www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall New billboard depicts Virgin Mary holding a pregnancy test

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sidesho...ry-holding-pregnancy-test-150612060.html


I post, you decide....

Alexandr

Wow!

Theotokos of Vladimir, pray for them.

Words fail me

While words don't fail me, the type of words I'd say wouldn't be permitted in this forum.

SNARL.

WOW! This is both sad and tragic.

Mind you, this billboard was intentionally posted before Christmas. The group posting it admitted that they intended to be provocative, and apparently this is not their first attempt.

Further, the group responsible for this is none other than a Christian church.

All this on the small island nation of New Zealand, recently rocked by terrible earthquakes.

You would think that time, energy and economic resources would be better spent charitably assisting those still recovering from those unfortunate natural disasters.

And the followup -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ry-billboard-destroyed-by-protester.html

Controversial Virgin Mary billboard destroyed by protester
A scissor-wielding protester has destroyed a controversial billboard of the Virgin Mary, just days after it went up outside a New Zealand church.
By Paul Chapman, Wellington

11:02AM GMT 19 Dec 2011

Hours after the attack, 100 or so Roman Catholics gathered to pray in the rain in front of the ruined billboard, which had shown Mary gasping in shock as she examined a pregnancy testing kit.

The billboard outside the Anglican church of St Matthew's in the City, in central Auckland, New Zealand, had drawn thousands of angry comments as well as messages of support from around the world.

Arthur Skinner, a member of an organisation calling itself the Catholic Action Group, who described the Renaissance-style picture as "satanic", was photographed attacking it.

"Yes, it is vandalism," Mr Skinner proclaimed proudly outside the church.

"I'm guilty. If they want to arrest me, be my guest.
"If it comes to that, I believe in being persecuted for my faith."

He told the crowd of worshippers: "We are traditional Catholics.

"We don't look for trouble, but watch out if you start this sort of thing."

Mr Skinner said those responsible for the poster, which was created by an advertising agency, would "certainly burn in hell" if they did not repent.

Many of the people who knelt on a wet pavement under umbrellas to pray and say the "Hail Mary" rosary condemned the poster as blasphemous.

The Rev Glynn Cardy, vicar of St Matthew's, who had earlier described the poster as "thought provoking", told reporters: "I'm disappointed that there is not more tolerance of different views.

"They obviously feel strongly about it.

"I'm just disappointed that strength of feeling has led to vandalism."

He said St Matthew's would "need to think about" whether to replace the poster.

Two years ago a billboard outside the same church depicting Joseph and Mary in bed after sex had to be taken down after it was attacked several times by outraged Christians.

Here's a link to this parish's 2009 Christmas billboard - they refer to it as a "Christmas Theology"

http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/nav.php?sid=498&id=999

"Never before on this earth has there been such a huge number of people who freely and easily, without any shame, without any pangs of conscience "call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20).

"We are living in a strange time, when all the true and healthy Christian concepts are being replaced by false and deceitful concepts, discovered often with an evil intention with the undoubted intention, naturally, of drawing people away from the right path of a truly Christian life. In all of this there can be discerned some kind of rationally acting black hand which is working to bind people as tightly as possible to this temporary, earthly life by forcing them to forget the future life, the eternal life assuredly awaiting us all."

Archbishop +Averky

To believe that a Church that tolerated lesbian priests and active homosexuals as bishops, a Church where bishops can deny the divinity of Christ and still claim to be Christian does not understand that the Annunciation would preclude Mary being shocked at her pregnancy is perfectly consistent with reality. It is not entirely clear what "different views" Rev. Glynn has but they can't be found in any biblical tradition I am aware or.

I'd have loved to have been there, vandalising this billboard. Too bad NZ is so far away from TX.

Many years ago I, together with like-minded friends, used to deface pro-abortion billboards by throwing eggs filled with red paint against them.

The sex infested culture we live in has now decided to attack the purity of our Lord, St. Joseph, and His most Holy Mother!! And these people think they are Christians? Their extreme liberal thoughts show that they are nothing more than pagans disguised as Christians. They have bought into the idolatry and cult of all things sexual;

Reading the article reveals a much more disgusting and irreverend billboard which they displayed before...Lord have mercy.

I cannot stand this disrespectful world and how it has become!!

Christ is Born!!

While those who know me well would find this hard to believe, I, too, am speechless.
I was just preparing to go to confession and ran across this in the examination of conscience I use:

"Have you spoken lightly or disrespctfully about sacred things, or treated any holy thing with irreverence or contempt?"

If "things" are to be treated with such respect, how much worse must it be to speak of God, the Theotokos, or other person?

I have to sit back and absorb this because it's just so alien to the way I was raised, nurtured in the Faith, and live as a result of all that.

Bob

CHRIST IS BORN!! GLORIFY HIM !!

This extremely liberal 'church' and others like it are not churches of real Christianity any longer.

Such churches are a church of Mammon *DISGUISING* themselves as Christian; taking the philosophy of love and applying to any and all things perverted in our society.

As someone else said here, they don't even believe in the Resurrection, so therefore, they are only believing in a philosophy and not in Jesus Christ as God.

These self-proclaimed Christians have developed an interesting view of Christianity. As much as I hated to give them the satisfaction of an additional "hit" on their parish website, I did so because, as I've shared, I'm "curious".

They have a running series of polls going with various questions. The current poll asks about your professed religion or denomination - innocent enough.

The last poll question was a real winner:

"Can a Christian believe Jesus is not divine and still be a Christian?"

The real shock and "wake up call" is that 77% responded "YES".

Doesn't matter how valid this poll may be - the results are prominently displayed on a "church" website, without response or comment that one would expect from a responsible minister of Christ.

These folks definitely have an agenda, and it's not that of Christ!

