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On July 26, viewers around the globe witnessed the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris. Unfortunately, instead of a ceremony celebrating sporting competition and associated virtues such as perseverance in effort and systematic pursuit of goals, we received a spectacle fitting into the left-liberal woke project, containing elements of blasphemy. At this moment, it is worth asking what conclusions can be drawn from this event by people who care about decent representation of Christianity in the public sphere.
Firstly - this example clearly shows that the postulate of neutrality in the public sphere can be relegated to fairy tales. This is an impossible state to achieve - public space is an arena of clash between different values (or rather, increasingly often, values and anti-values). It is a dynamic space - one cannot achieve an optimal state by abandoning the battlefield at some point. Those who do not enter public space with a proposal of their own axiology retreat, giving ground to their opponents.
Secondly - it would be great naivety to think that this was a one-time outburst by a small group of "artists" that the organizers and sponsors of the Olympics completely did not expect. What we could observe is one of the fruits of the alliance between left-liberal political forces and international global capital, which spares no expense to implement these (anti-)values in life. It is high time to reject two types of illusions that are still present in the thinking of a considerable part of Christians and conservatives: the first is faith in a minimum state, which in principle should limit the promotion of a specific axiology in public life (here the argument often falls "what if our opponents take power and promote their values through the state apparatus"? Well, that's exactly what they're doing, regardless of previous conservative choices - politics is not a gentlemen's club operating on the principle of reciprocity). The second is faith in the purposefulness of appeasing big capital to harness it for promoting pro-Christian and pro-family attitudes.
Thirdly - observing discussions conducted on platform X (Twitter), we saw multiple attempts to ridicule expressions of outrage voiced by people scandalized by the spectacle (these were not only Christians). On one hand, we can note the standard division in Polish public debate of the world into the enlightened, culturally knowledgeable West and the obscurantist, backward public opinion in Poland - an argument from the "emperor's new clothes" cycle, nothing new. On the other hand, we see cynical attempts to use Russian aggression against Ukraine to promote left-liberal ideas - this way of arguing tries to convince that since critical voices about the inauguration also come from Russia, it means that this criticism is pro-Kremlin and pro-Putin. Those who use this type of rhetoric seem not to notice that introducing a sharp dichotomy in the form of "rainbow West vs traditional Russia" plays right into Putin's hands, who will use this image to show that European civilization is on an inevitable path toward such (anti-)values as those presented at the Olympics opening ceremony. Furthermore, we could note attempts to attribute hatred to critics (on the basis of: you yourselves would like to kill, just like those who attacked the Charlie Hebdo editorial office), as well as statements that the ceremony's authors chose Christianity as the object of mockery, rather than, for example, Islam, because... Islam does not recognize graphic representations - so are we to blame ourselves for not taking the path of iconoclasm? Generally speaking, we can define this strategy as gaslighting, that is, psychological manipulation used against a victim who, as a result of these measures, is ultimately supposed to doubt whether they were really harmed.
Fourthly - Evil is the absence of good, it is a force that feeds on creation, which can only distort and deform what exists. J.R.R. Tolkien summarized this in literary fashion:
"No, they eat and drink, Sam. The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures" (The Lord of the Rings. The Return of the King).
"For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise" (Silmarillion).
The Olympics opening ceremony is a good illustration of this phenomenon on two levels. On one hand, we see that Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" was subjected to deformation, an artifact of Western civilization that is inextricably linked to Christian faith. On the other hand, we see that arguments were used to explain this performance and defend it from criticism that are essentially a distorted version of Christian values and virtues, such as love, equality, acceptance. This event is therefore an example of how enemies of Christianity try to use values flowing from it against itself1.
At this point, it is worth examining the Polish context - I mean the situation related to the statement by Przemysław Babiarz, who was commenting on the course of the ceremony. Editor Babiarz, commenting on the performance of John Lennon's song "Imagine," stated that it presents a communist vision. And although this is not a particularly controversial claim, as indicated by both the song's lyrics and statements by its author2, a wave of criticism fell upon the editor, especially on platform X (Twitter). Despite the fact that Przemysław Babiarz has worked at Polish Television for over 30 years, on July 27 he was suspended from his duties and will not be commenting on the Games. Here we can see clearly that the left-liberal faction uses arguments related to tolerance and human rights in a highly instrumental way, according to the principle described by Frank Herbert among others: "When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."
Religious Freedom Lab Team
1 Prof. Carl Trueman reflected on this phenomenon in his article 'The Church among the Deathworks', published in First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/10/the-church-among-the-deathworks. At this point, it is worth quoting a passage that offers a definition of what a 'deathwork' is: „Deathwork” is a term used by sociologist Philip Rieff. It refers to the act of using the sacred symbols of a previous era in order to subvert, and then destroy, their original significance and purpose. This article, in the context of the opening of the Games, was referenced by the American Christian apologist, Neil Shenvi: https://x.com/NeilShenvi/status/1816976604444139955.
2 'Imagine', which says: 'Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,' is virtually The Communist Manifesto, even though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement.
