Mary Elizabeth Hanchey-Preacher, author

Baptist preacher here. If you are interested in my thoughts on mocking God…well, I can probably offer some more interesting reading suggestions than anything I will say. Like the project that has been set forth for next year and is widely available to you online. But here goes.

1. People do not need to defend God. People do often feel the need to defend the religious practices they have centered – and the ways they have chosen to behave because of what they believe to be true about God. But that is not the same thing as defending God. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about what precisely the accuser is defending.

2. Treating an Italian painting of white Jesus as sacrosanct is most certainly honoring something that is not God. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about what exactly the accuser is honoring.

3. A depiction of Jesus welcoming table guests that others shun is Biblical. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about which Gospels the accuser is reading.

4. “Mocking God” is a mean-spirited critique. The accusation that one is mocking God begs questions about the intention of the accuser.

But more than any of this: the fact that American Christians so wildly missed the celebration of the Greek gods is stunningly and embarrassingly a result of the anti-intellectual tragedy into which the far right has invited evangelical Christians.

Listen. There is no shame in not already knowing something. It is ok to not readily recognize the Feast of DIONYSOS (Dionysus). I have to look up how to spell it every time I write it.

But the Greek gods are at the heart of the history of the Olympics.

And the opening Ceremony in Paris was about things deeply rooted in French culture and in Olympic history.

Artwork from the Louvre was highlighted.

And though there are depictions of the last supper in the Louvre, the particular painting in question is not at the Louvre because it is in a church in Italy. It has nothing to do with France-or the Olympics and it would have been wildly off topic.

It makes much more sense for the bawdy scene in question to be a depiction of the Feast of DIONYSOS

(Dionysus).

I hope you will stop spending energy being angry about the opening ceremony mocking God.

And.

There are things that dishonor God.

Policies that make it harder for children to eat dishonor God.

Policies that strip dignity and self-determination from those whose realities you do not understand dishonor God.

The dismantling of public education dishonors

God.

Racial injustice dishonors God.

Centering heteronormative relationships dishonors God.

Championing women who are able to birth live children as virtuous or honorable dishonors God.

Using tricky words to herald a society where freedoms and safety-nets are taken away in the name of some

false nobility of suffering dishonors God.

Lying dishonors God.

Cheating on your partner dishonors God.

Destroying ecosystems dishonors God.

Filling the oceans with plastic dishonors God.

Hoarding wealth dishonors God.

Choose, then, whom you will serve.