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| Paris Olympic Games 2024 opening ceremony Source: X (Twitter) |
The above image is taken from one of a number of Twitter entries showing a parody of The Last Supper in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic games in Paris.
A video is included an article by Must Read Alaska with the comment "The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics is one long drag show."
It certainly was a change from the customary format designed to show off Paris but diversity bordered on deviancy.
Founded on love and forgiveness, Christianity is an easy target that has been used by feminists, Islamists and others to further their own cause.
Why the Olympic movement allowed itself to be similarly used deserves an explanation.
Postscript [28.07.2024]
Two interventions in the House of Lords on the threat to our Christian heritage:
Lord Pearson talks about the threat of Islamic terrorism. People that do, are accused of Islamophobia.
He says its the "the modern world's most violent religious ideology".
“It’s likely children born today to an indigenous British couple will find themselves in a minority in our country by the time they reach their late 40s, yes, my Lords, a minority in their own country”
The IOC and their familiars went woke and full Stonewall/DEI years ago.
ReplyDeleteLittle wonder the BBC luvvies are gushing about it.
Bewildered
Reminds me of several Communion services at Bangor before a certain Sub-Dean vanished!
ReplyDeleteWhere is he anyway. Come on Bangor, give us some answers about the Budget Pontiff, a few of us have heard some reasons…
DeleteTruth
Have the French the courage to mock the warlord slave-owning paedophile prophet dining with his sons and grandsons in the same way?
ReplyDeleteCharlie Hebdo perhaps?
He didn’t have any sons!
DeleteThe Observer
Really?
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Muhammad#:~:text=The%20common%20view%20is%20that,%2C%20Umm%20Kulthum%2C%20and%20Zaynab.
"The common view is that the Islamic prophet Muhammad had three sons, named Abd Allah, Ibrahim, and Qasim, and four daughters, named Fatima, Ruqayya, Umm Kulthum, and Zaynab. The children of Muhammad are said to have been born to his first wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid, except his son Ibrahim, who was born to Maria al-Qibtiyya. None of Muhammad's sons reached adulthood, but he had an adult foster son, Zayd ibn Harithah. Daughters of Muhammad all reached adulthood but only Fatima survived her father. Citing, among others, the advanced age of Khadija, some Shia sources contend that Fatima was the only biological daughter of Muhammad, as she is known to have enjoyed a close relationship with Muhammad, unlike Ruqayya, Umm Kulthum, and Zaynab. That Fatima was the only biological daughter of Muhammad appears to be the mainstream view among Shia Muslims."
"In chronological order, most Sunni sources list the children of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as
Qasim (598–601)
Zainab (599–629)
Ruqayya (601–624)
Umm Kulthum (603–630)
Fatima (605–632)[1]
Abd Allah (611–615)
Ibrahim (630–632)
The Sunni view is that they were all born to Muhammad's first wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid, except Ibrahim, who was born to Maria al-Qibtiyya."
"Muhammad's sons all died in childhood, although he also had an adult foster son, Zayd ibn Harithah."
So much for your observations!
You have just demonstrated that Muhammad would have had no biological sons to surround him had he been added into that ridiculous tableau based on a deliberately provocative painting. The Sunni/Shia split happened because Muhammad had no biological sons to succeed him.
DeleteThe Observer.
Really?
DeleteYou demonstrated yourself to be a misinformed berk.
Mohammed didn't have any sons indeed! 😂
We am joined at meals in our house we've always been joined by children of all ages.
I understand the Sunni/Shia split occurred over arguments about which grandson was considered to be the rightful heir.
‘We am joined’! Are you Ali G?
Delete‘You have shown yourself to be a misinformed berk.’
How these Christians love one another!
The Observer
Treweek demonstrates she's full of 💩 again.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/27/church-of-england-bishop-calls-israel-an-apartheid-state/
Have these hapless gormless prejudiced trollops really got nothing better to do?
Writing in 2002, after a visit to Israel, Desmond Tutu wrote this:
Delete"My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?
Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won't let ambulances reach the injured".
His prophetic words resonate more than ever as do those of Bishop Treweek.
RTB
The Holy Land is the one being occupied, by Arab and Muslim invaders.
DeleteJerusalem has been the capital city of the Jewish nation for literally millennia.
When exactly was the muslim quarter of Jerusalem established?
When exactly was the mosque with the golden dome constructed? And why was it constructed atop an already Jewish holy site?