Christ is Born!! Glorify Him!!

It seems to me that the problem lies in the fact that people who dscribe themselves as "progressives" have hijacked the language. Our world loves someone who is "progressive," that is willing to "move forward" with the world and its currently accepted beliefs, standards, and agenda. The rest of us are styled--as their website shows--as "fundamentalists," which in turn means backward: the kind styled in our last election as clinging to religion and guns. Keeping the Faith as it has come down to us is so retro to these people: read mindlessly clinging to archaic beliefs, structures, and praxis.

Is it any wonder that a couple decades ago it was said that by the turn of this century Christians would be actually divided into two groups: those who keep the Faith and those who don't? And it seems that this is true across almost any Church or ecclesial community.

Bob

Haven't you heard? Being Christian has nothing to do with dogma, worship, reception of the Holy Mysteries, the keeping of commandments, the struggle to practice virtue, and undergoing repentance. How annoying and burdensome. What a drag - what a chore. That kind of Christianity is such a downer...

Being Christian merely means you're a "nice" person who may or may not believe in some kind of supreme being. It means feeling good about yourself and, perhaps from time-to-time, partaking in exuberent, exciting, exhilarating gatherings where soothing ditties are sung and the Deity might be referenced.

I find it refreshing that someone trashed this piece of garbage and has the attitude, "Yeah, I did it. Whacha gonna do about it because I don't care. God comes first."

At least, that's the way I read it. Sometimes I think that Christians have been too much mixing up being charitable with being spineless milktoasts of the worst kind. I get the feeling from some that we are never supposed to fight back at all.

Of course, if that were the case, Lepanto would never have happened and we'd all be speaking Arabic now.

Hi,

I find the image of the pregnancy test funny and not offensive at all.

The one about "Christmas Theology" is also funny, mildly offensive, but vey poor taste.

People: You need to get out more. There is a whole world out there and we are called to preach the Good News to it, not just condemn it.

That's what I think.

Shalom,
Deacon Memo

Words fail me....

Alexandr

Fr. Deacon,

It is in poor taste. That said, why anyone is surprised by anything anymore is beyond me. That a church would sponsor it disappoints me, but again nothing Anglican shocks me anymore. And while we need to preach the Gospel there is nothing wrong with registering our displeasure at the cheap treatment of our sacred persons and things.

Memo,
If you were a layman, I would probably just shake my head and let it pass, but you are a deacon, and in accordance with your rank, supposed to be an example for the laity. So forgive me, but I will hold your feet to the fire on this one. Do you really believe it is appropriate to mock the Mother of God? Do you really find this humorous? Now I realize that you live in the cesspit that is Southern California, and when one lives in Gomorrah, it can be understood why one might start to think like a Gomorrahian, but how, in your diaconal rank, approve of this blasphemy?
As a clergyman, you are in the public eye. And believe me, people are watching. And for all the good work being done with building a relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, it just takes one priest performing a Barney Mass, or one deacon publicly approving of mocking the Theotokos, to undo years of hard labor being done by sincere Catholic clergy in the name of building better relations with the Orthodox. So I am asking you, not only in the name of ecumenical relations, but in the fear of the wrath of the Most High, to please consider publicly retracting your approval of this trash.
And no, we do not need to "get out more". Some people need to get out less, and to seek the approval of God, and not of mammon.

Alexandr

I totally agree with my brother, Alexandr.

When it comes to God, we seek theosis--to reach UP to God and become holy, not to bring God, who is holy, down to our profane and sinful levels.

I can tell you that NO Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox OR Jew that I know, atleast in my generation,( and I grew up in NYC, so the argument about 'getting out more' doesn't hold here) would find any of this funny.

I am really disappointed in your statement, Deacon Memo.

Kyrie Eleison!

Even as we disagree with him please remember Fr. Deacon Memo is a deacon and address him as such as is forum policy.

Whilst "Poor Joseph, God was a hard act to follow" is clearly blasphemous, to me the most troublesome part of the image shown is that Mary is depicted as surprised or troubled by the result - were a pregnancy test available or conducted, given the Annunciation, I don't think there would be surprise involved, though there certainly was trouble - as an unmarried, pregnant woman her position in society was anything but secure. This may well have given her cause for fear at one time or another.

One thing that seems to be absent from the discussion here is that Mary definitely was pregnant with a true human child, and the image is a stark reminder of that reality in some respects - she was truly pregnant with Jesus Christ our Lord, and certainly would have registered as such on any test. There is an unfortunate tendency in pietistic culture at times to ignore the reality of her pregnancy. She was fully pregnant, just as Christ was fully human.

In a strange and completely unintentional way (as far as its authors were concerned), what this image actually does for me is fill me with awe of the incarnation, that Christ descended to be fully human and to be born as all other human beings are.

Granted most people in a secular society will view this image as humorous, but for me my response is different - to me the pregnancy test image is a thought provoking reminder of the realities of the mystery of the incarnation.

If one can get past outraged kneejerk reactions, I think that this image might actually have something to say to us as Christians about how we still sometimes shrink from all of the biological and social implications of what the Incarnation entailed for the Mother of God, despite the fact that the Gospel is quite clear on the disgrace she faced in her society.

Mary was pregnant, and gave birth. She was (till Joseph did the honourable thing, that she not be "put away quietly") an unwed mother. Regardless of the context in which it appeared, or how others might see it, to me the image invokes awe and compassion and a deep respect for the realities in which Mary found herself.

I think if we are willing to disconnect this image from partisan concerns, it might invoke the same thoughtful response in others.

This is true, but on the other hand it is equally true that God did come down to our sinful, profane and human level, and therefore will always be a part of it. Sometimes we like to forget that, but it's what the incarnation is all about, and if it didn't happen we wouldn't be having this discussion.