Olympics Tableau Intended to Bait Christians. It Worked.

Christians who enjoy being outraged have found another target for their hysterics. 

This year’s Olympics used a tableau in the opening ceremonies that looked like a debauched version of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. The official “explanation” is that this tableau is actually a depiction of a Bacchanalian revel that just coincidentally resembles da Vinci’s painting. 

I have no idea why a bacchanal with its emphasis on excess and debauchery, would be appropriate for the opening of the Olympics, which promotes fitness and athletic excellence. It seems, at best, a non sequitur.

I also think that the people who put this together were fully aware of the mockery involved in creating this tableau based on the revered painting of a key moment in Christian history. I think they intended to offend Christians. 

I think the people who created this tableau probably intended to get the exact response that they got. They knew — as everyone knows — that there is a large, noisy sub-group of not-so-Christlike Christians who can be counted on to go off like rockets at the least provocation. 

These volatile Christians are led by clergy and leaders of sectarian “christian” ministries. These leaders deliberately provoke their flocks to outrage on a continuous basis. They are always on the lookout for cultural memes, symbols, advertisements, art, etc, to use to rile up their followers. 

I think the people who put this tableau together knew that. I think they created the tableau to get the reaction they got. I think this tableau was bait. 

My assumption is that they created a mockery of a revered representation of one of Christianity’s pivotal moments in order to bait nut job Christians. They expected — and they were right — that they could get a noisy, hateful, foaming-at-the-mouth crazy demonstration of why nobody would want to follow Christ and that they could get it on an international scale.  

If I am right, and that is what they were trying to do, they have certainly succeeded.

In totally predictable fashion, a certain segment of constantly-outraged Christians are tossing another one of their fits, and they are doing it in front of the whole wide world.

I don’t really care about this particular flap. I am writing this today because this constant fake outrage of the pretend pious is damaging the Body of Christ. 

The people who do things like this tableau know that the resulting name-calling and vitriol damages the Body of Christ. That’s why they do it.  

I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with current events, but people are leaving the churches in droves. They are turning their backs on Jesus because they think — and based on the public face of Christianity in American today, they have every reason to think — that believing in Christ turns people into leering, jeering, hate-filled, racist, woman-hating, corrupt, totalitarian, amoral perverts who are without pity, compassion, decency or courage. 

I’m not saying we should be meek about our faith. 

I’m saying we should stop the self-satisfying theatrics and actually practice our faith. 

My fellow Christians, it’s time to quit taking the bait. 

The right reaction to this tableau would have been to turn to the non-Christian next to you and say, “Do you know what the Last Supper is about? It was a pivotal event in human history that gives my life meaning and purpose. Here’s what happened … “ 

This tableau, which was meant to bait us into behaving like vicious fools, could have been a huge opportunity to tell the story of Jesus. That’s how we should respond. The trouble is, a large number of false “christian” leaders are teaching us to use Christ as an excuse to hate people, rather than as a reason to love and save them. 

There is a whole segment of Christianity, both Catholic and non-Catholic, who need to be a lot more discerning about the clergy and the “christian” activists they follow. 

There are professional “christians,” some of them clergy, others who run “ministries,” who make their living off revving up constant outrage among the faithful. They are entertaining the barely-Christian and weak-minded among us by supplying them with jolts of adrenalin by repeatedly hyping them into nonsensical outrage. 

Whether it’s Teletubbies, gay M&M candies, Mickey Mouse, or this tableau at the Olympics, it’s all geared toward one thing: Turning pew-sitting Christians into a mob that they can sic on anyone they chose like a pack of dogs. 

These constant calls to outrage are not attempts to solve real problems. They are training exercises. They fill exactly the same purpose as the two-minute hate that Big Brother used in George Orwell’s 1984. 

People follow these charlatans because the outrage and hatred they incite feels good in a miserable sort of way. It entertains and energizes them. They get a dose of adrenalin from their spittle-throwing tantrum that distracts them from the fact that their lives are full of things they don’t want to face. 

If the preacher focuses his flock on hating somebody outside their group, it creates a sense of belonging. It blocks off thoughts of their dirty houses, aging bodies, unpaid bills, dead loved ones, meaningless jobs, cheating spouses, lost lovers, loneliness, boredom, emptiness and their deep feeling of helplessness and inconsequence. 

There is a way out of the quiet desperation and seeming senselessness of existence. That way is the Way. It is Jesus Christ. 

We are of the greatest consequence to Jesus Christ. Our lives matter. 

You matter. You have eternal consequence. Nothing — and I mean nothing — is hopeless when you understand that you are an eternal being who is loved by the God Who made everything there is, everywhere. 

Self-righteous rage and hatred are a cheap fix, like a shot of an illegal drug. It mainlines straight into your mind and soul and it tears them to pieces. You are absolutely destroying yourself by following these rage-masters. It damages your mind, your health, your relationships … and your soul. Worst of all, it separates you from Christ. 

You are turning into something ugly. You separating yourself from Jesus Christ. And you are driving other people away from Him.

No sane person would join up with this sorry spectacle of fake “christianity” with its hate-filled raging and insane random attacks on innocent people. But all people long for the meaning, purpose, hope and freedom that is the real, living Christ. 

I don’t feel that the people in the pews or the folding chairs or whatever your flavor of Christian church uses are fully culpable for this. They have been hyped and harped at by false shepherds for decades. They have been trained up in a totally fake, monetized, politicized “christianity” without Jesus by equally monetized, politicized, phony clergy who are only pretending to be shepherds. 

The bulk of the blame and the moral failing belongs squarely on clergy and “christian” activists who run hate ministries under the guise of calling them “christian.” 

These phonies don’t preach Christ. They have taken the Gospels, the 10 Commandments and all of Christian preaching and teaching, and replaced it with propaganda and manipulation of their flocks for worldly ends. 

Having said that, those of us in the pews have a responsibility before God to discern. We are not puppets. We are free moral agents made in the Image and Likeness of the living God. We can judge the rightness of what we are being told. 

Here’s what I think about the latest outrage fest over the Olympics tableau. I think we need to pray for God to send us holy clergy who will preach Christ. I believe He will answer that prayer. In the meantime, we need to walk away from the charlatans who are constantly hyping phony outrage and preaching hate and shut the door behind us.