Erwan Cloarec, a Baptist pastor, met with government representatives on 30 July to express the feelings of evangelical Christians about the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which sparked controversy as it included scenes that appeared to mock the Christian faith.

The National Council of Evangelicals in France (CNEF), of which Cloarec is the president, met with the head of the Central Office for Religious Denominations at the Ministry of the Interior headquarters.

Pastor Cloarec asked Juliette Prat “to officially convey to the Minister of the Interior our attachment to a laicité that makes room for everyone and our request that the State guarantee that everyone, believers or not, will be respected in their essential convictions within a Republic that wants to bring people together”.

Many were “deeply hurt” by “humiliating parody”

In a communiqué, the CNEF said it had received many messages from “France and beyond”, which “expressed the feeling of being deeply hurt, particularly by what was perceived as a humiliating parody of the Last Supper or the promotion of divisive ideological propaganda”.

The CNEF says it “accepts the apology” of the Paris 2024 organising committee and “takes note” about the words of Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the opening ceremony, who denied any intention of denigrating Christianity.

France not a Christian society, following Paul’s example

The body representing around 745,000 evangelical Christians, a growing faith minority in France, analysed the case, saying believers “should not be surprised that the society around us is not Christian”.

“The apostle Peter exhorts us to live our Christian condition as people passing through the world. And Jesus himself warns his disciples: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’. But it is precisely in this world, marked by paganism as it was 2000 years ago, that we are called to be his witnesses, in word and deed”.

The CNEF encourages fellow evangelical Christians and churches to “build bridges with our culture” and follow the example of the Apostle Paul who, “although exasperated by the many idols that filled Athens, spoke to his contemporaries every day in the public square”.

A constant “dialogue with culture today”, should happen “on every occasion, whether favourable or unfavourable”.

Churches’ initiatives during the Paris Olympic Games

Cloarec then mentions the united effort of churches and evangelical organisations during the Olympic Games around the Ensemble 2024 project in many cities, “an opportunity for Christians to share in word and deed the Gospel that inspires them”.

Christians are also distributing thousands of New Testaments and sharing daily prayer requests through a global platform. Radio broadcasting ministries and other initiatives seek to connect the Christian faith to the sporting competitions.

Several athletes are also publicly expressing their Christian faith, despite strict rules about the use of religious symbols during the games.

“Let us see the situation that has arisen as a real opportunity to bear witness to our faith, when the person of Christ has just been placed at the centre of these games”, writes the president of the CNEF.

Cloarec ends his comments by saying: “Let us hear the cries of the heart and the need for reconciliation of our contemporaries, their quest for identity and belonging. They are crying out in a pluralistic society; let us show them how to cry out more loudly to the one who invites them all to his table and offers true reconciliation, true identity and true belonging”.