Lee Moses
Award the 2024 Paris Olympics a gold medal for the most depraved moment in Olympic history. The opening ceremonies featured a tableau portraying a demonic and debauched Last Supper of Christ. Satirizing the scene portrayed in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting, The Last Supper, the actors each portray some form of sexual deviancy, primarily various forms of homosexuality. One actor in this scene apparently exposed his private parts before the viewing audience of millions. This same man was also creeping over a young child actress, evidently representing pedophilia. There were also drag queens aplenty, and a large lesbian woman sitting in the place of Christ. This actress posted a picture of the scene on social media, entitling it, “The New Gay Testament.” After this scene, an actor playing Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and feasting, takes center stage in front of lesbian “Jesus.” This is apparently to suggest that this pagan deity can provide what Jesus either cannot or will not. There were various other incorporating of pagan and Biblical imagery. This was all clearly intended as a proverbial and literal obscene gesture toward the millions who believe in the holiness of Jesus Christ.
France knows well the price that can be paid for insulting Islam, as seen when the French magazine Charlie Hebdo featured derisive illustrations of Mohammed. The Charlie Hebdo offices suffered multiple attacks from Muslims, including a firebombing and a shooting attack in which twelve employees were murdered. France and the Olympic Committee know that Christians are unlikely to respond violently to similar insults directed their way; they know Christians will not respond with organized riots as Muslims tend to do; they know Christians will not cut off their heads.
There was a decent amount of pushback, and the officials behind the blasphemous tableau did some backtracking and attempted a few denials. Should the world continue another twenty or thirty years, it is quite likely that the time will arrive when Olympics committees will no longer have to fear the economic threat of offending professed Christians.
How should Christians respond to this? Christians certainly should not obsess over how the world receives us. “Even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts” (1 Thess. 2:4). Christians should expect trials from the world (1 Pet. 4:12); they should expect to be hated by the world (1 John 3:13). But Christians should not laugh at immorality and blasphemy, or take them lightly. “Fools make a mock at sin” (Prov. 14:9). Lot may not have made the wisest choice when he chose to reside in Sodom, but Scripture commends his attitude toward the sin that surrounded him, that he was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds)” (2 Pet. 2:7-8). And Christians should fear the judgment that awaits blasphemy and immorality.
Blasphemers should not worry about offending Christians nearly so much as they should tremble at kindling God’s wrath against them. “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him” (Psa. 89:7).
