Can things get any worse in Paris?
There has been so much controversy already about the Paris Olympics. The Satanic opening ceremony was a major blight on the IOC, and other issues also deserve massive condemnation. Allowing women to be pummelled by those who are not women is the latest outrage. But also a real worry is the number of Christians who seem to have no problem with these things.
I really thought I had seen it all when those calling themselves Christians sought to fully defend the diabolical opening ceremony in Paris. But I was wrong. Now we have those calling themselves Christians seeking to fully defend the diabolical violence and abuse of women by men in Paris.
The battering of women
Everyone by now knows about the Italian boxer Angela Carini who ended up breaking down in tears and bowing out after just 46 seconds in Round One of a match with an Algerian boxer. As she sat in her corner the two-time Olympian shouted out, “This is unjust.” She also said, “I quit to save my life.” I am glad she did.
International outrage over putting women at risk like this was instant, and rightly so. Putting the word “woman” on a passport does not make a male a female. But let’s be clear about this: Even IF the exceedingly rare Intersex designation is correct here, these persons should NOT be allowed into the ring with a woman.
The International Boxing Association had already disqualified Imane Khelif (Algeria) and Lin Yu-ting (Taiwan) for failing gender eligibility tests. And Lin Yu-Ting was disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championships for testing positive for “XY chromosomes”. But the IOC was happy to let them waltz right in! And now women are paying the price for this.
Imagine women spending most of their lives training for this event, only to lose it all in such an unfair and unjust manner. Plenty have already spoken out against this. Tennis champion and lesbian activist Martina Navratilova said this: “Deplorable. This will not end well for the people in power who allowed this to happen.”
And NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines said this incident was “heartbreaking” and said, “This photo [of the bowed and bruised Carini] should haunt the IOC (but it won’t).” Aussie boxing star Tim Tszyu said. “Shameful. This is wrong.”
Professional boxer Jake Paul put it this way: “This is sickening. This is a travesty. Doesn’t matter what you believe. This is wrong and dangerous.” And the Australian boxing great Billy Dib said this: “Olympic boxing needs to ban this. It’s a joke, disgusting on so many levels.”
Earlier on NFL great Rob Gronkowski had put it this way: “There are men’s sports for men, there’s women’s sports for women. It should just stay like that. It’s just as simple as that, man. There’s really no argument. There should really be no conversation about it.” One news report said this in part:
Khelif stopped briefly to speak to the BBC: “I am here for gold,” the Algerian said. “I will fight anybody, I will fight them all.” Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, expressed her concern about what had happened. “Angela Carini rightly followed her instincts and prioritised her physical safety, but she and other female athletes should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex,” she tweeted. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, weighed in, saying: “I think that athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women’s competitions … from my point of view it was not an even contest.” https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/01/angela-carini-abandons-fight-after-46-seconds-against-imane-khelif
All this will continue to be discussed in the days and weeks ahead. And at the very least, Australia had better sort things out here before they host the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane. This sort of cruelty to women, this sort of abuse of women, cannot be allowed to continue.
Since when does the stuff of domestic violence and abuse now become a major sporting event? Had this happened anywhere else the perpetrator would have been jailed by now. But we glibly allow it in sport because we have lost all moral and mental clarity about such matters. Even more appalling are all the clueless and compromised Christians.
Where are the courageous and uncompromised Christians?
As I have been saying all week now, I expect pagans to not give a rip about any of these matters. But I am astounded at how many folks who call themselves Christians also do not seem to care at all – or worse yet, are quite happy to defend these things.
Courageous Christians who stand fully on God and his word are in real short supply nowadays. Cowardly Christians who think the gospel message is ‘Be nice, don’t upset anyone and never judge anything or anyone’ are all over the place. And there is no question that during the past week we have seen this.
If Christians can actually accept and support a direct, deliberate and diabolical attack on the Lord Jesus Christ and make excuses for it – even after those behind it said this WAS fully intentional – then we are in massive trouble. With Christian friends like this, who needs enemies? Lord Jesus, help your church to once again represent you fully, faithfully, and unashamedly.
In light of all the evangellyfish and milksop ‘Christians’ who cannot see a Satanic attack on their faith when it stares them right in the face (and the perpetrators fully declare their intentions), the words of martyred missionary Jim Elliot are needed now more than ever:
We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are ‘harmless,’ and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are ‘sideliners’ – coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!
With all the cowardly and clueless Christians who defend sin and evil while attacking real-deal believers (think of their appalling responses to the Paris demonfest), the words of Catherine Booth on why we have so many weak and unstable believers are worth hearing once again:
Here is the reason why we have such a host of stillborn, sinewless, ricketty, powerless spiritual children. They are born of half-dead parents, a sort of sentimental religion which does not take hold of the soul, which has no depth of earth, no grasp, no power in it, and the result is a sickly crop of sentimental converts. Oh! the Lord give us a real, robust, living, hardy, Christianity, full of zeal and faith, which shall bring into the kingdom of God lively, well-developed children, full of life and energy, instead of these poor sentimental ghosts that are hopping around us.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen had so many terrific quotes on the need for courage and the need for Christians to become fully involved in the battles of the day. Here are just five of them:
“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.”
“What the world needs most is a voice that courageously speaks the truth, not when the world is right, but a voice that speaks the truth when the world is wrong.”
“The world is rapidly being divided into two camps, the comradeship of anti-Christ and the brotherhood of Christ. The lines between these two are being drawn. How long the battle will be we know not; whether swords will have to be unsheathed we know not; whether blood will have to be shed we know not; whether it will be an armed conflict we know not. But in a conflict between truth and darkness, truth cannot lose.”
“Nothing can do men of good will more harm than apparent compromises with parties that subscribe to antimoral and antidemocratic and anti-God forces. We must have the courage to detach our support from men who are doing evil. We must bear them no hatred, but we must break with them.”
“A religion that doesn’t interfere with the secular order will soon discover that the secular order will not refrain from interfering with it.”
Amen to that. If what we have been witnessing in Paris this week does not wake up a few of these confused and cowardly Christians, I really wonder what will.
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