The Debauchery of the Olympics and the Sovereignty of God
On Friday July 26, I along with millions of others watched the Opening Ceremony at the Paris Olympics. I also, along with many others, noticed the images and scenes full of debauchery, sexual perversion, and what would categorize as expressions of ugliness. At one point one man’s testicles was on display for anyone, including children, to see. Many online pundits from Candace Owens to Piers Morgan noticed how certain choreographed scenes depicted images of Western Christianity like the Last Supper in mockery and responded naturally in collective revulsion. In our society where analysis of cultural phenomena are limited to a few hundred character (whether by design or by the limits of our attention spans), our hot takes too often fall into the binary judgement of “bad” or “good”. What I would like to suggest is that this binary is both unchristian and deeply problematic because it ignores cause, our responsibility, and the sovereignty of God. I’ll take these in reverse order.
1. Judging Others Blinds Us to God’s Sovereignty:
In Genesis 1, God makes everything we see today and calls it good and in Colossians 1 we learn that all things were made by Jesus Christ, the Word of God Incarnate (John 1). From these 3 passages we can deduce that everything in the creation is both God and has a purpose. Therefore, to judge creation or anything that exists as inherently bad is to act as if you are wiser than God and capable of judging Him or what He has made. When Job did this, God humiliated him with question upon question exposing his own ignorance. Here is a sampling of the interview:
Job 38:2-11
“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?”
Created things, even humans, are never to question the goodness of God or deny His sovereignty over all that is and all that happens. It is illogical and the height of ignorant pride to presume to sit in judgement over God’s actions or His will. Everything is good and if you can’t see why, ask. As James writes,
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” (James 1:5)
This is the first lesson. When you see something that makes you uncomfortable or tempts you to judgment, don’t get angry. Get curious for God is both good and soverign and is trying to show you something about Himself for those who are humble enough to have faith in these two things.
2. Judging Others Blinds Us to Our Responsibility
It’s very convenient to search for someone lesser than you or worst than you to make yourself feel better. Comparative morality is an easy way to keep the attention of yourself when really you are just better at hiding your sin than others. This is what the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus day were very good at. In Luke 18, we have a description of a Pharisee expressing gratitude for his life which is seemingly devoid of sin.
“The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18:11)
Jesus would later go on to tell his followers how to avoid this trap.
“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” (Matthew 7:4-5)
I am often struck by how easy it is for people to talk about others faults and sins while rarely being vulnerable about their own. How often do parents, for instance, complain about their teenage children while ignoring the fact that they raised them? Have we no self-awareness that we participate in this society and that we might somehow be contributing to the ugliness we see around us? Ask yourself how you might do something about the problem you see and you’ll find yourself just as guilty as those you judge. Ironically, you can actually do something about this because you can take responsibility for your own actions but judging others ignores our responsibility for what is taking place.
This is why Jesus calls His followers to be salt, a preserving force in the world. He said
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”(Matthew 5:13)
Christians, those who have been shown the truth about God’s Sovereignty and Goodness and who have been shown mercy for their sins, are called to be compassionate truth tellers who love people in their pain, their unwise choices, and their foolish behavior. You can’t empathize with someone and judge them at the same time. Our responsibility is to empathize and love, not judge and reject.
3. Judging Others Blinds Us to the Cause
Finally, I want to highlight that everything has a cause. From the alcoholic that is in so much pain they feel they have no hope but to drink or the gay man who fakes happiness because truth hurts too much or a society who decided to stop having children because the future seems too bleak, pain and foolish actions have causes. When we judge people for responding naturally to painful and traumatic situations we ignore the cause. Any given person is a product of their thoughts, which were implanted in them by their parents and society, and which were acted out around them by society.
Gabor Mate has a great TedTalk where he explains that the cause of addiction is not foolishness or immorality but pain. He explains how it’s unproductive to try to understand why the addiction happens because the answer to that is simple, a person is trying to avoid the pain of reality. The better and more helpful question is “why the pain?”. He then goes on to highlight the hypocrisy of society for judging people for being addicted to drugs while ignoring the more ubiquitous and destructive addiction to power, which stems from the same cause. You can watch his masterful talk here on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/66cYcSak6nE?si=l8PMI4yQyIO6XLbC
Money for instance is something we all universally tend to value but if you were to look into the nature of money, it’s deceptive origins and destructive ends, we might see that our love for this economic force is a source of so many of the evils. Until we are willing to break from our love of money, who are we to judge the societal consequences of our love of money?
Conclusion
Let us then take this moment of culturural attention to remember God’s goodness and sovereignty. Let us ask ourselves how we might be responsible and how we can repent. And let us recommit ourselves to reason, logic, and the truth to discover the causes of what ails us so that we might become more faithful, holy, and wise.
Reflective questions to ask yourself:
1. Do my words and actions lie about God’s sovereignty or His goodness?
2. How would belief in God’s sovereignty and goodness recalibrate my response to what He does on earth and in my life?
3. Am I using my judgement of others to cover over my own sins and insecurities?
4. Am I hiding anything from my own mind or life that I would not want to be made public?
5. If my hidden thoughts and secret actions were made public, how would I want others to respond?
6. How curious am I when I encounter things that disgust me or that I consider evil? Do I inquire to their causes or am I content with judging and moving on?
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