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The Recent Olympic Last Supper Controversy: Worse than Weird
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics parodied the Leonardo DaVinci painting, The Last Supper, using drag queens to represent Jesus and the twelve disciples. Later answering the criticism, organizers, including artistic director Thomas Jolly, insisted they intended the scene to represent Dionysius, the Greek god of wine, fertility, and revelry. The tableau looked identical to The Last Supper and these woke, reprobate leftists afterwards tried to avoid blame for their mockery of Christianity.
The New York Post reported: “The Olympic drag performance comes just one day after Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris became the first sitting vice president to appear on an episode of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’” RuPaul himself a notorious drag queen. Online Encyclopedia Britannica says “drag queen” is “a man who dresses in women’s clothes and performs before an audience, . . . typically staged in nightclubs and Gay Pride festivals.” Yet, what’s wrong with drag queens lampooning The Last Supper painting? What’s the point of outrage over such action?
Images of Christ
London Baptist Confession
Before I even start giving reasons for strong opposition to The Last Supper mockery, I should consider whether true believers should accept The Last Supper either. The London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 says:
The light of nature shews that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all; is just, good and doth good unto all; and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart and all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. (Chapter 22:1)
Westminster Larger Catechism
I draw your attention to the last sentence: “God. . . . may not be worshipped. . . . under any visible representations.” The Westminster Larger Catechism says:
The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God..
In the attempt to rid the church of the evils of idolatry, and icon-worship that they believed plagued the Roman Catholic church, some English Reformers attacked cathedrals to remove painted icons of saints, vandalize religious statues, break windows bearing images of Jesus and saints. This occurred because of the belief represented by the Westminster Larger Catechism and other historical documents.
Nevertheless, no matter what position a believer may take on images of Christ themselves, they can and should also oppose The Last Supper parody. Why?
Blaspheming Christ
For the same reason Christians rejected images of Christ, they should reject His blasphemy in the parody of a painting of Him. It provides a reason for rejecting the imagery itself. This is what people can do through an image. They can and do blaspheme Christ.
The Last Supper parody profanes Him, who is God. It mocks and sullies Him, treats Him like He’s nothing, just a fable, easily warped by a comic portrayal because of His meaninglessness.
Profaning God’s Holiness
This parody takes something that exemplifies holiness, this attribute of God, and turns it into something morally despicable. It debases and besmirches it, eliminates the reverence or sacredness of it. Does that offend you, professing Christian?
Christians have been doing something similar or the same as the parody for decades now both out of and in churches. Historically churches didn’t do that, but especially in the last thirty years, churches turn their worship into the perversity of rock music. They put Christian words to foul, fleshly, carnal, worldly music, associating that with God.
In so many ways churches made it acceptable to profane God. They make common the things of God, especially through church growth practices. In order to get bigger, churches make it more and more convenient for the “worshipper,” much like Jeroboam did when he put places of worship at Dan and Bethel.
Distort Sex or Gender Distinctions
The drag queen parody confuses the distinctions between sexes that God designed. God calls that an abomination, which is a personal offense to Him. Men wearing women’s apparel and vice versa violate God’s created design (Deuteronomy 22:5).
When men reject God as Creator and replace the literal Genesis account with naturalistic explanations for origins, they open the door to all rejection of God’s design. Why should Christians oppose men wearing female items of clothing? Long ago that ship sailed in Christianity. Professing New Testament churches don’t protect the physical symbols of masculinity and those of femininity. They have erased those distinctions for something closer to a unisex appearance.
Churches themselves signaled to the world the permission to blur distinctions between sexes. If Christians won’t take a stand on God’s design, why should the world? Whatever Christians think is a perversion in the portrayal of The Last Supper, they should apply it consistently.
Weirdness
You may have caught the latest attack by the left everywhere, calling their opposition, “Weird.” In essence, they label what is biblical and traditional, weird, and then what is perverse and profane, normal. It is akin to calling good, evil, and evil, good (Isaiah 5:20). They think they will get some traction with the United States with this approach. Will they?
It’s hard to think that The Lord’s Supper parody today might find more acceptance than respect and true worship of Jesus Christ. What was once weird in churches is also now normal. Practices no one would have accepted are now received in the mainstream. Anyone speaking against them is already considered weird. I’ve watched this happening myself.
If a woman as a lifestyle wears only skirts and dresses, Christians consider her weird. Earrings on men, tattoos on men and women, piercings all over, and women wearing their underwear in public aren’t weird anymore. That’s all also accepted by professing Christians. Christians see churches as weird that accept only sacred worship of God. Any church or Christian that takes a stand against worldliness is weird. I contend that the left understands that the culture reached a tipping point. The controversy over The Last Supper parody will calm down and become nothing very soon.
The Most Indispensable Quality for Manhood
Designed Manhood and Manhood Under Attack
A strange incongruity exists. On the one hand, the world blurs the distinctions between men and women. On the other, women want to be men and men want to be women and do so by embracing the natural distinctions between men and women. The world in which we live produces this incoherence.
“God created man in his own image, . . . male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). When God created the woman, he created her with a different role than the man. He made the woman to complement the man. Men and women are different.
Scripture throughout distinguishes men from women in their traits, their roles, their functions, and their appearances. To do His moral will, God intends for men to be men and women to be women in the way His Word prescribes.
To oppose the plan of God, Satan and the world system attack and confuse biblical manhood and womanhood. Men become more feminine and women become more masculine. From this arises sex and gender confusion. It damages both sexes, but especially the man.
