On Sunday, initially of the second week of the Olympics, France won its forty fourth medal, surpassing its previous record total for a contemporary Olympics. Few might need predicted either the country’s extraordinary athletic success or the this national joy, which seemed briefly supply after contentious snap national elections in June and July.
But for some French Christians, negative feelings emerged again following the controversial opening ceremony. Erwan Cloarec, president of the Conseil National des Évangéliques de France (CNEF), noted this “distress” last week in a press release, adding that he and the director general of CNEF can be meeting with the Central Office of Religious Affairs on the Ministry of the Interior that day to advocate for a “secularism which makes room for everybody” and for “state guarantees that each one, believers or not, will probably be respected of their essential convictions.”
Cloarec identified that many Christian ministries had spent months anticipating that the Olympics would offer them a chance to live out their faith to the 1000’s descending upon town. Through Ensemble2024, evangelical congregations and ministries have organized community tournaments, a K-Pop worship service, an exhibition examining the intersections of body, sport, and spirituality, a day of browsing, and a praise festival, in addition to handing out water bottles and hygienic products. They have also provided chaplains to athletes and offered opportunities for Christian athletes to share their testimonies.
“Let us see within the situation that has arisen an actual opportunity to bear witness to our faith while the person of Christ has just been placed at the middle of those games,” Cloraec stated. “Let us hear the cries of the guts and the necessity for reconciliation of our contemporaries, their quest for identity and belonging. They cry out in a pluralistic society; allow us to show them methods to cry out louder to the one who invites all of them to his table and offers true reconciliation, true identity and belonging.”
CT asked Cloarec to debate French evangelical response to the opening ceremony, what he wants people to learn about laïcité, and what he has loved in regards to the Olympics this 12 months.
How have you ever personally been a component of expressions of religion across the Olympics?
Ensemble2024 is admittedly an evangelical Protestant initiative, but due to spirit of the Olympic Games, we’ve connected with stakeholders of other faiths. There was an interfaith opening celebration during which I participated on the very starting of the games. CNEF also attended one other event that wasn’t an interreligious celebration, in that we didn’t have any style of religious service or acts but as a substitute showcased the various religions in town acting in service of the common good.
How did French evangelicals react to the Olympics’ opening ceremony?
People felt hurt and had a way of being humiliated. I do know that for a lot of outside of France, the scene of the Lord’s Supper was wounding. There was this sense that through this parody, this mockery of the Lord’s Supper, we were being targeted for our faith and that our faith was being mocked in a way, even when this wasn’t necessarily the actual intention.
As the ceremony’s artistic director has explained—and we are able to accept—this wasn’t his intended meaning. But in any case, within the portrayal of this scene and the subversion of the Lord’s Supper in a up to date and inclusive version, it felt as if certain symbols were being played with and Christianity was being targeted. So we reacted by acknowledging this sense of humiliation that individuals felt and by denouncing the proven fact that on this ceremony there was an agenda to advertise an ideology. Ideological propaganda wasn’t sensible during this ceremony.
How have any previous events informed the best way during which French evangelicals responded to this one?
Obviously, this ceremony was quite unique. On the opposite hand, religious leaders and evangelical leaders particularly have been aware of what’s known as the anti-separatism law of 2021 (renamed the Law to Uphold Republican Principles and the Fight Against Separatism). This law tightened the regulations for our churches and shifted France’s policy of laïcité [a distinctly French form of separation of church and state that has historically been viewed positively by French evangelicals] from a laïcité of freedom to a laïcité of surveillance.
This law brought recent rules and regulations that make church organization more administratively complex, with recent financial and legal constraints. So on this current moment, it’s possible that evangelicals, not less than, are also expressing this larger, built-up feeling of despair that churches are being mistreated.
For our non-French readers, what’s laïcité? Why did it come about?
What we call French-style secularism is indeed a particular system and one unfamiliar to those outside of France. The great fight we’re waging is to be certain that secularism serves the objectives that it is known as to serve—that’s, freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, and freedom of faith.
To that end, French secularism needs to be on the service of faith. It isn’t there to repress it. It is there to permit everyone to imagine freely or to not imagine, to live as they need in response to their very own values and in response to their faith, with the opportunity of sharing one’s faith or one’s atheism or whatever you wish. The law guarantees it and has done so because the 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State.
This is the shape of secularism that ought to prevail, but regularly, we’ve one other reading of secularism that is typically utilized by the media or certain politicians. This other version would claim that secularism exists to return the exercise of worship to the private sphere, and ultimately to be certain that religion is seen as little as possible and is either hidden or silenced. So our fight is in regards to the true system of secularism. Secularism is there to permit faith to precise itself, including in the general public space, without having to apologize for believing what we imagine.
On a positive note, we appreciate the good freedom to precise our faith that we evangelicals have experienced across the Olympics.
Are there elements of secularism that we appreciate?
Basically, secularism is nice whether it is within the service of the basic freedom of worship.
One of the things that displeased us in regards to the opening ceremony was that it had the blessing of the top of state and represented the Republic of France, which meant that it needed to be certain that no citizen felt excluded or singled out. Secularism, which guarantees the neutrality of the state, is a powerful value in France of the federal government. And yet, we had the sensation on this opening ceremony that the republic didn’t respect this principle of neutrality but as a substitute targeted one religion particularly, notably by evoking the Last Supper.
If we defend the freedom of all, this includes artistic freedom, freedom of thought, and freedom to criticize Christianity. Demanding that believers needs to be free to defend their faith is consistent with affirming that non-believers can say what they think. They can criticize Christianity, Islam, or anything they wish to in society.
This is a freedom that have to be protected—to imagine or not imagine, to defend your faith or criticize faith. These are all needed guarantees. But the opening ceremony of the Olympics is something different—it’s a ceremony representing the Republic of France, and within the name of the principle of neutrality, they have to be careful on this context to respect everyone.
What have you really liked in regards to the games?
Outside of this unlucky episode within the opening ceremony, by all other measures it was a creative success, and the Olympic Games, in response to what I hear within the media, appear to be successful. So, as French people, we’re proud that the games are running easily. In Paris, so many well-organized venues have been integrated among the many city’s historic monuments. This is gorgeous and noteworthy. It is a well-oiled machine. We could be proud that the primary week of those games has been successful for France.
We are proud and enthusiastic for swimmer Léon Marchand and judoka Teddy Riner. [Marchand won four individual gold medals and one relay bronze, and Riner earned gold medals in both individual and team judo.] We had an excellent first week!
Finally, all of the Ensemble2024 stakeholders and participants are grateful for every part that is occurring, the contacts we’ve made, the expressions of the gospel throughout the games, and the hope we’ve for beyond the Olympics.
With additional help by Kami Rice and Landry Ndikumasabo.
