Pasifika comedy troupe Naked Samoans is facing backlash from some members of the Pacific community over its promotional poster.
In the image, which has now been taken down, the Naked Samoans depicted themselves as the 12 disciples surrounding Jesus, a parody of The Last Supper.
Several Pasifika influencers condemned the image online, with one person labelling it "disrespectful".
However, Naked Samoan group member Oscar Kightley told Pacific Waves he did not anticipate the uproar.
The award-winning writer has addressed the backlash as they gear up to perform at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in Auckland next month.
The Samoan-New Zealand actor said it was never their intention to hurt people.
"This month, 27 years ago, was our first-ever show, and we've been offending and upsetting people ever since, really. But we didn't expect [the backlash].
"We saw the reaction [to the poster], and we saw how it was being taken, it was never our intention to mock Jesus or God or the Last Supper. But when we saw that that's how it was being taken by some in our community, we made the decision to take it down."
"We took it down as soon as we knew that it was causing upset."
Responding to the online criticism that "they should have known better", Kightley said "we should have known that some people would take it that way".
"Our robust system of checks and balances badly let us down in this sense," he said.
"We could understand how some people would have looked at this and went 'you guys have gone too far', and even though we didn't mean it, we all went to Sunday school, understand the reverence that that image and that scripture has.
"But we weren't trying to comment on the scripture."
He said even though they took the image down, due to the nature of the internet will remain online "forever now".
"I think as long as people spread it, people will be raged and raised by it.
"But my message [to those who are offended by it] is, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And maybe think about Jesus's teaching in John 8:7."
