Monday, August 12, 2024

Part I

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The Olympics and the Religion of Internationalism: There Is A Lot Going On That Most Will Not See

Well, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games are now over. The closing ceremonies brought to a conclusion games that just in terms of the general event, the general impact will be considered highly successful games. And you have to know that in the world of the Olympics there are two big factors that come into major play here in the forefront. Disaster would come if either there had been a terrorist attack at the games involving athletes or spectators, or if there had been an absolute financial debacle, and none of those things basically took place. There was no major meltdown when it came to all of the arrangements, the unbelievably complex arrangements for a modern Olympic Games.

Now, there were controversies and we’re going to be leaning into those controversies beginning with the opening ceremonies. Though we do need to recognize that the bigger problem with the Olympics is that it is this massive event drawing people from all these different countries, Olympic competitors who are supposedly coming in the spirit of the Olympics themselves, and it is supposed to be one massive display of international amity, goodwill, cooperation, excellence, achievement. Well, you go down the list. The original motto of the games in terms of the modern Olympics was Citius, Altius, Fortius. That means faster, higher, stronger. Those ideals were articulated by the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who was the man who really more than anyone else in the late 19th century brought the Olympic Games back.

But let’s just remind ourselves of what’s behind this because one of the arguments I’m going to make is that in an increasingly secular age, events such as the Olympics take on an increasingly theological function. Now, it might not appear that way at first, but we have to look a little bit at the history. First of all, we have the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. Now, those were games about which there’s a great deal of mythology, including who came up with the idea and how the games got started, but if you were to compare the Olympics then and the Olympics now, well, let’s just say that when you are looking at the ancient Olympic Games associated with Ancient Greece, it was only young men who were participating and they were participating at least in terms of many of the events you would consider such as running, they were competing naked and there were no women allowed even to be present, much less as competitors.

And a part of this has to do with what you will be reminded of just if you remember going to an art gallery and seeing Ancient Greek sculptures from the same period, Ancient Greek art, it was a celebration of the body, a celebration of order, a celebration of performance, a celebration of virility, a celebration of young masculinity. Some of this played right into some of the moral confusions of the age, but in a more general sense, it was about the Greek civilization, which prided itself at that point as being the apex civilization. This was a demonstration of excellence to which the Greeks had committed themselves, and nothing appeared to be more measurably excellent than when you are looking at competitive games. But there was a long period in which there were no games, and in the Ancient Greek context, there was already a premium upon such things as the marathon coming from the Greek culture itself and all kinds of races and endurance, and well, you look at it and you recognize, we know a little bit of what was taking place, and it’s even referenced in the Bible.

The Apostle Paul speaks about the Olympiad, the Greek tradition, even in terms of honoring the one who races according to the rules. In the New Testament, the Ancient Greek metaphor of the race, a race that should be run with endurance also shows up, and that’s just a sign that even as the Romans gained military supremacy, and were the successor as they saw themselves to the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire allowed the games to go on. But that was only for a time. For some reason, the Emperor Theodosius called an end to the Greek Olympic Games, and those games may have ceased as early as 393 AD. That historical date is not absolutely certain, but almost for certain the games were over according to the Theodosian decree by 426 AD. But as you look at the ancient games in Greece, only males, and for a long period at that time, only male citizens of certain Greek city-states. The Greek empire having been expanded, included some others who were from outside those city-states.

Still, it was a very limited set of games. But what a powerful metaphor. Again, even as found in Scripture. You fast-forward and for a lot of centuries there were no Olympics at all. There was no Olympic competition. But then what you might call the recovery of an Olympic idea really came in the 17th Century in England, and what was known as the Cotswold Olympick Games, Olympic spelled O-L-I-M-P-I-C-K. Again, it was phonetic, they had heard it, it was transliterated. In this case, it was wrongly transliterated from the Greek in that way, but nonetheless, they got the sound just about right. Now, this is where things get interesting and where the worldview implications become pretty interesting and clear and intense. After the French Revolution, there was an attempt to bring some kind of formalized Olympic Games harkening back to the classical era in French culture. And this was simply known as the Olympiad of the Republic. That’s dated about the end of the 18th century, 1796 to 1798.

