The opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris was four hours long. Part of the ceremony featured the return of Celine Dion, the procession of competitors, and other highlights. The most controversial aspect, however, was the introduction into the ceremony of the queer sexual-social agenda by the self-described “queer” artist Thomas Jolly. Those segments of the opening ceremony were a moral, religious, and aesthetic debacle featuring trans people recreating a scene featuring the Greco-Roman god Dionysius. Part of the queering of the opening ceremony also included a scene that seemed to mock DaVinci’s (c. 1495) painting, The Last Supper. From the point of view of the ancient Christian church and the Reformed churches since the sixteenth century, artistic and aesthetic merit aside, the painting is already highly problematic since it violates the second commandment (as numbered by the Jews and the Reformed churches). Setting aside, for the moment, those weighty objections, the aesthetics and ethics of crudely mocking a major world religion are highly dubious. We may test the limits of “queerness,” however, by asking whether they would have queered Islam or the prophet? The staff at Charlie Hebdo might answer that question but they are not answering the phone any more.

There has been an attempt by some to deny that Jolly was mocking the painting and Christianity. The Associated Press, however, reported:

Among their bold performances was a scene that seemed to evoke Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” featuring the drag queens and other performers in a configuration reminiscent of Jesus Christ and his apostles. This segment drew significant attention — and mixed reactions.

In fact Jolly deliberately arranged to do both things: depict Dionysius and mock Christianity. Those who suggest that that latter did not occur are not arguing in good faith.

The concern of this essay, however, is not the queering of the Olympics. France, once so staunchly Roman Catholic that her citizens brutally murdered thousands of their fellow Frenchmen, who happened to be Reformed, in 1572, is now perhaps the least Christian of any of the European nations. Given that France is what it is because of its embrace of the radicalism of the French Revolution, because it is decidedly post-Christian, we should perhaps not be surprised that the queering of the Olympics occurred in Paris. Have you seen the fashions created by Parisian designers? Clearly they are, as one ancient pagan described the Christians, “haters of humanity.”¹

The concern of this essay is the response by Elon Musk to the mocking of Christianity, what his response (and its echo on some Christian quarters) signifies, and how it errs. On X, on July 27, he wrote, “Unless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.” Musk’s response is natural. It is the way men think about human enterprises. They think this way about defending their homes, their businesses, and their communities but Christ’s church is not a natural enterprise. It is a supernatural institution.

Thus, Musk’s response is entirely wrong headed. Because it is a supernatural institution, Christianity withstood 270 years of bloody persecution from AD 40–311. Likely thousands were martyred in the third century alone. We needed no strong man then to defend us nor were we fighting any culture war against the brutal, pagan Roman Empire. I am not saying that there is no value in standing up for natural marriage and against the trans sexual revolution. There is but the existence and continuing of Christianity depends on the ascended Lord Jesus and not upon our efforts in this world.

What Elijah Learned

We know this from the history of salvation. Under Ahab there were only 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18). Remember that this is the episode in which we see Jezebel and wicked king Ahab seeking to kill the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:1–3). He fled to Beersheba and then again a days journey outside of town. He rested under the broom tree asking “that he might die” (1 Kings 19:4). The “angel of the Lord” (1 Kings 19:7) ministered to him twice by feeding and caring for him. Who was this “Angel of the Lord”? According to several of the earliest Christian fathers, often, though not always, the Angel of the Lord was a manifestation of the pre-incarnate Son of God. In his commentary on Exodus 3:2 Calvin explained:

Now, although this is an allowable manner of speaking, because the angels transfer to themselves the person and titles of God, when they are performing the commissions entrusted to them by him; and although it is plain from many passages, and especially from the first chapter of Zechariah, that there is one head and chief of the angels who commands the others, the ancient teachers of the Church have rightly understood that the Eternal Son of God is so called in respect to his office as Mediator, which he figuratively bore from the beginning, although he really took it upon him only at his Incarnation. And Paul sufficiently expounds this mystery to us, when he plainly asserts that Christ was the leader of his people in the Desert. (1 Cor. 10:4.) Therefore, although at that time, properly speaking, he was not yet the messenger of his Father, still his predestinated appointment to the office even then had this effect, that he manifested himself to the patriarchs, and was known in this character. Nor, indeed, had the saints ever any communication with God except through the promised Mediator. It is not then to be wondered at, if the Eternal Word of God, of one Godhead and essence with the Father, assumed the name of “the Angel” on the ground of his future mission.²

It is entirely fitting to think of God the Son, in his pre-incarnate state, stooping to minister to his servant Elijah 1 Kings 19:5–6), since that he what he did for us in the incarnation. He washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:1–20). He fed the thousands (Matt 14:13–21).