🇮🇱 🇮🇱 🇮🇱 🇮🇱
Good job you’re not part of any conflict resolution with such a warped understanding of geo-political issues.
DeleteLucian
There never can be and never will be any conflict resolution with the political ideology which disguises itself as a religion, you might just as well be trying to negotiate with a rabid dog.
DeleteFirst the Jews, then the Christians followed by the Hindus, Seikhs and Buddhists with the dribs, drabs and atheists bringing up the rear.
Churchill hit the bullseye in his comments about Islam.
Re. the Olympic "Last Supper" (which I didn't recognise as such when I saw it on Friday): an awful lot depends on how you clip the picture. This one, for instance, gives a rather different impression: https://tinyurl.com/5n7yxy9h and tends to support the view that what was being represented was in fact a Greek "Bachanal": https://tinyurl.com/4xes8ed7. (I do appreciate that many folk who post on this blog won't be happy with that either, but - if you believe this explanation! - it removes the charge of blasphemy).
ReplyDeleteWell done Trainfan for introducing some common sense into the innocuous artistry of some clever Olympics graphic artist. There's nothing more untoward here than the 1955 Salvador Dali spoof on the Last Supper portraying Christ as a clean-shaven, white-skinned Westerner which is the most viewed item at Washington's National Gallery of Art or American painter Mary Edelson's re-painting of Christ and the apostles all depicted as women. No outrage either when Andy Warhol twisted da Vinci's work to one of his last ever satires.
DeleteAnd the original (if such a thing exists) was Leonardo's fascination for blurring the lines between the sexes ... but no feminism outrages in those days.
In fact who knows: There is so very, very, very little left of the original (miniscule) after overpainting, bad restorative work, touching-ups, remodelling etc. over the generations that Leonardo could, in fact, have been depicting a Greek 'Bachanal'. Who cares. In their own way both are interesting but neither really deserving of uneducated interpretations by amateur 'art historians' trying to justify some Gallic deviancy!
@ Clerum and BT. No Andy Warhol or Greek Bachanal restaurant influence here. There's no can of Campbell's Avgolemono Soup on the table.
Delete@AdClerum & Baptist Trainfan. If the scene was as innocuous as you claim, then why have the French, German and American Catholic Bishops' Conferences condemned it? If it was innocuous as you say, then why has Thomas Jolly and the International Olympic Committee apologized for causing the offence. After all, I don't recall any of them ever posting on Ancient Briton's site.
DeleteThe opening ceremony was supposed to showcase French culture and history. Leonardo da Vinci was Italian and his famous Last Supper fresco is painted on the wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie Convent in Milan. Neither has anything to do with French culture or history. If, as Ad Clerum claims this was a parody of Salvador Dali's painting: "Sacrament of the Last Supper" which hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, then Salvador Dali was Spanish and the painting is now in America. The mind boggles as to the connection with French history and culture. More to the point, the tableau on Friday looked nothing like Salvador's Dali painting where the apostle's are all spaced out around a square table.
A number of deputies from the French Parliament have also condemned it. One, Marion Maréchal said: "To all the Christians of the world who are watching the Paris 2024 ceremony and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking, but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation." It says it all.
The Loose Canon
Perhaps take up knitting dear Loose Canon, or buy yourself a goldfish: Both are blood-pressure calming, are great for stress-reducing or demands on your over-active mind. Meanwhile, allow the rest of us to engage in a bit of light-hearted banter.
DeleteOooooo I like this.
DeleteRTB
You're all potentially talking twaddle.
DeleteArguably, Christianity didn't exist until the first Easter Sunday following the discovery of the empty tomb and the alleged Ascension following that.
The last supper was attended by 13 Jews. Not one of them would have described themselves as "Christians".
If anything, the disgusting spectacle put on show in France was entirely anti-semitic.
Multiculturalism and the Alphabet Stonewall perverts are as hellbent on destroying French culture as they are British, but in the meantime your invisible imaginary omnipotent sky fairy doesn't seem to give a damn else he could have struck them all down with a few well placed bolts of lightening.
The twaddle is yours. Very weak argument if indeed you could even call it so.
DeleteRTB
https://youtu.be/qaUXznDFDdU?feature=shared
DeleteCatholic Unscripted.
Dai the Druid is correct - Jesus, and those present at the Last Supper were Jews.....
Delete@AdClerum. Why learn to knit when I have a goldfish who can knit for me?