And it is not at all clear exactly how those Olympic Games worked, but it was an effort, at least in the early modern age, to try to bring something like the classical Olympics back. But that was pretty much a French experiment. Hold that thought because, after all, the ’24 Summer Olympics were held in Paris France. In the middle of the 19th century, there was a British attempt to try to recreate something like the Olympic Games, and Olympian Games, as sponsored by the Wenlock Olympian Society began just about the same time. And then another effort at something like the Olympics was started in Liverpool, but again, very local. This was not an international effort, but it did catch attention and a part of the attention that it caught was the attention of the Greeks, and after all, they felt a little proprietary. They felt a little possessive about this.

After all, it was Ancient Greek culture. And so after the Greek War of Independence in which Greece separated itself from the Ottoman Empire in 1821, there was an effort to bring back something like the Olympic Games. And in 1859, there was an effort to hold an international Olympiad of a sort, but all of that’s just background for the fact that the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, he’s the one who came up with the idea of the modern Olympic Games. You recognize this is a French Baron, and so putting all of those experimental recoveries into one pot, de Coubertin basically said, “Let’s start a new Olympic cycle. Let’s do it every four years, and let’s make it a grand occasion of international competition to bring out the virtues which need to be celebrated amongst the Congress of Nations.” Now, the worldview issue here that’s so important is that this was late 19th century internationalism and that did become basically a religion.

Now, remember this brought together the League of Nations that later took the shape of the United Nations. By the way, even though many people don’t want to acknowledge this, we’re going to talk about a specific instance of which this becomes important later this week. But many of the institutions that were in the League of Nations, the United States did not join, were basically continued in the United Nations, as established not only with the cooperation of the United States, but largely by the sponsorship of the United States in the aftermath of World War Two. But remember that motto that de Coubertin had indicated Citius, Altius, Fortius, that is “Faster, higher, stronger,” the idea that de Coubertin had about the games was that it would be a revival of an international spirit. And one of the interesting things is that, as you look back at the ancient Greek games, they were deeply saturated in Ancient Greek mythology, and that meant to the extent the Greeks had a theology, that Ancient Greek theology and an awful lot of that, even with neo-supernatural kinds of effects and extensions got really extended to this idea of the modern Olympics.

It was to bring about an age of world peace. There were other things that were going on. De Coubertin, who was French, was largely inspired by the athletic competition between the elite British boys schools, and looking at those schools, Eaton, Rugby, Harrow, just go down the list, he saw how there was an effort to try to create in the young men of Great Britain, particularly in the 19th century, a sense of competition that could be translated into a sense of unity. The boys would play against each other in team games and all kinds of competitions, but then they would be a part of one great school, and then there’d be competition between the schools, and then there would be the cooperation in one great nation of which these boys are going to be the leaders, and this was a very elite set of schools, but after all, we are talking about a French Baron.

Well, the other idea is that, of course, there would be a unity, a piece that would emerge, and so you’d have the representatives of so many different nations and these nations would send their athletes, and the athletes would compete fairly. They would compete without cheating, they would compete without all kinds of things that are now very much a part of our modern obsession. When you think about the Olympics, you have to think about all kinds of opportunities to cheat, and thus the need for chemical tests, and as we see even for some level of genetic tests in order to understand exactly what in the world we’re even talking about when we talk about a modern Olympiad, a modern event such as the Olympic Games. De Coubertin, by the way, once again, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, he referred to the Olympics as driven by a vision of Olympism, and there is no doubt he infused that with theological elements or at least saw it as something of a secular replacement for a dying Christianity, a receding level of religious belief.