Still, despite the care and kindness shown to him by the pre-incarnate Son, Elijah worried that the Lord had abandoned him and that the church would be destroyed. He complained, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10).³ All his complaints were legitimate. The people of Israel were wicked and rebellious. They had done all the things that Elijah alleged.

Nevertheless, the situation was not as dire as it seemed to Elijah. To prove it to him, Yahweh, the God of the heavenly armies, commanded Elijah to go stand on the mountain before the Lord, who passed by and demonstrated his power. The author of Kings adds, “but Yahweh was not in the wind.” Then there was an earthquake, and then a fire.⁴ “But,” Scripture says, “Yahweh was not in the fire” (1 Kings 19:12). Yahweh was finally present, as it were, not in any the sorts of display of power that Elijah wanted. The Lord came to him in “the sound of a low whisper” (v. 12; ESV)—not as a pattern for post-Apostolic Christians to get continuing, extra-canonical revelations from the Lord—to demonstrate that the power of the Lord to preserve and build his church is counterintuitive. It is spiritual power.

Elijah repeated the terms of his complaint against the people (v. 14) but the Lord replied, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place” (1 Kings 19:15–16).⁵ The sovereign Lord had a plan and a people: “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” (v.18).

The continuation of the church under the types and shadows depended not on Elijah nor on any man. The covenant assembly is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Yahweh of heavenly armies. He has chariots of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Those fiery chariots are still there. Elijah’s successor, Elisha, learned that lesson, which he passed on to his servant (2 Kings 6:15), who panicked when he saw all the chariots surrounding the city. The prophet encouraged him, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16). The servant could not see them but Elisha could: “Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Yahweh, please open his eyes that he may see.” So Yahweh opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17).⁶ So it is today under the New Covenant. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them, even when all we can see on television are blue transgender people recreating pagan cults and mocking Christianity.

God the Son and all his hosts are with us. It was he who spoke to Elijah in a low whisper. It was he who sent the chariots of fire to collect and and to protect Elisha. He is the captain of the heavenly armies. He told Peter plainly, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:52–53). He told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. Were my kingdom from this world my servants would have been fighting that I might not be handed over to the Jews but my kingdom is not from this world” (John 18:36).⁷

Now is not the time to take up arms in defense of Christianity nor is it the time to look for a strong man, nor does the future of Christianity rest on our fighting with the powers of this age. The church was in perilous times when there were only 7,000 of us and but here we are. In the third century (AD 200s) the church was under continuous and violent persecution. Thousands were put to death for nothing more than for confessing, “Jesus is Lord” and for refusing to acknowledge the Caesars as gods. Yet, here we are. Despite all the spit and fury of the evil one, Christ has preserved his church.

We should not be surprised. He promised us it would be so: “And behold, I will be with you always until the end of the age” (Matt 28:20) and “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against his church (Matt 16:18).

Things are uncomfortable for Western Christians now but it is not time to panic nor is it time to adopt a view of the church and the sovereignty of God which is alien to the Word of God. We Christians ought to pray that the Lord will restrain wickedness but we also ought to remember that when our Lord established the New Covenant church he did so in the midst of overwhelming opposition and great wickedness. The early Christians would not have been much surprised by Thomas Jolly’s queering of the Olympics. The Lord did not “take back” the Roman Empire before establishing his church. He subverted it with an improbable message about a resurrected rabbi. Christ himself was arrested, tortured, and crucified, dead, and buried. The good news is that on the third day the tomb was empty because he was risen (Matt 28:1–10). He lives and reigns and the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:29–36). He will soon crush Satan under our feet (Rom 16:20). And here we are.

We should be glad for Mr Musk’s concern for the Christian faith but we should not adopt his theology or its assumptions. The church is not a natural institution defended by natural means. It is a supernatural institution defended by divinely ordained, supernatural means. In 1 Corinthians 1:25 Paul characterized the Christian message as “foolishness” to the world for this very reason. The church belongs to Christ, who will lose none of his people. As Paul wrote, “So too in the present seasons there is a remnant (λεῖμμα) elected according to grace” (Rom 11:5).⁸

endnotes

1. “Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.” Tacitus, Annals, 15.44. The older translation “haters of humanity” is based on Tacitus’ phrase, “odio humani” See Cornelii Taciti, Annalium, Scriptum classicorum bibliotheca oxoniensis, ed. C. D. Fisher (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, repr. 1973).
2. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, trans. Charles William Bingham. vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 61–62.
3. Revised from the ESV.
4. To those of us who live in Southern California, some of this seems very familiar.
5. Revised from the ESV.
6. Revised from the ESV.
7. My translation.
8. My translation.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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