DeleteThe Loose Canon
When was the term "Christian" first coined and when and where was its first recorded use?
DeleteBewildered
Acts 11:26 in Antioch.
DeleteNo Christians were at the last supper.
Your comment made me laugh, Dai the Druid.
DeleteChristians are people who follow Christ, disciples of Christ who were later called Christians. But they hadn't changed. In Acts 11:25 they were still the same Jews who were at the last supper. In fact until Acts 10, the whole church was Jewish.
Thank you AA, my point precisely.
DeleteIt makes perfect sense to me that not ONLY were they all Jews (sitting and serving at the last supper), their first points of contact elsewhere when they went out into the world were more than likely mostly other Jews
But back to the original point, the gay atheist artistic director of the opening ceremony and all his trans actors on display were, in my opinion, being anti-semitic and perhaps, arguably, more so than anti-christian.
Whether or not the idiots realised it is another question.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crg4yvl4nnxo
DeleteBBC alleged to be severely institutionally racist and anti-semitic.
@Dai the Druid If it was intentional it would fit in perfectly with all the other anti-semitism that has been going on. If it was aimed at Christians, it shows an abominable lack of historical knowledge.
DeleteLeonardo spent the last three years of his life in France at the invitation of King Francis 1, and is buried at Amboise, near Tours. So there is at least some French connection.
ReplyDeleteI’d genuinely love to have coffee with you Baptist. Your contributions to this site are always considered, thoughtful and kind. Thank you.
DeleteRhydderch
A very tenuous link, don't you think considering all the foreigners who have lived and worked in France over the years?
DeleteThe Loose Canon
Agreed - but stronger than (for instance) the link between St George and England!
ReplyDeleteLeonardo da Vinci completed his ‘Last Supper’ just before he left Italy for France. A combination of difficult Italian politics, a Catholic Church that placed restrictions on his work, and rumours of his homosexuality, forced him to relocate and make France his home. The French adored him and he soon found the support and favour of King Francis I. Da Vinci was to live out the remaining years of his life in France at Château du Clos Lucé. By all historical reports, he was immensely happy there, enjoying artistic freedom of expression and the company of his queer companions. He is buried in France, by his choice.
ReplyDeleteSo when the French re-imagine the Last Supper (the painting, not the actual event) with a group of Drag artists and queers, this is not intended to be a dig at Christianity (although we can imagine a very French shrug at the Christian outrage that this has caused by those so easily offended). Instead, this reference communicates a layered commentary about France’s cultural history, its respect for art, its strong secularism, and French laissez-faire attitudes toward sexuality and creative expression.
It’s quite a colonialist view of the painting to think of it as “belonging” to Christianity, rather than primarily as a Renaissance masterpiece by a brilliant (likely homosexual) artist, philosopher, and inventor, whose genius may have never been fully appreciated had he not relocated to become a refugee in a country with such progressive cultural values. Vive la France!
La Cène
Thank you for a helpful and thoughtful comment. I'm still not convinced that the opening ceremony did reference Leonardo's picture, but we can agree to disagree on that!
ReplyDeleteAnd Baptist Trainfan's comment hopefully the perfect closure to this banal debate so that life can move on to the enjoyment of the Olympic games - with or without various 'Art Critics' and 'Scriptural Historians' chipping in - and new challenge to AB to devise some new topic for mulling.
ReplyDeleteHow about the men parading as men in the boxing ring beating up women and being rewarded for doing so?
DeleteDifficult one this Ruth as I think most of those who initially jumped on the transphobe wagon have since apologised in recognition that the boxer concerned was born biologically female. Maybe you haven’t quite had the time to catch up on how the story has unfolded. Often the way with shotgun opinions that neglect the checking of facts. We all do it of course.
DeleteJanice
Not at all.
DeleteI'm sticking to the version in which the DNA test results clearly indicate the XY outcomes and led to a ban from fighting truly biological women.
@"Janice".
DeleteYou seem to want to impute your mindset and behaviour to Ruth concerning shotgun opinions.
Merely looking at the date of her first post (yesterday) demonstrates that in no way did she jump on a bandwagon that has been rolling for at least a week.
@“Ruth” so sorry. It’s just that most people have apologised for the opinion you’ve shared. I thought you’d possibly not caught up with recent reporting. We arrive at our own truths it seems.
