This is a genuine photo in the London Daily Mail of a billboard standing in front of St. Matthew-in-the-City, an Anglican church in downtown Auckland, New Zealand. It was in this morning’s Washington Post
(sans photo) and there are multiple citations on the web.
It was put up during Christmas week by the church itself, in an attempt to spark discussion about faith in one of the world’s most secular countries, with 31% of the population non–religious, up from 27% in 2001. It has certainly sparked discussion about the propriety of the billboard itself. It was vandalized with paint a few hours after its debut, and has been torn down and replaced twice.
Archdeacon Glynn Cardy intended to challenge what he calls “stereotypes” about the virgin birth. His church teaches that Jesus had two human parents and was conceived in the conventional manner. In an interview he said, “We wanted to say to people who are on the margins: If you want to find out about God and Jesus, you don’t have to hang up your brain, you don’t have to believe in supernatural things. There are Christians who don’t believe God is a being in the sky who directs traffic on earth.”
He went on to say that to engage members of an increasingly secular society with topics such as virgin birth requires a demonstration that one does not take onerself too seriously. He doesn’t regret putting up the billboard or the debate it triggered, because “We knocked Santa off center stage… for a day or two.”
