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Last night time was the opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. It’s truthful to say that opinion was divided about how effectively the entire thing went. Personally, I loved the athletes’ parade in boats down the Seine; it made a pleasant change from the same old stroll round a stadium. Celine Dion sang magnificently, particularly given her well being issues and the Minions had been fantastic.
However, there was one tableau within the center which I discovered moderately unusual, when a bunch together with drag queens appeared to mimic Leonardo’s Last Supper. It’s exhausting to know the motivation behind this piece. My suspicion is that the producers (these doing the mise en Seine – sorry) thought that it could be humorous – after all of the Minions had simply mocked one other Leonardo masterpiece. It in all probability occurred to them that some Christians may get offended by the present, however I believe that in La France Laique they did not fear about that.
So what did I consider it? Well, I discovered it offensive, I additionally discovered it infantile. It appeared like a sixth type faculty play the place the pupils had been making an attempt to get away with one thing offensive, however undecided how one can actually do it effectively. Hopefully, they’re going to develop out of it!
But grasp about; check out this text from the Guardian. The report discovered an estimated 216,000 youngsters had been victims of sexual violence by French Catholic monks, deacons and different clergy from 1950 to 2020. When lay members of the Church, similar to academics and catechism supervisors, had been included, the determine rose to not less than 330,000 youngsters sexually abused over 70 years.
Have you bought that? A 3rd of one million youngsters abused by adults within the Church over 70 years. That is horrendous. While I retain my proper to be offended, I can absolutely perceive why folks in France may see Christianity in a unfavorable mild. Frankly, in case you are extra bothered by a foolish tableau within the opening ceremony than you might be by the abuse of a whole lot of hundreds of kids who’re created within the picture of god, then you might be lacking one thing important.
Yes, we have now a proper to be offended, however we additionally must cease and take into consideration why some folks could be so eager to offend us within the first place. Much of the Christian response that I’ve seen on-line appears to be kind of devoid of self-reflection or understanding.
OK, with that in thoughts, I nonetheless assume it was a silly factor for the organisers to do. France has a secular structure, it has little or no, if any, place for faith in public life. However, this ceremony was imagined to be welcoming folks from internationally, folks from international locations the place faith is extraordinarily essential. The parody, or mockery of Jesus is offensive to Christians and Muslims and that features large numbers of the athletes from international locations exterior of Europe.
Bienvenue en France? I do not assume so.
Eddie Arthur is a missiologist and has spent many many years translating Scripture with Wycliffe Bible Translators. This publish first appeared on his weblog, KouyaNet, and is printed right here with permission.
