Olympic Cringe

By now, you’ve probably bore witness to some of the cringeworthy iconic imagery from the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympics held in Paris, France.  Maybe you were even unfortunate enough to watch the entire debacle.  (If you haven’t, you might as well spare yourself some eye-singeing.)  It was an ugly showcase of debauchery.  Plain and simple.  Through and through.  

And that’s to be expected.  Sinners are going to sin.  Ironically enough, the Seine River, which runs through Paris and was the stage upon which much of this ceremony was set is pronounced as “sin”.   

I had planned on watching this ceremony with my children, but we were blocked by paywalls when we went to do so, and I am ever so grateful that our cheapskate selves missed it, because we would’ve frantically been covering our kids’ eyes and turning the TV off as fast as we possibly could.  Fortunately we were spared the embarrassment of such a mistake.  It’s no secret that Olympic opening ceremonies are becoming less and less about an international competition between the world’s best athletes and more and more about showcasing the host country’s political and moral views, even those that aren’t admirable.  2024 was no exception – in fact, it probably takes the cake for glorifying just about everything we oughtn’t.  

But more troubling than the rampant perverse idolatry, genitalia on display, downright creepy aspects, celebration of some hideous parts of French history, mockery of the Christian faith, and outright nihilism, was how many “Christians” responded to it.  We can’t expect those who don’t claim Christ to live as those who do.  However, those who do should do so differently enough from the fallen world around them that their light will shine into that darkness.  We are called to be non-conformists.  Yet, once again, many were quick to jump to the defense of the Olympic Opening Ceremony because they claimed it was some sort of a wonderful and artistic display of French culture and history which only the “educated” (such as themselves) could truly appreciate.  

“Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

Romans 12:2

Well, if that’s what being “educated” has come to, I want no part of it.  If, in your “education”, you have lost all ability to differentiate that which is true, good, and beautiful from that which is false, bad, and ugly, of what good is such a worldly education?

Who sets such a standard?  Who defines that which is true, good, and beautiful?  The One who made all things.  God our Creator, that’s Who.  To cling to any standards set by someone other than Him is to take humanity’s view of things as higher than God’s.  What a dangerous road to tread upon.  

Perhaps the most controversial part of the Opening Ceremony (though certainly not the only controversial thing) was the tableau which was instantly recognized by many as drawing inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper painting, but swapped out Jesus and the disciples for people putting their full sexual perversion on display.  (To the dismay of many, including myself, this even included a child! How have we come to the conclusion that pedophilia is somehow praiseworthy?!?)  There was an outcry against such mockery of Christ by many Christians throughout the world that organizers of the Olympics even apologized for performing such a perverse parody.  

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked,

for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” 

Galatians 6:7

Just a reminder, Christians, that God is well able to take care of Himself.  The mockery of those who don’t believe is something they’ll have to answer for one day.  And we should all hope that the broken and lost lot of people both on display in this ceremony as well as those watching it, should come to know Him and His saving power to overcome such corruption by then.  For the sake of their souls, Jesus let it be so!

No, God doesn’t need us to save the day by spewing hate at sinners.  He does call us to love them.  But He also doesn’t need us justifying such an indefensible mocking portrayal of Christians communing with one another.  Righteous indignation in the form of disgust is warranted.  If Christians can’t discern that which God says is good, true, and beautiful, who can?  Obviously not those who hate He who made and defined it all as such.  

The immediate defense jumped to was that “those uneducated right wing Christians” didn’t realize the “artistic tableau” was actually drawing inspiration from an artwork called the Feast of Dionysus, which celebrates the Greek gods.  I’ll grant that it could be, though there seems to be evidence to the contrary.  I’ve also heard that the original “Feast of Dionysus” painting was done in 1635, even then as a mockery of “The Last Supper” painting, which was completed over 100 years earlier.  I’m not here to debate the relevance of which painting they drew the inspiration for such a hideous display from though.  

Because that’s beside the point.  It is a distraction.  Sure, if they intended it to be a mockery of the Last Supper, that’s awful.  But even if they didn’t, it’s still pretty awful.  Probably the best take I heard on the issue was to compare it to someone who burns an effigy…they aren’t burning the real thing…they can’t possibly hope to do so.  Yet in doing so they can send a very clear message of the hate they feel towards the real figure represented by the effigy.  They are making a violent mockery of them.  This ceremony did that in more ways than one.  Their “artistry” fell incredibly short of anything resembling beauty, especially that of Christ communing with His closest followers as He is about to make the ultimate sacrifice to save us from our sinful selves.  

It also mocks the Imago Dei by substituting people who have rejected His design for their lives and subverted it for a sham.  His ways truly are higher than ours.  Humans are going to human.  We’re going to take God’s design for things and we’re going to mess it up.  All the more so when we refuse to acknowledge what a mess we’re making of things.  

To put it more bluntly, again…sinners are going to sin.  

And Christians should not celebrate sin, whether it be their own or that of others.

