The Olympic torch was lit Tuesday as an actress playing a Greek high priestess invoked the names of Zues and Apollo — neither of whom showed up for the ceremony, a reminder that neither of those famed Greek gods actually exists.
Mary Mina called out to Apollo in Greek, according to a translation posts on X to the account of The Olympic Games.
“Apollo, God of sun, and the idea of light, send your rays and light the sacred torch for the hospitable city of Paris,” she said.
However, that prayer was not answered, according to The Associated Press. (Shocking, I know.)
“Instead, she used a backup flame that had been lit on the same spot Monday, during the final rehearsal,” the AP noted.
🗣️ “Apollo, God of sun, and the idea of light, send your rays and light the sacred torch for the hospitable city of Paris. And you, Zeus, give peace to all peoples on earth and wreath the winners of the Sacred Race.”#Paris2024 | @Paris2024pic.twitter.com/FHMEmJ134U
The AP also reported that, shortly after the torch-lighting ceremony, the sun broke out of the clouds. I’ll let you make of that what you will.
Whatever you make of it, it certainly didn’t bode well for the second part of the prayer recorded by the post to X.
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“And you, Zeus, give peace to all peoples on earth and wreath the winners of the Sacred Race,” Mina said.
Prayers for peace are a good idea, of course. But they’re infinitely more productive when directed to a God who is Himself infinite, and not a figment of the fertile (and depraved) imaginations of a handful of dead Greeks.
Here’s a good example of one such prayer, directly from Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians: “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.”
Incidentally, that church, in the city of Thessaloniki (sometimes rendered Thessalonica), included a number of Greeks who knew nearly 2,000 years ago that the gods of Greece were not gods at all, and that Jesus Christ was Lord.
The International Olympic Committee is, apparently, made up of slower learners.
“International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the flame lighting combined ‘a pilgrimage to our past in ancient Olympia, and an act of faith in our future,’” according to the AP.
“In these difficult times … with wars and conflicts on the rise, people are fed up with all the hate, the aggression and negative news,” Bach added, according to the report. “We are longing for something which brings us together; something that is unifying; something that gives us hope.”
Hope is desperately needed today; I couldn’t agree more. But rather than turn to dead gods presiding over a dead religion, there is a source of hope available to everyone, just as Paul wrote to — you guessed it, the Greeks at Thessaloniki.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope,” Paul wrote, pointing to the Source of all Hope: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Lord of the universe.
There is hope, my friends. For you, for me — even for Thomas Bach and Mary Mina, should they choose to avail themselves of it.
But it’s not going to be found through prayers to a dead god who can’t even manage to get a fire going on a cloudy day.
A Note from Our Deputy Managing Editor:
I heard a chilling comment the other day: “We don’t even know if an election will be held in 2024.”
That wasn’t said by a conspiracy theorist or a doomsday prophet. No, former U.S. national security advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said that to the founder of The Western Journal, Floyd Brown.
Gen. Flynn’s warning means that the 2024 election is the most important election for every single living American. If we lose this one to the wealthy elites who hate us, hate God, and hate what America stands for, we can only assume that 248 years of American history and the values we hold dear to our hearts may soon vanish.
The end game is here, and as Benjamin Franklin said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
All of this means that without you, it’s over. We have the platform, the journalists, and the experience to fight back hard, but Big Tech is strangling us through advertising blacklists, shadow bans, and algorithms. Did you know that we’ve been blacklisted by 90% of advertisers? Without direct support from you, our readers, we can’t continue the fight.
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Deputy Managing Editor
The Western Journal
George Upper is the former Editor-in-Chief of The Western Journal and was a weekly co-host of “WJ Live,” powered by The Western Journal. He is currently a contributing editor in the areas of faith, politics and culture. A former U.S. Army special operator, teacher and consultant, he is a lifetime member of the NRA and an active volunteer leader in his church. Born in Foxborough, Massachusetts, he has lived most of his life in central North Carolina.
George Upper, is the former editor-in-chief of The Western Journal and is now a contributing editor in the areas of faith, politics and culture. He currently serves as the connections pastor at Awestruck Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is a former U.S. Army special operator, teacher, manager and consultant. Born in Massachusetts, he graduated from Foxborough High School before joining the Army and spending most of the next three years at Fort Bragg. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English as well as a Master’s in Business Administration, all from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He and his wife life only a short drive from his three children, their spouses and his grandchildren. He is a lifetime member of the NRA and in his spare time he shoots, reads a lot of Lawrence Block and John D. MacDonald, and watches Bruce Campbell movies. He is a fan of individual freedom, Tommy Bahama, fine-point G-2 pens and the Oxford comma.
