Welcome to the new global theocracy

I had a revelation while watching the Olympics opening ceremony. It was during the infamous section that I (and almost everyone else) understood to be a reference to Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’. A large woman in a halo-like headdress was flanked by various avant-garde performance artists, including three drag queens. These, presumably, were the disciples. The table then turned into a catwalk and we were treated to a fashion show featuring representatives of the LGBT community, culminating in a naked man covered in sparkly blue paint. Sacré bleu!

‘This is France,’ tweeted Emmanuel Macron afterwards, apparently satisfied that this performance, like the rest of the opening ceremony, had epitomised everything worth celebrating about La Belle France.

Not surprisingly, the tableau has been widely denounced as a grave insult to the Christian religion. The French Bishops’ Conference described it as ‘mockery and derision of Christianity’; the leader of Britain’s Evangelical Alliance called it ‘utterly insensitive, unnecessary and offensive’; Elon Musk condemned it as ‘extremely disrespectful to Christians’. Amid the growing backlash, the organising committee of Paris 2024 removed the video of the opening ceremony from its website and issued an apology, although – as is the way with these things – it was lambasted for not being grovelling enough.

But what was really going on in this scene? The clue to understanding it, I think, was provided by Thomas Jolly, the gay, 42-year-old actor and artistic director responsible for the whole shebang. He strongly denied any intention to mock Christianity and said he’d wanted to create a show that celebrated ‘inclusion’ in which ‘everyone can feel represented’. He admitted the controversial section was supposed to be a ‘feast’, but a Dionysian not a Christian one, with the capering blue man as the god of wine.