Taste of Freedom - Olympic ceremony part 3

Sexual limitless-ness was a flavour liberally poured over the banquet of the Olympic opening ceremony. The message: we will be happy and united when everyone is free to fulfill their every desire. 

It seemed no dish at the banquet was spared this special sauce. Characters representing the embrace of all manner of sexual expression were throughout. The promise is that if the stifling limitations imposed by religion can be removed, life will taste all the sweeter.

Limits on liberty, however, are oppressive. Just because you don't like a salted caramel on your ice cream, why would you keep someone who does from slathering it on theirs?

Photo by Kobby Mendez on Unsplash

A hundred years ago, however, an athlete at another Olympic Games in Paris was willing to give up dessert altogether. It must have looked crazy to the outsider, but at the 1924 Olympic Games a Scottish athlete ended up having his cake and eating it too.

Paris 1924 & Paris 2024

Having qualified for his first Olympic games in Paris 1924, Eric Liddel athlete chose not to run in his event. He was a 100m specialist, and was the favourite to win gold. Why on earth would he choose not to run? Not because of the opening ceremony, but because the heats for the 400m were scheduled on a Sunday. And Liddel was convinced that it would be dishonouring his God to participate.

Can you imagine a modern athlete even considering this as an option? Even the most ardent Christian? Firstly, it seems like such an arbitrary limitation. What could possibly be wrong with running in a heat on a Sunday? It wouldn't have hurt anyone if he had! 

For Liddel, however, it was simple. He loved running. But he loved God more.

And so he missed his event. The favourite for the gold medal chose not to run. And he was happy about it. It almost seems like the ultimate example of why limiting yourself for God's sake is foolish! And yet, as Tim Costello writes in the guardian:

The plot had a remarkable twist. Eric stayed true to his perceived duty and pulled out of the heats. But then at the last moment his Olympic team entered him in the 400m, not his event nor one for which he had trained. He claimed gold in a world record time of 47.6 seconds. He had fulfilled the duty he felt to a higher calling, willing to sacrifice his specialist event with all his training, but remarkably managed to win anyway.

With God, it can be true that less, is more. Trusting God and exercising restraint, can taste even sweeter than putting on every flavour of syrup you can think of.

Is this what the opening ceremony was about?

This week Christians have wondered and argued about whether their God was mocked. What really happened at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics?

What happened?

Having read the interviews, 'apologies', answers and the pre-ceremony advertising, it seems clear that the organisers 100% intended a reference to the Last Supper painting as a religious symbol. (*Edit: the Olympics producers have now confirmed this.)

Artistic Director Thomas Jolly has said that he's really sorry if Christians are offended. In that communication, he emphasised that inclusion was the scene's inspiration and message, not the Last Supper. But he did not deny that he was referencing it.

But... was it mockery? 

Jolly says that mockery was not his intention. And I'm inclined to believe him on this too. Here's my best guess at what was going on.

If not mockery... then what?

France has a long history of secularism. It stretches back to the violent French Revolution against the ancien regime which climaxed in 1789. The ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity replaced older values as the country was dechristianised. In short, the narrative has inclusion as something that France moved on to after Jesus.

If this is the right cultural reference point, Jolly's intentions are a bit easier to see. The message was inclusion, and Da Vinci's Last Supper the old scene that needed correcting. It depicts Jesus sitting with 12 white (presumably straight) men. The company Jesus kept: cis-males wielding religious power. 

Into this scene Jolly interposed characters from all colours of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow. Finally, the table is open now that we've moved on from Jesus.

The problem is, the narrative is simply untrue.

The company Jesus kept

See, if this is what Jolly wanted to communicate, it simply says that he has no idea who Jesus is or what he was like. Criticisms of Jesus' social habits universally agreed that he was too open in his fraternisation, not too closed. You get the feeling that Jesus would have frequented pubs and clubs that Christians and politicians would fear to tread.

'... they say [of me], "Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.'

In fact, I'm willing to bet that the kind of people Jesus associated with would have made Thomas Jolly hesitant to pull up a seat. See Jesus dined with both prostitutes AND tax collectors. Not only sexual sinners, but financial and political traitors too. Inclusive, even when that was dangerously politically incorrect. Not only when it puts you on the 'right side of history'.

And while Jesus was willing to have a glass of Dom Pérignon with the powerful religious figures of his day, they mostly left his company wanting his head on a platter. He was no friend of the oppressive power structures of his day.

Thomas Jolly seems glad that we've moved on from Jesus so that we can be more inclusive. Yet he's doing so while standing on the shoulders of Jesus who told the parable of the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, etc. Where does Jolly think that the Western world got its views of the value and dignity of all human beings? Because it's certainly not from gods of Greek mythology in purple body paint...