Mary and Joseph in Bed

An offensive billboard in New Zealand from a surprising source.

Dec 17th, 2009 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Church, Features

Prepare to be offended. A billboard in New Zealand has just gone up that shows Mary and Joseph in bed together. Joseph looks dejected. The caption says: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.” What exactly are people to conclude from such an ad–call the Holy Spirit for a good time?Here’s the craziest part–the billboard was put up by a church. A church! Who needs Christopher Hitchens with Christians like these around?If you recall, I wrote a few posts earlier this year about an atheist ad campaign that started on buses in the UK. The posters said: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Those ads created a lot of buzz and controversy. They’ve also spread from London to the US, Canada, Italy, Spain, Australia, Finland, Germany, and soon they will be coming to New Zealand.It seems the church in NZ didn’ t want to be out maneuvered by the atheists. So they are preemptively offending Christians with the Mary and Joseph ad before the atheists get their “No God” posters onto buses. This comes from The Sydney Morning Herald:

It was intended to challenge stereotypes about the way that Jesus was conceived and get people talking about the Christmas story, the church said. Church vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said it had already generated plenty of discussion in its “conception phase”.

When a church turns to cute, cleaver, or off-color publicity stunts to get a community’s attention then something’s wrong. It’s true that most newspapers aren’t going to write stories about the thousands of Christians that serve the poor this December, or the millions of dollars given to serve others in the name of Christ, or the hospitality, generosity, and compassion followers of Jesus express… that doesn’t mean we abandon such efforts for a grotesque gimmick because it will get covered in the press.Mustard seeds, people. Mustard seeds.


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  1. Paul Steinbrueck December 17th, 2009 5:00 am :

    Thanks for posting about this. Looks like the story is all over the news now. Sounds like the church that put this up is not an orthodox Christian church. The church’s vicar Glynn Cardy is quoted as saying:

    “We’re trying to lampoon the idea of a literal male God who somehow, it’s assumed, impregnated Mary,”

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/17/2775091.htm

  2. michaeldanner December 17th, 2009 4:25 pm :

    Did this church abandon service, giving, hospitality, generosity and compassion in order to put up the billboard? Whether we like it or not, sex (or the lack of it) is a part of the birth story of Jesus. While you can argue that this was a bit crass, I think the unbelieving world is a bit astonished by how the church ignores the sexual politics of the birth narratives.

  3. Dan S. December 17th, 2009 6:29 pm :

    If the goal is to generate publicity for their church, it’s clearly working.

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