Home » Posts tagged 'Paris Olympics'

Tag Archives: Paris Olympics

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.

AUTHORS OF THE BLOG

  • Kent Brandenburg
  • Thomas Ross

Archives