{"id":23703,"date":"2024-07-30T09:08:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T13:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=23703"},"modified":"2024-07-30T12:02:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T16:02:12","slug":"olympic-surfer-forced-to-remove-christ-image-from-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/07\/olympic-surfer-forced-to-remove-christ-image-from-board","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Surfer Forced to Remove Christ Image From Board"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_23718\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23718\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2024\/07\/joao-chianca_credit-@DiedSuddenly_-X.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-23718\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2024\/07\/joao-chianca_credit-@DiedSuddenly_-X-550x413.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23718\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">@DiedSuddenly_\/X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It seems that religious controversies surrounding the Paris Olympics started even before the opening ceremony. Brazilian surfer Joao Chianca found out when his surfboard, decorated with an image of Jesus, was deemed a religious symbol. According to the athlete, he had to remove it to avoid being disqualified from the competition.<\/p>\n<p>The story of the surfer is detailed on social media. Joao Chianca shared it on his Instagram but eventually deleted the post. According to Chianca, two weeks before the games, he received an order to remove the image of Jesus Christ from his surfboard, or else he would be excluded from the competition.<\/p>\n<p>In the now-deleted Instagram story, Chianca commented that he is not authorized to place Jesus on his board because \u201cChrist is a\u00a0religious figure\u201d and \u201cthe games have strict rules and focus on total neutrality.\u201d The authors asked in a post on X, \u201cJoao appears to have complied and is competing today. Do you believe he should have stood his ground and dropped out?\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The opening ceremony wasn&#8217;t the only anti-Christian message sent to the world by the Olympic committee.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Chianca commented\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FSZdAPTUOY\">pic.twitter.com\/FSZdAPTUOY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 DiedSuddenly (@DiedSuddenly_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DiedSuddenly_\/status\/1817240396906274984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Although religious neutrality is indeed part of the games\u2019 rules, many people point out that this rule is inconsistent with what was shown during the opening ceremony. \u201cThey violated their own rules,\u201d wrote one internet user.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that religious controversies surrounding the Paris Olympics started even before the opening ceremony. Brazilian surfer Joao Chianca found out when his surfboard, decorated with an image of Jesus, was deemed a religious symbol. According to the athlete, he had to remove it to avoid being disqualified from the competition. The story of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":23718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,184,4],"tags":[3999,2483],"class_list":["post-23703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-web","category-entertainment","category-faith","tag-joao-chianca","tag-paris-olympics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Olympic Surfer Forced to Remove Christ Image From Board<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Brazilian surfer Joao Chianca found out when his surfboard, decorated with an image of Jesus, was deemed a religious symbol.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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