Another subtle religious signal at Paris 2024

But this skateboarder's sign-language praise for Jesus was only on X, so never mind

All together now! Rule 50.2 in the Olympics Charter declares: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

As guidelines from a previous Olympics (posted on the Paris 2024 website) noted, athletes do have opportunities to “express their views” in “the mixed zones … when speaking to the media” or simply “when doing interviews.” Social media is fair game for commentary.

But for those who want to know, “political, religious or racial propaganda” is NOT supposed to be permitted: “During official ceremonies (including Olympic medal ceremonies, opening and closing ceremonies).”

Ah, so this obviously means that the official opening ceremonies for Paris 2024 didn’t include crude or even profane commentary of a religious nature.

Viewers didn’t actually see what they were sure that they saw in that neopagan Lord’s Supper tableau in the opening ceremony (see “Angry Christians ‘pounce’ at the Olympics” and “Does France have a new patron saint?”). Officials stressed that any nudity was accidental. However, the video of the opening ceremony has been removed from the official Paris 2024 Olympics channel. Nothing to see there, so move along.

Why bring this up again?

Because of the fascinating mini-controversy that took place the other day when Brazilian skateboarder Rayssa Leal won a bronze medal.

If you want a totally secular, faith free account of her triumph, that’s available via the Associated Press (of course). If you are interested in the almost hidden religion angle, you need to turn to X or to other forms of social media.

Apparently Leal — who is outspoken about her Catholic faith — was told that she should not make any Christian statements whenever television cameras turned her way during the competition.

However, Neal apparently knows sign language. Thus, since she had been told she could not use her voice, she simply smiled and signed a paraphrase of the Gospel of John 14:6 — “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.”

Later, off camera, she told reporters: "When I was very young, I dreamed of becoming a skateboard athlete. … And here I am, with a second Olympic medal from the games. Once again, thank God I won a medal. I'm very happy to be here."

And that’s that.

What we have here is yet another classic example of a stark reality in today’s divided news-media marketplace, which is a major theme here at Rational Sheep.

The skateboarding star’s clever symbolic gesture — rather like a prisoner sneaking a secret message into a proof-of-life video — was big news in alternative “conservative” and “religious” forms of digital news. But in the world of “real” news, this event didn’t happen, even if it was a fascinating “religion at the Olympics” case study after the firestorm about the propaganda-free opening ceremonies.

Meanwhile, another Brazilian ran into a different kind of propaganda controversy. Again, this is on X (including the photo in this post):

Two weeks before the games, Brazilian surfer Joao Chianca was ordered to remove the image of Jesus Christ from his surfboard, or be barred from competing.

Chianca commented in a now deleted Instagram story that he was not authorized to have Jesus on his board because "Christ is a religious figure" and the "games have strict rules and focus on total neutrality.”

If that image looks familiar to readers, there is an obvious reason for that, since it’s based on the Art Deco “Christ the Redeemer” statue located on a mountain top high above Rio de Janeiro. It is one of the most famous symbols of Brazilian life and culture — period.

What else is happening on the religion-news beat at the Olympics? Who knows?

What happens if the born-again stars on the Brazilian soccer team break out some of those Christian t-shirts that they have been known to wear under their official jerseys? What happens if, during post-match celebrations, they take off their official jerseys (to exchange with opponents), thus revealing forbidden t-shirt religious content?

This is the digital media world in which we now live, like it or not. Keep your eyes open and let me know what you see.