DeleteJanice
@Exodus. I think that sadly a lot of the people commenting on this online have made their decisions instantly without needing to do anything in the way of research or fact checking. It fits in with an all too prevalent narrative of hate spilling out on the streets at present( those whose disinformed voices are almost deafening right now.
DeleteJanice
Here's your chance to catch up with recent reporting.
Deletehttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/08/05/imane-khelif-iba-explain-olympics-gender-row-boxer-live/
IBA says it's definitely male.
Bewildered
You’d be better reading this if it’s clarity you’re after on this.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/articles/cq5dd2lz8y8o.amp
Janice
Thanks Bewildered.
DeleteThe Lady is not for apologising.
Nor educating, it seems.
DeleteRandolph
The British Bullsh't Corporation are untrustworthy.
DeleteTheir agenda of pushing 120 genders in schools is well documented and even their BBC Verify team are in the habit of lying on their CV to get a job.
Bewildered
I was taught how to think for myself rather than being taught what to think and that's never going to change
DeleteLet’s draw a line under this now Ruth. Les Dennis has had the good grace to apologise and that’s enough for me. To prolong this is tedious. Move on.
DeleteRufus
Move on yourself, you don't give orders here.
DeleteThere's none more tedious than those seeking to defend the queering of the Last Supper but most revealing that your condescending remarks are only directed towards the one disagreeing with you most vociferously.
Not at all Exodus. It was becoming very tedious. I didn’t detect any line of discernible argument just the usual truculence to which you’ve just added.
DeleteRufus.
Quite agree. We need to move on. How about a thread on coexistence within the body of Christ? How we can agree to disagree? That would be quite a witness to the world at the moment which is evermore divisive.
ReplyDeleteLa Cène
Lively response to the Olympics Last Supper from Christian writer Mike Starkey, with a focus on drag as an offensive, sexualised parody of women. Article is called 'Dragging the Seine'.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.flaneurnotes.com/post/dragging-the-seine
The writer is the previous husband of Mrs Archbishop of Wales, and once a priest in Bangor Diocese.
Holly Head
I have long been afraid that if our leaders won't help us... won't even listen to us... people will take things into their own hands. I'm afraid that is beginning to happen.
ReplyDeleteIdiots in the SNP are actually encouraging vigilantes to take over Glasgow city centre.
DeleteBut naturally, it's got to be the right sort of vigilantes, ie, the hard left socialist thugs.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/church-minister-investigated-over-far-11398979.amp
DeleteWe’ve been here before.
LoveYourNeighbour
Good memory anonymous... sadly it will only get worse because nobody sees what is happening.
ReplyDeleteWhat is happening are thugs vandalising store, setting fire to police stations and looting Greggs for sausage rolls and steak bakes. If you want to hitch your wagon to that lunatic crowd then more fool you.
DeleteLoveYourNeighbour
Plenty of people see it but most fail to label it correctly for fear of being labelled racist and far right.
DeleteAsk a friend who is black, Muslim, asylum seeker or refugee. They’ll help you label things correctly. They’ll also help you identify what real fear is.
DeleteRufus
I asked my friend who used to be a muslim but converted to Christianity. He says you will have no idea until you've been chased by a muslim mob out for blood.
DeleteHe also suggested you should ask the teacher from Bradford who is still in hiding with his family because he dared to show a Mohammed cartoon during a high school lesson.
He finished off by saying your final task should be to speak to the family of the French teacher, murdered in Paris for the same "crime".
I'm saddened that your friend fell prey to the violence of Islamist extremists when he converted to Christianity. I'm assuming he has now found refuge in the UK. So too, I deplore the Islamist terror inflicted on the teachers from Bradford and Paris, the one still in hiding with his family, and the other savagely beheaded.
DeleteRufus
All Islam is extremist.
DeleteAsk a friend who was gay and thrown from a sixth storey rooftop.
There's an extreme element to all religion. A good test is 'if it's cruel, it's not of God'. The smartest people are always those who are kind, whatever their religion, creed, skin colour, sexuality or gender. We've seen that this week haven't we with those who have taken to the streets to pick up the pieces, sweep up the broken glass, thank the police and restore calm to communities. The smartest people are always the kindest - in word and action.
DeleteRufus
Loving your neighbour surely includes warning him of impending horrors.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnvyyz8461yo
ReplyDeleteUN staff SACKED for involvement in Hamas attack on Israel on 7th October.
Merely scratching the surface of UN corruption.