Olympic Abominations

The 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony has been widely criticized by many who still hold to high standards of dignity, decency, modesty, and other biblical values. Here is how one review described it:

Paris didn’t just push the envelope. It did away with it entirely as it hammered home a message that freedom must know no bounds. A practically naked singer painted blue made thinly veiled references to his body parts. Blonde-bearded drag queen Piche crawled on all fours to the thumping beat of “Freed from Desire” by singer-songwriter Gala, who has long been a potent voice against homophobia. There were the beginnings of a menage à trois [a sexual encounter between three people]... and the tail end of an intimate embrace between two men who danced away, hugging and holding hands (AP News, July 29, 2024).

That brief summary doesn’t cover other details, such as the many other drag queens showcased, the grotesque depiction of Marie Antoinette singing while holding her own severed head, and the performances given by Celine Dion and Lady Gaga, touted as “queer icons.” Note how the reviewer admires the ceremony’s celebration of “freedom”—twisting a treasured Western value into a repudiation of long-standing biblical values of purity, chastity, innocence, self-control, family, marriage, modesty, and decency.

By the way, the main event being celebrated was the Olympics, right? Wasn’t it possible to leave out sexual perversion and just focus on the athletes and the sports?

God’s View of Sin

The director of the ceremony, a self-described homosexual man, described some of his goals: “The idea was instead to have a grand pagan festival connected to the gods of Olympus,” he said. “Most of all, I wanted to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide.”

Paris’ Olympics ceremony provides a lurid example of how readily Western societies today push values they call love, inclusion, diversity, tolerance, and freedom. Their overarching thoughts can be summarized as, “Everyone can do whatever they want. The only boundary is that boundaries must not be set.” This attitude is nothing new—in fact, it has been quite common throughout history. For instance, ancient Israel was once characterized with this statement: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25)—as opposed to what was right in God’s eyes. God distinguishes right from wrong, specifically by setting boundaries that the Bible describes in great detail, as we have explained often in this magazine (see “The War Against Normal” in our January 2023 issue).

Where sin is concerned, the true God is a God of exclusion. The Bible expresses repeatedly that God, in His eternal Kingdom, will categorically exclude every form of sin, many forms of which were celebrated in Paris’ opening ceremony. And, not only will God exclude sinful behavior from His Kingdom—He will exclude people who are not willing to repent of such behavior, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).

It is important to note that these verses do not just focus on homosexuality, “drag queens,” or other behavior in “LGBTQIA+.” They also condemn sins that heterosexuals can commit just as easily, like adultery and fornication, as well as non-sexual sins such as idolatry, covetousness, theft, and drunkenness.

The book of Revelation gives much detail about the wrath of Almighty God, which will one day be poured upon mankind (Revelation 6:16; 11:18; 14:10, 19; 15:1). Until then, sincere Christians must “sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done” (Ezekiel 9:4), while striving to deliver one of the Bible’s central messages: Turn from wickedness to righteousness.