Now I did not do this, and for good reason. It is generally not a good look for a doctoral student to go around insulting other students simply because they said things about my religion that I disagreed with – people would justifiably be outraged at me and denounce me as bigoted. But, isn’t this the point?

I recalled this event this morning as I heard that the controversial Christmas billboard, put up by St Matthews in the City, has been taken down. For those outside of Auckland, St Matthews in the City is an Anglican congregation that propounds, what they like to call, “progressive Christianity.” They recently put up a billboard showing Mary and Joseph in bed, not looking too happy, with the line “poor Joseph, God was a tough act to follow.” The billboard implies quite clearly that God not only literally had sex with Mary, was a fantastic orgasmic lover but it also, by implication, entails that God committed adultery, and so did Mary.

I am glad the billboard is down (though I will not endorse the  reported method) for the obvious reason that it is insulting to other people and, prima facie, it is wrong to insult other people. Of course, there can be situations, such as where a person does something wrong, that the appropriate response is to insult them but absent such situations, charity dictates that we refrain from doing so. Millions of people world-wide worship God and millions of Roman Catholic venerate Mary, this billboard affirmed that persons they love and adore are adulterers.

Of course some are saying that this is just a joke and we Christians should get a sense of humour. I always find this response disingenuous. Suppose I, for a joke, put a picture of the vicar of St Matthews, Glyn Cardy and his wife, outside my Church, made both of them look not so happy, and added the phrase “Glyn Cardy is as soft and floppy as his theology,” right there, in public – outside my church let’s not forget - for all to see. Would the response, ‘oh come on it’s only a joke, get a sense of humour,’ wash with anyone? I doubt it. If I were a gambler I would bet we would hear another of Cardy’s little sermons about how this is proof of the narrow-minded intolerance that non-progressive Christians like me expound. But then wouldn’t it be evident that neither Cardy nor anyone else believes that humor justifies making insulting personal comments of this nature?

Of course in many ways this whole event shows up the intellectual shallowness that so called “progressive Christians” show towards others. Take Cardy’s justification for the billboard according to Stuff, Cardy states,

St Matthew’s church says the aim is to provoke conversation about spiritual matters by lampooning the literal Christian conception story and inviting people to think again about what a miracle is … He said the idea behind the billboard was to move a debate that was inside the church to outside it ”and certainly people in all sorts of places are talking about it”. He didn’t doubt that some people had been offended by the billboard, but ”the literalness of a male God impregnating Mary needs to be laughed at”.

Note two things here, first Cardy clearly caricatures the “literal conception story” yet mainstream Christendom, who believes this story, do not hold that God is literally a man and that he had sex with Mary. God in traditional theology is immaterial, he has no sex organs and the story of a virginal conception is just that, a virginal conception. Cardy, of course, being theologically trained, knows this. Second, Cardy on calling for “debate” means that people who hold orthodox Christian views “needs to be laughed at.” So Cardy’s understanding of theological debate apparently involves deliberately distorting and caricaturing the views of other people and then responding, not with reasoned argument, but ridicule.

I might be a bit too conservative and old fashioned but in my book theological argument involves trying to understand another’s position by trying to grasp the best representative examples of it so one can articulate it accurately and then offer sound arguments or reasons for rejecting it or for showing where and why it is flawed. It also involves treating ones interlocutors with respect. Of course I do not always live up to this ideal but it is one that I think Theologians should aspire to.

The fact that Cardy and St Matthews thinks otherwise tells us a bit about them and their “progressive Christianity.” People who think it is ok to ridicule and insult people simply because they hold a different religious perspective to them, who will dishonestly distort other’s views and responds to being challenged on this, not by reason, but by self-confident ridicule is not “progressive” and no amount of relabeling it will change this fact.