Christians offended by the “Last Supper/Feast of Bacchus” tableau in the Olympics opening? Christians offended by those offended by it?
As the event drops from the news cycle after an apology of sorts from the organizers, what intrigues me is how both these kinds of Christians are focused on . . . themselves—and in at least three respects.
First, they’re both focused on themselves in terms of their religion. The one side explodes with “I won’t stand for people mocking my religion.” The other side more coolly replies, “My religion expects to be mocked and it’s too strong to be bothered by such public events.”
I would have thought that Christians would place priority on Christ, not on themselves and on their religion. I would have thought Christians would care most about how Jesus would feel about this episode. I would have thought Christians would care most about how their Lord and Saviour is being treated in effigy.
The cool “I don’t care” Christians need to decide whether they would be equally cool going back in time to watch Jesus being mocked by the Romans and the Jews. “Hey, Jesus said he would be mocked—and look! There he is, being mocked. Okay, then. Let’s move on.”
The hotly offended Christians need to decide whether they’re more upset about Jesus being profaned or about their religion and thus themselves being derided.
Second, they’re both focused on themselves in terms of this one religion, Christianity.
Decadent japery in a sacrilegious register is to be expected in a France that has been resentful and resistant to Christianity, and especially the Roman Catholic Church, since the Revolution in 1789. I certainly would not defend that Church against all the criticism leveled against it. But in 2024, with that Church so relatively weak in France, it seems like a weird sort of bullying to pick on it again in public.
The larger point here, however, is that loving your neighbour and living by the principle of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you might prompt Christians to worry about more than Christians. If the IOC in France feels free to take on France’s main religion, how secure are France’s Muslims and Jews going to feel?
Spoiler alert: They’re feeling pretty insecure already. Islamophobia is rampant in France and anti-Semitism, never absent from the French cultural bloodstream, is back afresh on the political right and left. This summer’s election in which the centre lost ground to parties on either wing is just the most recent sign of trouble.
Christians should use their clout to object to the tableau on behalf of others who lack their votes and their dollars/Euros—both in France and beyond. Childish abuse of any religion’s sacred iconography is antiliberal and is the opposite of liberté, egalité et fraternité. Contrary to the protestations of the producers, it is certainly not an expression of inclusion, let alone of love.
Third, they’re both focused on themselves in terms of offense against a religion. But the point of the tableau isn’t so much to mock Christianity as to promote a different worldview, that of pansexual libertinism. One of the greatest paintings in the Christian artistic tradition that celebrates one of the greatest moments in Christian history was co-opted by people promoting an ideology shared by only a minority of the world’s people on the stage of the bring-the-world-together Olympics.
Altius, fortius, citius has nothing to do with this tableau. Ironically enough, neither does “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The Olympics are one of the few international events that really are diverse, equitable, and inclusive. It’s a shame to spoil them with an opening that divides and alienates.
As such, it was a strikingly selfish act. You don’t have to be a Christian to think so. You just have to be a decent person who thinks that the Olympics should celebrate what we have in common. You just have to recoil at a particular group diverting that noble, if sentimental, Olympic goal to tiresomely and heavy-handedly promote its particular agenda.
Let me make clear that I would feel the same way if Marxists did something like this—or Microsoft. The point here is to protect the (literally global) inclusion of the Olympic Games, and no one should be allowed to exploit their ceremonies.
So, yes, I think Christianity will survive this stupidity. (I use this strong language because, honestly, if you can’t really tell the difference between the Last Supper and a bacchanalia—between a celebration of divine self-sacrifice and a celebration of divine self-indulgence—then your religious obtuseness is total. For a quick introduction to the former, let me direct your attention to last few chapters of any of the four Gospels. As for Bacchus/Dionysius, I daresay Google will do.)
The Olympics will survive also, and I’m glad we’ve moved on to focus on what really matters in the Games.
I hope, however, that we can pause before we forget all about this incident to consider how Christians ought to respond to such things: with love for Jesus and for our neighbour—not so much for ourselves.
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