The Scandinavian church, which is notionally Evangelical Lutheran, earned a substantial backlash for the stunt, with social media users claiming to be former congregants citing such “woke” virtue-signalling as their reason for leaving its dwindling flock.
But Petur Georg Markan, the Church’s media representative defended the advert, saying that it supports diversity and suggesting that having Jesus depicted in different ways is positive, according to MailOnline.
“In this [advert], we see a Jesus who has breasts and a beard. We’re trying to embrace society as it is. We have all sorts of people and we need to train ourselves to talk about Jesus as being ‘all sorts’ in this context,” he insisted.
“Especially because it’s really important that each and every person see themselves in Jesus and that we don’t stagnate too much. That’s the essential message. So this is okay. It’s okay that Jesus has a beard and breasts,” he added.