“...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

Romans 3:23

But when we miss the mark – when we fail and fall short, which we surely will do – we must repent and recognize our need for God’s grace.  We oughtn’t glory in our sinful shame.  We oughtn’t revel in our own self-righteousness.  We shouldn’t distort God’s design and then decry those who point out in dismay the depravity of us doing so.

And when the world around us does this, we must be faithful to point them to Him.  For us to tell them that it’s fine and that the debauchery they’re embracing is anything and everything but evil is to lie to them.  Could the cost of such a lie be their very souls?  

This postmodern lie that there is no objective reality has penetrated even the Church.  Many Christians have fallen victim to such deception as it has weaseled its way into our congregations.  It seems that rather than Christians evangelizing the culture, we’ve allowed the culture to evangelize us.  Many churches have completely lost sight of theological soundness – of what God Himself declares is good, true, and beautiful and how His Word says we should live our lives, because they’ve allowed the culture to creep in and influence them more than Christ Himself does.  They would rather cast Christ aside because it’s more comfortable to make themselves at home in the culture rather than rise against it.  

(Side note – comfort is an idol, one that we in the western world are awfully hesitant to acknowledge, much less challenge.)

Some churches even save space for cultural infiltration.  After all, isn’t it loving and hospitable to invite the culture in to make itself at home?  Heaven forbid we ask them to cast off their old selves and have Christ come in and make them new!

“...you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God

because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality,

greedy to practice every kind of impurity.  But that is not the way

you learned Christ...the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self,

which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt

through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God

in true righteousness and holiness.  Therefore, having put away falsehood,

let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor,

for we are members one of another.”

Ephesians 4:17-25

Sadly, this isn’t the first time this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last.  History is full of people adopting the beliefs of the culture around them and abandoning those of the God who has actually been there for them all along.  The Old Testament is full of story after story of God’s faithfulness followed by forgetful people forsaking Him time and time again.  Since Christ’s coming, His followers have taken the world by storm, yet history is still littered with lots of tales of those who fell away because they couldn’t resist the cultural call.  

Worst still is when it’s not so much people falling away, but entire bodies of believers being led astray because rather than having Christ rule and reign as Lord of their lives, they have allowed cultural “love” to lead them astray to a land of soft, cozy, cultural Christianity.  One which doesn’t preach repentance, atheists feel at home in, and that endorses outright heresy.  You needn’t look far to find this plague infiltrating churches these days, but history bears many cringeworthy examples.   One would be those who excluded parts of Scripture in order to justify the horrors of chattel slavery and another would be those who sat in the pews singing hymns while the Nazi death trains roared past, ushering many to their deaths.  In the first example, God’s Word was twisted and distorted to suit what was culturally acceptable at the time.  In the second, many were silent instead of standing for God’s Truth amidst the deadly cultural lies.  In both, the culture was allowed to carry more sway than Christ operating in the lives of the believers.  That was to their detriment.

And in both of those instances, when the wrongness of the situation was finally realized, we were left wondering why there weren’t more Christians taking a stand against such cultural evil.  We look in awe on those few that did, such as these notable examples of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Sophie Scholl, Oskar Schindler, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I thank God that despite the cowardice of many Christians,  there were still some who stood against the evil cultural nonsense of the age.  

Today the question is often asked that if we had lived in the historical eras of slavery and the Holocaust, would we stand for or against it?  Of course, we’d all like to think that we’d stand for the truth.  Yet, many of those who claim such allegiance to truth also currently ally themselves with cultural lies.  How can we insist that we’d stand against those lies when we’re currently such creatures of comfort that we can’t even stand up against the most basic of lies about God’s design and the value of human life? Christians, we can’t simultaneously say we stand for God’s truth whilst we deny His design.  We cannot continue to stand for the world’s lies if Christ is to truly be Lord of our lives.

“And by this we know that we have come to know Him,

if we keep His commandments.  Whoever says “I know Him”

but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the Truth is not in him, 

but whoever keeps His Word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in Him:  whoever says he abides in Him

ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.”

1 John 2:3-6

To do so is every bit as degenerate as the debauchery that was on full display at the Olympic opening ceremony (and even throughout some of the events).  Christ has set us free, fellow Christian.  We need not align with the ways of the evil one.  The devil may have his way with the world, but he doesn't get to do that to us anymore.  We must not allow ourselves to fall prey to his ideologies and lies, pervasive though they may be.  God has given us His Holy Spirit to help us discern that which is of Him and that which is not of Him.  That is a very dangerous line to blur.  Yet when we allow the culture to creep into our churches, our congregations become filled with people who can no longer distinguish and differentiate between the two.  Oh that He would give us the wisdom to know the difference between what the world has to offer us and what His Lordship gives us.  His grace really does set us free.  We don’t have to be slaves to that sin, to that debauchery, to that worldly reign in our lives any longer.  His freedom isn’t like anything this world can offer…it’s far better.  

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” 

John 8:36

Don’t give in and live in those lies any longer, dear Christian.  Don’t allow the world to “educate” you to where you can no longer distinguish between that which the Lord declares as true, good, and beautiful and that which the world claims as such.  The latter is an indefensible, phony fraud, meant to lead sheep astray.  But the former is found in Him.  And that’s where our allegiance should lie.