But okay, time’s going to get away from us. I just want to make it very clear, the Olympics have always been about a worldview clash. Worldview issues, vast worldview issues have always been implicated in the Olympics. That was true in terms of Ancient Greek mythology and the Ancient Greek games. It’s been true ever since the modern Olympic movement began in the late 19th century, the high watermark in many ways of liberal internationalism. And it is also very, very clear, in the fact that the Olympics have never been able to extricate the Olympic process or Olympic events from political happenings. Just think 1936, Berlin Olympic Games, Nazi, Germany. Just think about all of that. Adolf Hitler standing in the stands as the host of an Olympiad. Or you can think about 1980 when President Jimmy Carter said that the American athletes could not participate in that set of Olympics held in Russia precisely because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and then the Soviets retaliated in 1984, no Russians at the Los Angeles games, and so politics is always out there.

Part II

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A New Babylon with a Drag Queen Behind the Altar: The Theological Signals Sent at the Very Beginning of the 2024 Olympics

And as you’re looking at the opening ceremonies, this year that became the first big thing everyone had to talk about, and that was after there had been a sabotage of the French high-speed rail system that many were afraid was setting the stage for something that would be injurious to people. Thankfully, that did not happen, but the opening ceremonies took place and boy did they take place. Now, the most important thing we can say about the opening ceremonies is that every bit of it was orchestrated, every bit of it was premeditated, and every bit of it was reflective of the worldview clash in terms of, say, modern French culture. Now, just remember, French Revolution. Think about the desecration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Think about the paganism that was put in place. Think about the desecration of the altar. Ring a bell?

And just think about those ceremonies, which ended with that dramatic presentation in which you had a drag queen at the center of a table, a long table, which, of course, inevitably brought an understanding that at least a large part of the background was da Vinci’s Last Supper. That was a reference to the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples. Now, when the controversy came, because it was just an atrocity, I’m not even going to go into detail, I’ll simply say it was an atrocity, the thing to remember is that it was an intended atrocity. Nothing there was accidental, and that tells you a lot when you consider the fact that Paris hosting the Games was under the authority of the French government, and that’s right down to detail. The French, if anything, in terms of their government represent an attention to detail.

Nothing was unpremeditated, it was all planned. Of course, you had people coming back saying, “No, that was about Dionysius.” Well, quite honestly, Dionysius appeared in the context of the French Revolution. That brings back classical Greek and Roman culture again. Dionysius can’t be mentioned without unmentionables. But there’s also no doubt that anyone raised within the context of Western civilization would’ve recognized the Last Supper references and the intended, extended blasphemy. Now, my main argument in responding to this is just to point out that every society, every society without exception, coalesces around a dominant religious impulse, and that impulse comes with associated symbols. The sheer horror of the secularist replacement is what we saw on display in the opening ceremonies there in Paris, and it’s a deliberately pornographic corruption of Christianity.

And as I said, back when the opening events happened, none of it was unintentional. So don’t miss how intentional it was right down to details, and I simply explained it by saying that what Paris aspires to be is the new Babylon and at the center of the new Babylon, who would you expect to find but a drag queen behind an altar?

Part III

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‘The Term “Biologically Male” is Problematic’: Newsflash, IOC, If You Want Separate Competition For Women Athletes You Have to Know What a Woman Is

Thomas Bach at the closing ceremonies yesterday simply declared victory. “We know that the Olympic Games cannot create peace, but the Olympic Games can create a culture of peace that inspires the world. This is why I call on everyone who shares this Olympic spirit, let us live this culture of peace every single day.” Oh, yeah, that’s going to happen because of the Olympics. It’s also interesting to note that Thomas Bach made this comment, “The Olympic Games Paris 2024 were a celebration of the athletes and sported its best the first Olympic Games delivered fully under our Olympic agenda reforms.”

Now that tells you something, reforms are necessary. That’s because there’s been so much corruption in the Olympic movement, quite honestly, you can’t speak of a lot of this with a straight face, unless you’re just acknowledging that the corruption has been rife. It’s been rampant. He then said, “Younger, more urban, more inclusive, more sustainable,” mentioning the Olympics. Then he said this, “The first-ever Olympic Games with full gender parity.” Yes, he said that even after one of the most controversial gender issues in modern history. So now is the time to talk about the gender issue, the sex issue, and what is taking place when you have in the boxing event, the women’s boxing event, and we’ll talk in a moment about the fact that there is a women’s boxing event, but when you have women’s boxing at different weight levels as an official Olympic sport with all the medals and everything else, then you better know who a woman is and you better know who a woman is not.

