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