Xmas Advert

[Gob]

[Scooter]

The whole virgin birth story sounds very much like an attempt to cover up what in decades past would have been called a "premature birth".

[Lord Jim]

Hmmm...

A controversial new billboard shows the Virgin Mary holding a pregnancy test with a "positive" reading.

The billboard, called "Mary is in the pink," was purchased by the St. Matthews-in-the-City Church in Auckland, New Zealand. The church says the billboard featuring the revered religious figure aimed to "avoid the sentimental [and] trite" and "spark thought and conversation." It bears no text.

This billboard is only the latest in a string of provocative, holiday-themed billboards for the church, according to local TV station 3 News. In 2009, they ran another Christmas billboard featuring Mary and Joseph in bed with the tagline, "Poor Joseph, God was a hard act to follow."

Vicar Glynn Cardy said that this year St. Matthews wanted to focus on what it was like for a real mother with a real child. "It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope."

On the church's website, St. Matthews says the lack of text on the billboard is intended to provoke thought: "We hope to do so with an image and no words. We invite you to wonder what your caption might be."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/bi ... 12060.html

Gee Strop, you didn't happen to post that without the story that explains that it was put up by a church in the hopes of provoking outrage from religious believers here... and then planning to reveal that a church was behind it, did you?

If so, I want to say I feel just awful about spoiling your plan....

[Scooter]

If someone was going to be outraged by the image, why should who is posting it, or why, make any difference? It's either an outrageous image or it's not.

[Gob]

Damn, my cunning plan has been seen through!! Curses, foiled again

[rubato]

It didn't occur to me that the image was religious. I saw "Renaissance-era painting of a woman doctored to show her finding out she is pregnant". I thought the distress in her posture (or is she just puking into her hand?) was intended to provoke compassion for her situation. Maybe (I thought) the purpose was to show how timeless this situation is.

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

It doesn't seem offensive just weird, because Mary had already heard she going to be pregnant, from the Angel Gabriel;

'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.

...so, why would she be shocked?

[Econoline]

I took it to convey that of course it was just as much of a shock for Mary to find out from an angel as it would have been--and for many other women, is--to find out the same thing from a pregnancy testing kit. It humanizes her, and emphasizes her being (at that point in her life) less like a saint and more like just any other young, unmarried woman in the same sort of circumstance.

[Scooter]

She was a young girl who found out she was pregnant. She had to figure out a way to tell her fiance, convince him that she had not cheated on him, and hope that he would believe her. She knew that when she started showing, she was going to be the subject of gossip, if indeed people did not confront her directly and label her a whore. Oh yeah, and there was a serious risk that she would be stoned to death. To imagine that she accepted all of that with complete equanimity is to diminish the enormity of what she agreed to do, to trivialize the depth of her faith.

[Econoline]

Exactly.

[loCAtek]

Except for Joseph's testimony;

Matthew 1:18-21
"Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.
19 Joseph her husband, being a just man, and unwilling to put her on public display, decided to divorce her quietly.
20 Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home on account it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.
21 She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. "

If Mary had been 'touched', as so many had been before her, then Joseph would have been justified in divorcing her. Yet, he did not.

[Scooter]

And he was planning on divorcing her right up until he got his own visit from an angel. So clearly Mary did have reason to worry about what his reaction would be to her news. Thank you for making my point for me.

[loCAtek]

...that was the Bible. There's more to the story, if you choose to read it.

[Scooter]

The part you quoted makes my point perfectly, thank you. Mary would have rightly suspected that Joseph might reject her. I'm sorry that you can't see beyond your own bullshit games enough to appreciate the enormity of what she agreed to do, given what it might have cost her, up to and including her life.

[Sean]

If Jesus really was God's son why did Mary name him after her Mexican gardener?

[loCAtek]

The part you quoted makes my point perfectly, thank you. Mary would have rightly suspected that Joseph might reject her. I'm sorry that you can't see beyond your own bullshit games enough to appreciate the enormity of what she agreed to do, given what it might have cost her, up to and including her life.

Well, then Joseph also opposed the currently masculinely dominated culture, when he could have just rejected Mary. That's significant.

[Scooter]

It absolutely is. There is a reason why both of them are held up as examples of trust and obedience to the will of God, because what they were being asked to do carried huge risk for both of them and they had faith enough to see it through.

[liberty]

If Jesus really was God's son why did Mary name him after her Mexican gardener?

If he was named after anyone, it was another famous character in Jewish history. Do you know that person’s name?

[Sean]

*sigh*

It was what we call a 'joke' Lib...

[liberty]

*sigh*

It was what we call a 'joke' Lib...

I know but I was using it to try draw you into the Bible. Hey I need the points; he has been good to me and it is time that I start to do my part.