And this gets to a basic issue. As you look at the modern Olympic Games, quite honestly, it’s taken a long time even after the entry of women into many events in the Olympics, women’s events in general, except for equestrian competitions. As you look at it, you recognize, okay, it came with a certain logic, and the logic was this, women ought to be involved as men are involved in the modern Olympic process, but they’re going to need distinctive events in which you have women competing with women or at least let’s say girls competing with girls. And as you look at this, you recognize that there is no way around that. There’s an inevitability to this because the human body, if indeed it goes through male puberty, has advantages just in terms of structure and skeleton and strength, all kinds of things that would make the kind of Olympic competition that we know is involved in these events, it would make them absolutely ridiculous if you had classically men and women or girls and boys, young men and young women, competing against each other in what are often contests of raw strength as well as expertise.

The skeletal differences alone, particularly post puberty, are just absolutely remarkable. And by the way, those skeletal changes in the male body after the process of puberty, they do not disappear. Even if the athlete declares some kind of transgender identity and takes some kind of hormones or hormone blockers, still the bones are the bones and the frame is the frame. Also, when it comes to something like swimming, the lungs are the lungs. It’s just a difference that amounts to something that is morally inescapable. And that’s why we need to look at this more closely because you can have female competition at events such as the Olympics. You can have female competition when it comes to, say, intercollegiate athletics in the United States, but then you are going to have to grow up and define who a woman is.

Now, I can’t imagine going back to de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, and saying, “Oh, by the way, the big controversy, say, quarter of the way through the 21st century is going to be whether or how you would define a woman for women’s competitions at the Olympics.” First of all, he wouldn’t have recognized women competing at the Olympics, but then he would have recognized who a woman is as compared to a man. Now, in looking at the case of the boxers, Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif, the first of Taiwan, the second of Algeria, it is clear that in a previous round of competition, both of them failed or were disqualified because of a chromosomal test that almost assuredly indicated they have XY chromosomes. That is to say they have a male chromosomal structure.

Now, in both cases, you had the Olympic authorities with the Olympic committee coming back and saying, “No, they are women. They’ve always been women. They have never identified as male.” And this leads to some issues that are difficult to discuss. We also need to recognize that what were identified as the Portrayal Guidelines of the Olympic Committee indicated that language such as biologically male is problematic. Now, you can put quotation marks around problematic because it’s actually from the text. So biologically male, and that means also biologically female, those terms are identified as problematic. The International Olympic Committee has stood behind these two athletes and by its determination that it is not going to consider the evidence used by the Boxing Association when it came to the disqualification of those two athletes.

Now, another thing I simply want to say for the Christian worldview is, your eyes don’t lie. And so you are looking at a reality where you see these two athletes, and they certainly look overwhelmingly male, at least in terms of how they present in the context of boxing, and both of them went on to win gold medals. Now, it is really interesting to see that the secular media and liberal authorities yesterday were just crowing all over the place about the fact they were vindicated by the gold medals. But that’s, morally speaking, absolutely ridiculous. The bigger issue here is that if you’re going to have women’s sports, you have to know who a woman is, and XY chromosomes are incompatible with that.

Now, that is not to say that these two athletes would be rightly defined as transgender. That would be very problematic, for example, especially in Algeria. And it could very well be that when the baby was born, the baby appeared to be female, and this is a pattern that has formal medical language attached to it. But the fact is that XY chromosomes are XY chromosomes, and you are looking at a situation here that affects a very tiny percentage of human beings, and it is more often found this way, by the way, than in the chromosomal reverse, which is to say these two athletes probably have internal testes. That’s what was explained by international medical authorities. And so when they were born, they were probably identified as female, and clearly there is a misalignment here.