The Loss of Manhood
Mostly today the man loses his identity, role, and function in society. This occurs either through the feminization of everything or the subversion of God created and ordained male qualities.
The culture now eradicates male qualities by calling them toxic. When a man acts like a man, he’s toxic, termed “toxic masculinity.” He receives approval when he terminates male qualities to act more like a woman. If he goes further to attempt a sex change, more the better.
Even though I don’t believe in toxic masculinity, I believe a fake masculinity exists that replaces the true. Like every other doctrine, a false one supplants a true one. Fake masculinity welcomes all the tokens of popular masculinity like beards, tattoos, booze, foul language, and risky hobbies. These are easier to inculcate then the fundamental traits of masculinity.
What Makes a Man, a Man?
What is it that makes a man, a man? The Bible evinces the most indispensable quality for manhood as “strength.” In 1 Corinthians 16:13, the Apostle Paul writes, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” “Quit you” in the KJV is “to acquit yourself.” “Quit you like men” translates a single verb which means, “act like a man.” Then when Paul defines what it is to act like one, he commands, “Be strong.”
Later, when Paul writes to Timothy in his second epistle, he explains to him ‘how to be strong.’ In 2 Timothy 2:1, he writes:
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Again we read the command, “Be strong.” Paul starts that sentence with “therefore,” so he bases this command on the content of the previous section. If anything, its theme is unashamedness. Rather than be ashamed, be strong.
Not Ashamed
To help Timothy, he gives him portrayals of strength that would make him not ashamed: the faithful man, the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. These all describe this quality of strength.
What is the shame about which Paul speaks? It relates to telling the truth. Paul himself had declared in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Men should stand on the truth without wavering. They should say it, which includes firmness about manhood itself. Satan and the world system want men to back down on the truth and shirk responsibility to tell it, live it, and lead it.
Some might call this, having a backbone. Men diminish behind the skirts of women. They look to women for permission for what they can say. Many times women gladly accommodate or accept that. This changes everything in society.
Women Rule Over Them
Many times scripture says to the woman, “Keep silence or stay quiet” (1 Cor 14:34, 1 Tim 2:11-12). This says, “Let the man lead.” When things aren’t going well for a nation, Isaiah 3:12 describes:
As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.
This is role, function, and quality reversal. That means men are not ruling according to God’s design. Now men accept this quietly. They know if they say anything, they’re in trouble.
As a first indication of a man deferring his own manhood, he stops standing spiritually. A common scenario in my lifetime, I go to a door to speak about the gospel. A man or at least a male sex answers the door, sees who I am, and turns to say this conversation is for his wife. Men lack spiritual strength or conviction.
When men check with their wives, that might sound happily egalitarian. Maybe they use their wives as an excuse for their weakness. I’m not saying men can’t confer with their wives, very often today men can’t decide because they’re weak. Maybe today a majority of men support the idea of a woman ruling over them. It would just be easier.
Power Comes from Somewhere
When you turn on your lights or your appliance and open your refrigerator and see it working, you know that power comes from somewhere. It didn’t just happen. Your heart is beating, the power for that comes from somewhere. You look up and see a burning sun. The power for that sun comes from somewhere. Nuclear, gravitational, and chemical energy all come from someplace. They have their start somewhere.
We all need power. Our body is burning energy, our brains are using it, our heart needs it, and every other creature does too. It’s there. People are but dust. Power holds this dust together in a complex and functioning form.
The Big Bang Theory supposedly explains the origin of matter, but the explosion could not have occurred without energy. Senior writer and editor of Quanta Magazine, Natalie Wolchover, wrote on June 6, 2019:
The Big Bang theory . . . . pioneered 50 years before Hawking’s lecture by the Belgian physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaître, who later served as president of the Vatican’s academy of sciences — rewinds the expansion of the universe back to a hot, dense bundle of energy. But where did the initial energy come from?
The Big Bang theory had other problems. Physicists understood that an expanding bundle of energy would grow into a crumpled mess rather than the huge, smooth cosmos that modern astronomers observe.
Men guess, but they don’t have an answer to the origin of energy or power.
The English word “power” is found 272 times in the King James Version. The first time the English word appears, it is koah, and it refers to God’s strength, ability, might, and force. That Hebrew word is used 126 times. The first is used of God in Exodus 15:6, “Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.” Another one is Exodus 32:11, “And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?” A lot of the usages of koah are like that one.
Another Hebrew word translated power in 1 Chronicles 29:11 is gebera, the verse reading: “Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.” That word is used 61 times in the Old Testament with another example, Psalm 21:13, “Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.”
The New Testament uses mainly two Greek words, which are translated “power” in the King James Version. Matthew 6:13 reads:
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
“Power” here comes from dunamis. The English “dynamite” comes from dunamis, which BDAG, the foremost Greek New Testament lexicon, says means:
potential for functioning in some way, power, might, strength, force, capability
That Greek word is used 120 times in the New Testament. The very next usage of “power” in the New Testament is in Matthew 9:6:
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
1. a state of control over something, freedom of choice, right2. potential or resource to command, control, or govern, capability, might, power
1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
James 4:12, There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?Matthew 10:28, And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
The Fine-Tuning Argument, to be abbreviated by FTA in what follows, claims that the present Universe (including the laws that govern it and the initial conditions from which it has evolved) permits life only because these laws and conditions take a very special form, small changes in which would make life impossible.
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