br> It's not surprising that a recent atheist fundraising campaign to put controversial "No God" posters on buses was overwhelmed with donations from non-God fearing Kiwis.<br> <br> The organiser, Simon Fisher, collected more than double the $NZ10,000 ($8000) he needed in just two days for the ads which read: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."<br> <br> He said the campaign, which mimics one which ran in Britain, was designed to break religious taboos.<br> <br> "Religion should not be a taboo subject that no one brings up at dinner parties," he wrote on the website <a href="http://www.nogod.org.nz/"><font face="Verdana" size="4" color="#0066b2" style="font: 13.0px Verdana; color: #0066b2"><u>www.nogod.org.nz</u></font></a>.<br> <br> "We should be discussing what we believe and why."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 13.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica; min-height: 22.0px"><br></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 13.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Georgia" size="4" style="font: 13.0px Georgia">2. Later, from New Zealand (same web site)</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 13.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica; min-height: 22.0px"><br></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 21px; "><font face="Arial" size="6" color="#0074c0" style="font: 23.0px Arial; color: #0074c0">Paint thrown at church's bedroom billboard</font></div> <br><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 14px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); min-height: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 14px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); min-height: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); "><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 11.0px Arial; color: #333333">The billboard shows Joseph looking down dejectedly and Mary looking sad, with the caption, "Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow" (NZPA)</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); min-height: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247); min-height: 14px; "><b></b><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#ffffff" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #ffffff; background-color: #3f8815">UPDATED: 4:40PM</font><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial"> </font><font face="Arial" size="2" color="#666666" style="font: 10.0px Arial; color: #666666">THU, 17 DEC 2009 3:24P.M.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">St Matthew-in-the-City Church's controversial new billboard has reportedly been attacked with paint.</font></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial"> </font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">It is not clear at this stage who did it, or why, but 3 News is on the scene. </font></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial"> </font></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 15px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">The church's archdeacon says its mischievous biblical bedroom billboard has provoked support and disapproval in about equal measures.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">The downtown Auckland church's billboard, erected today, shows Joseph looking down dejectedly and Mary looking sad. Underneath is a caption, "Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the church had received emails and phone calls since it made the public aware of the billboard yesterday.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"About 50 percent said they loved it, and about 50 percent said it was terribly offensive," he told NZPA.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"But that's out of about 20 responses - this is New Zealand."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Archdeacon Cardy said one person had threatened to rip the billboard down but nothing worse had been offered up.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">The billboard has already raised the wrath of the traditional values pressure group Family First.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"The church can have its debate on the Virgin birth and its spiritual significance inside the church building, but to confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary," Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"The church has failed to recognise that public billboards are exposed to all of the public including children and families who may be offended by the material."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Catholic Church spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said the image was inappropriate and disrespectful.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">The archdeacon said the plan behind the billboard was to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about," he told NZPA.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?"</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">The billboard has already raised the wrath of the traditional values pressure group Family First.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Archdeacon Cardy said the church had asked an advertising agency to come up with a few ideas in November, and that the billboard they chose wasn't the most radical one offered up to them.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">"One of the options we turned down had a sperm coming down with the words `Joy To The World'."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">He said the true importance of Christmas "is in the radical hospitality Jesus offered to the poor, the despised, women, children, and the sick, and says: 'this is the essence of God'. His death was a consequence of the offensive nature of that hospitality and his resurrection a symbolic vindication".</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">The archdeacon said St Matthew-in-the-City was at the progressive end of the Christian continuum, and that he believed God was "more like a force but not a being in any sense".</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">He said some fundamentalist groups and churches would not be strong supporters of theirs, but that there were those in the Christian community who supported him.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Last week a campaign by New Zealand Atheist Bus Campaign raised $20,000 in public donations to fund bus ads which read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life".</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">Those ads created a storm when they ran on the London Underground and British buses this year. Similar ads have run in the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, Australia, Finland and Germany.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial">NZPA / 3 News</font></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 18.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Arial"> </font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica; min-height: 22.0px"><br></p>
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