And, of course, we should be very sympathetic about that situation, but that does not extend to putting persons with XY chromosomes in a boxing ring with women. In worldview terms, it’s just really important to recognize how so many people who define themselves as progressive, and the International Olympic Committee is right there, how immediately their concern is with self-declaration and self-presentation, that these two say they’re women, then the preference of the International Olympic Committee is to accept them as women. But just recognize that’s not going to work. It’s not going to work at the Olympics. It’s not going to work in terms of track and field events. It’s not going to work in terms of swimming, recent controversies in the United States. It’s not going to work in high school. It’s not going to work in middle school. This is absolutely ridiculous.

And at the same time, and we’ll talk more about this in coming days, you have the Biden administration, which is crowing about the success of Title IX in terms of women’s sports. Well, again, you can have women’s sports or you can decide we’re not going to have women’s sports. What you can’t have is women’s sports in which you have people with XY chromosomes competing. But we’re looking at an intentional kind of corruption and confusion that just reached a fever pitch at the Olympics, and it’s something nonetheless that just might get fought out at your next school board meeting. This isn’t something that’s limited to the IOC. You don’t have to go to Paris to find this. It was just unavoidable in Paris. I’m going to raise one more issue because, as a Christian, I feel I just have to, and this is about as politically incorrect as you might imagine. But the very existence of something like women’s boxing, that is to say mixing blood sports and women, that’s declared to be a great sign of equality and gender equity.

I find that very difficult to accept because what you’re going to be leaning into is a kind of brutalizing that quite honestly, it’s hard to imagine how that’s supposed to be honored in a context like this. And it is also oddly revealed as an issue in the fact that many observers say you may not see women’s boxing back at the Olympics. And the question would be, why? In the answer is that it may well be that there’s no credentializing agency to set up what is necessary for the Olympic process. And it’s not because we don’t know the difference between men and women, between male and female. We do. Trust me, we do. The issue is that especially in borderline cases, in cases in which you have differences of development and hormonal differences and all the rest, you may have no credentializing agency that wants to touch this at all. And so at the next Olympics, and that’s going to be in Los Angeles in 2028, it may well be that there is no such event, but that will be blamed on bureaucracy. It won’t be because of some kind of sudden onset of honesty.

Part IV

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A Celebration of Human Achievement and Patriotism: There Were Great Moments at the Olympic Games

Now, there are some really happy things that also develop at the Olympics. There’s some amazing moments in which you see personal performance, amazing moments in which you see people have to deal with what’s ultimately called the agony of defeat. You see people come together in teams. You also see a level of patriotism, and particularly I see this in the United States. And I don’t know of an America who’s not proud that America won the medals competition and tied, by the way, in the competition with gold medals with the People’s Republic of China. But seeing American athletes standing there in the winners box and seeing the American flag come down and hearing the Star Spangled Banner, that’s really powerful.

And just imagine for smaller nations, some of which won their first Olympic medals ever at the Paris Olympiad. And there’s something just glorious about that. What’s not glorious is claiming this is a quasi-religious event that is going to bring about world peace and what’s not glorious is denying that there’s widespread corruption all through the system. Now, just before you say, “Okay, let’s just throw it all out,” just remember as you’re looking at intercollegiate athletics, just about every set of headlines bring some kind of accusation of not finding of some kind of misdeed going on in some college or university somewhere with some sport. In other words, this is in a Genesis Three world, something Christians shouldn’t be surprised to find.

But I’m going to leave you on this theme with a report from the New York Times telling us about how China has put an emphasis upon table tennis in a big way and showing this now with the results of a lot of Olympic medals, but somehow, according to this New York Times report, there are at least some in the Chinese leadership who think that their athletes need to be presented as younger than they are. And so according to this article, you have table tennis competitors who are actually older and in some cases considerably older than they are claimed to be. I’m going to leave you with this from the New York Times report. “Table tennis players and trainers from Shandong who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisal say that athletes usually have a ping-pong age and a real age.”

I guess you could try that one at the Driver’s License Bureau.