‘I was ashamed,’ said my friend in a hurt tone at the church I attend in Angoulême. He was, of course, referring to the impressive, if provocative, opening ceremony of the Olympics in Paris.
Praise first. The ceremony took big technical risks, most of which paid off, even under pouring rain. Focussed on the River Seine, it was a dazzling kaleidoscope of sound and light, an often breath-taking (and frequently breathless) melange of drama, singing, dancing and acrobatics performed with skill and flair.
Yet, even within a France that wanted something to be proud of, the event has been widely criticised. I’ll mention the ‘anti-Christian’ element shortly but the whole venture was the epitome of postmodernism or possibly post-postmodernism. History and culture were ransacked to give episodes that were flashed up, given a sharp twist of deconstruction, only to be replaced by something else. Any overall theme was unclear and forcing viewers to make their own response to the mysteries before them. There was a consistent jokey, cynical and provocative tone and anything that could, within the law, be lampooned was. So the warlike Marseillaise was given a charming makeover that made it sound suitable for pacifists. The band of the illustrious Republican Guard were reduced to a swaying accompaniment to France’s leading popular singer in front of the home of the dignified Académie Française. And so on. What was affirmed – to the point of weariness – was diversity and inclusivity. Inevitably the LGBTQIA+ agenda endlessly emerged with romance being represented by implied sexual activity between three individuals of indeterminate gender. I gather many parents put their hands over their children’s eyes or just switched off.
With the built in acidic tone of the ceremony, it was inevitable that Christianity was going to be a target and it was. There was a tableau of Leonardo’s Last Supper populated by drag artists. Denials have been made that it was a deliberate affront to the faith, possibly because French law prohibits public funds being used for both religious or atheistic propaganda. Yet its creators must have known it would be seen as offensive and the pun on the French for the Last Supper as la Cène and yes, la Seine can hardly be accidental. And can an anti-religion agenda be any clearer than a performance of John Lennon’s Imagine complete with – go figure – a burning piano? It’s a concern and a point for prayer that in France’s high-stakes struggle between the secularism of la laïcité and Islamic, or Islamicist, values, Christians – especially evangelicals – are not surrogate targets.
I talked to other French Christians about the ceremony. Some simply shrugged it off as due to ‘les Parisiens’ and a product of an unrepresentative, arrogant and well-funded elite who consider themselves to be the pacesetters of culture. Other thoughtful comments were that the ceremony wasn’t simply tasteless, but tactless. After all, this ceremony put France on show to the world, not all of which is quite so enthused about ‘Parisian’ values. As someone put it ‘there are already enough people in the world who think that France is the centre of moral corruption without providing more evidence’. It’s certainly proved to be tactless at a national level. Within hours, representatives of the extreme Right were condemning Parisian ‘wokisme’ and positioning themselves as defenders of a traditional French Christian culture. In the polarised and volatile state of French politics, we don’t need that.
Let me conclude on a positive note. First, I believe that the outspoken negativism of the opening ceremony says to the growing evangelical church that the traditional policy of French Protestantism of keeping a low cultural profile may not be the wisest thing. It’s time to think about how we can be salt and light in society. The second is that behind all the ingenious imitation and artful allusions of the ceremony lurked a yawning, hollow nothingness. For all its sound and spectacle, there was something extraordinary fragile, vulnerable and even troubled about the ceremony. That phrase, associated with Alpha ‘there must be more than this’ applies not just to people, but to cultures. Is it any wonder that evangelical churches are growing here? Pray on for France!
