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?
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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...