Well, here we are again. The world has mocked the one true living God again. This past Friday, France commenced the Olympic Games with a wild opening ceremony. My family didn’t see it; we were in Philadelphia watching the Phillies play disappointing baseball. One feature of the ceremony caused no small uproar: an immodest transgender and drag queen spectacle that strikingly resembled Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” painting. Was this scene offensive? Yes. Anytime anything is flaunted and celebrated in violation of God’s sacred law, it’s offensive. Calling something “art” doesn’t cancel out the offense of breaking God’s holy law. Remember that line!
As we consider why the opening ceremony debacle was offensive, let’s begin with some terms. First, transgenderism. The prefix trans means “across, beyond, through, [and] so as to change.” [1] Gender means biological sex. So, trans-gender means to change or move beyond your divinely assigned biological sex, to “change” to the opposite sex. In other words, a biological man changes into a pseudo-woman. Transgenderism is offensive for various reasons not the least of which is ingratitude toward God. Transgenderism is protest of God-assigned gender intended for His glory and the good of the men and women He created men and women. Transgenderism says, “No, God! I hate what you’ve made me, and I will be what I choose to be.” Transgenderism is a breach of the First and Second Commandments.
Second, what is drag? Drag is essentially a costume. Drag is “clothing typical of one sex worn by a person of the opposite sex.” [3] Drag queens, like the ones in the opening ceremony, are “[male homosexuals who dress as women] especially for comic or theatrical effect.” [4] Is drag offensive? Of course. Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” Why was transvestitism forbidden in Israel? Because God commands that His beautiful and complementary distinction between male and female be honored and cherished. A man should dress, move, and act like a man. A woman should dress, move, and act like a woman. Why? Because God saw the beautiful and complementary distinction between male and female that He created and considered it “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Likewise, we should embrace and cherish our God-given sexuality and use it to love God and our neighbor (e.g. our spouse of the opposite sex).
Additionally, homosexuality is offensive because it violates the seventh commandment and is explicitly forbidden in various Scriptures (Gen. 19; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10; Jude 7). Scripture calls homosexuality an “abomination.”
So, this portion of the opening ceremony was offensive because it brazenly paraded transgenderism, drag, and LGBTQIA+ ideology before the world in an open mockery of God’s law. That said, was it an explicit mockery of the Lord’s Supper? I’m not sure it was. The organizers of the event claimed that the inspiration for the scene was an ancient pagan festival, not the Lord’s Supper. The stated intent was to depict Dionysus* the Greek god of fertility, wine, and revelry. [5] Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s homosexual artistic director, commented: “The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus. You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone. The idea was to create a big pagan party in link with the God of Mount Olympus.” [6] If you compare the ceremony scene, which was titled “Festivity,” to Jan van Bijlert’s 17th-century painting titled “The Feast of the Gods,” you see the noticeable resemblance. A “big pagan party” violates the first two commandments and dishonors God, but might we give unbelievers the benefit of the doubt here and take them at their word? The Lord’s Supper may not have been in their crosshairs at the Olympics. The whole sight was regretful; however, the resemblance to Da Vinci’s painting may have been unintended imprudence and insensitivity more than it was open mockery. God knows the hearts of the organizers.
This scene during the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Paris was obviously vile and contrary to God’s holy Word. But isn’t it interesting that Christians are crying foul because it resembles a Biblically and historically inaccurate and idolatrous image of Christ and his disciples made by a painter who, similar to Thomas Jolly and others, was presenting something artistically? The actual Lord’s Supper was nothing like Da Vinci’s painting. Allan McGregor said of Da Vinci’s painting, “just about every aspect of its composition is entirely wrong . . . . Wrong table, wrong time, wrong seating arrangement, wrong menu. Indeed, I could go on . . . .” [7] Let me ask a fair question, then. Which image lies more about Christ and the Lord’s Supper, Da Vinci’s unbiblical and idolatrous painting of the Last Supper or Paris’ immodest LGBTQIA+ depiction of a pagan Dionysian feast?
At the heart of transgenderism is a trans-formation of what is true, good, and beautiful into a vile misrepresentation. It is a trans-formation of truth into a misrepresentation of truth, a lie. But what about taking the true, good, and beautiful event of the Lord’s Supper, indeed a holy sacrament, and trans-forming it into something that clearly misrepresents it and plants untruth in people’s minds? Isn’t it more offensive to ignore the Second Commandment and its extensive clarification in Scripture (e.g. Deut. 4:15-32; 27:15; 2 Kings 23:24; Ps. 31:6) and to interpret Christ, to think about Christ, to trans-form Christ into someone and something he is not? A Biblically and historically inaccurate Christ is offensive, is it not, because it misrepresents Christ (c.f. Nestorianism)? Would there be much difference between a transgender depiction of Christ and a European white depiction of Christ? Both are wrong. Right? In principle, wasn’t Da Vinci exercising similar artistic license as the organizers of the Paris Olympics? At least the latter was presumably a depiction of a pagan feast and not the sacred Supper of our Lord!
Perhaps Christians ought to also be offended by Da Vinci’s painting because it’s unbiblical, inaccurate, and idolatrous. Trans-forming Christ and the Lord’s Supper in violation of the First and Second Commandments seems at least equally offensive as flaunting and celebrating paganism, transgenderism, and drag. The problem is many Christians don’t seem too concerned by Da Vinci’s false image of Christ and the Last Supper as well as many other depictions of God. Paris broke the First and Second, certainly the Seventh as well, but didn’t Da Vinci break the First and Second by painting “The Last Supper”? Don’t Christian publishers, even Reformed ones, break the First and Second when they put artistic renderings of God on the covers of their books?
Ladies, if your husband carries around in his wallet a picture of a beautiful model and tells people it’s you, wouldn’t you be offended? Though your husband may show the picture and say, “Isn’t my wife beautiful,” you’re still offended because it’s not you in the picture. Why do we think Christ is honored by any depiction that falls horribly short of his beauty, majesty, dignity, splendor, and divine glory? The only images Christ gives us of himself are the water, bread, and wine. Aside from these God-given sacraments, no image of Christ can capture his divine nature, and any artist who claims his depiction of Christ is simply a depiction of his human nature is committing the Nestorian error by separating the divine nature of Christ from his person. Every depiction of Christ is belittling to Christ because it fails to capture His unrivaled beauty, majesty, and glory and communicates the ancient Nestorian heresy. Yet Christians are more outraged by an immodest LGBTQIA+ depiction of a pagan feast than they are an imaginative, unbiblical, historically inaccurate, and idolatrous depiction of their Lord and his sacred Supper.
I think we are right as Christians to be offended by the Olympic scene in question. It exalts and celebrates idolatry which dishonors our Lord. However, I also think Christians should be equally offended by idolatrous images of the one true God that fall grossly short of His glory.
Sin is oftentimes subtle as are the schemes of Satan. Satan will do whatever he can to woo us to a false god, yet our Christ will lovingly keep us from all evil (Ps. 121:7).
*Pronounced “dai·uh·nai·suhs.” Oops.
[1] Inc Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] https://creation.com/leonardos-last-supper-errors
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one-half of any book of the ESV Bible.
