When I was 11, my grandfather (a Greek man in his late 60s) took me, at my request, to the traveling show of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (which, by the way, is having a revival this December in London if anyone wants to come with me). Ten minutes into the show, Pappou turned to me and said, “Sweetheart, I don’t think this is meant for me. I am going to wait out in the lobby. Holler if you need anything.”

And that’s what he did. He waited in the lobby, bought me ice cream at intermission, and took me back to my seat for the second half. Afterward, on the way home, Pappou told me that he was glad I enjoyed the show and he was sure “the man” was very talented, but he preferred a good Western.

Let the Outrage Begin: The Opening Ceremony

As I have learned is often the case, having this man as my grandfather may have given me the wrong impression about people in general. I falsely assumed for much of my childhood, and even into my early adulthood, that most people were as compassionate, broad-minded, and sensible as he was.

This week, I have been reminded once again how wrong I was. As the Olympics continue in Paris, another competition seems to be underway, one not under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee: The Outrage Olympics. This event is dominated by a certain brand of (almost always) Christian participants, and it speaks volumes about the current state of Christianity. But more sinisterly, and one might argue immediately more dangerous, is the fact that these Outrage Olympians, overwhelming in the West, are repeating the propaganda highlights of Vladimir Putin and his allies within the Patriarchate of Moscow, including Russia’s chief cleric Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus. In repeating this propaganda, these aggrieved individuals go from being rubbish cranks to being dangerous (unwitting, I assume) agents of an authoritarian strongman.

The trouble started with the opening ceremony, directed by the renowned French theater director Thomas Jolly. One scene included drag queens seated at a long table meant to recall the ritual dining associated with the Greek god Dionysus. But many, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, wrongly assumed the scene was meant to recall Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper and, by extension, the Biblical event associated with the institution of the Eucharist.

The level of anger at this wrongly perceived slight was extreme and frankly frightening. Both Jolly and many of the performers, including RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14 alumnus and the host of RuPaul’s Drag Race France, Karl Sanchez (better known as his drag persona Nicky Doll), have been targets of what appear to be legally actionable instances of hate speech and defamation.

Imane Khelif and Women’s Boxing

But the opening ceremony was not the end of the raging. Next, the mob turned on Algerian boxer Imane Khelif after she quickly defeated the Italian Angela Carini. Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 World Boxing Championships after failing a “gender eligibility test,” likely due to elevated testosterone levels. The fact is we don’t know why she failed because the International Boxing Association (IBA) has not disclosed the reason.

What is clear is that Khelif is not transgender and is, in fact, from a country where gender transition is illegal. Yet, this did not stop the Outrage Olympians, who immediately became enraged, assuming Khelif was a trans woman and launching into long invectives about “men in women’s sports.” Putting aside the complicated and sport-specific issue of trans women competing in elite women’s athletics, the fact that so many felt comfortable accusing Khelif of being trans when she lives in a country where such an accusation could very well get her imprisoned or executed suggests a level of disregard not just for the truth but for basic decency that stuns any thinking person.

The Child Rapist at the Olympics

Now, if one was truly looking for immorality afoot at the Paris Olympics, there is an obvious target: Dutch volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who in 2016 was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in England—a crime for which he served only thirteen months. Interestingly, the same people crying over the Satanic forces at work in Jolly’s production and the injustice in Khelif’s victory have been shockingly silent about the convicted child rapist allowed to not only breathe free air but advance to the Olympic quarterfinals.

Russian Propaganda Goes to the Olympics

The reason for this unequal anger defies credulity on the surface, but there is, in fact, a reason. The Orthodox priests and theologians, the Baptist “Bible teachers,” suburban moms, and megachurch pastors on my and your social media feeds who are losing their collective minds about drag renditions of The Last Supper and women boxers with high testosterone levels are not drawing their anger from a vacuum. Their anger was carefully curated.

And before I sound too paranoid, let’s get a few things clear:

Simply put: There is a reason that our news feeds are filled with anger about drag queens at the Olympics and not child rapists, and at least part of that reason is a concerted effort on the part of the Russian state and its allies in the Russian church. This is evidenced in, among other ways, the manner in which the outrage repeats the talking points of Russian state and church. Commenters are quick to use terms like “Satanic” and “pedophilic“. They speak of the moral collapse of the West and Western hostility to Christianity. All of which is language that has been echoed in Russian state and religious propaganda.

And it is important to remember that while causing division might be the principal or only goal of the Russian state, for the Russian church and its ideological allies, the goals are arguably even more sinister.

What they seek to create is a world in which a man doing a cabaret show in a wig is more offensive to you than the rape of a young girl. It is a world built on a so-called traditionalism that is deeply radical, one that not only takes aim at modernity and liberalism but at fundamental traditional Christian principles as well.

What the Devil Really Wants

My grandfather gave me a false sense of security regarding most people’s goodness and common sense. He once told me, with reference to a girl at my elementary school with whom I could not seem to get along, the cliques of school girls being what they are, “You never get anything out of hating someone. So when you hate someone, it’s always a good idea to ask yourself, ‘Who would be happy if I hate this person? Usually, it’s just the devil, but sometimes it’s one of his foot soldiers.’”

I cannot unsee the performances in the Outrage Olympics I have seen this past week, even by people whom I previously considered generally to be kind and thoughtful. But I would hope that the more self-reflective among them would consider my grandfather’s question. Because the groundless hate and misdirected outrage coupled with the clearly outrageous things they have chosen to ignore seem as close to the work of Satan as I have ever seen. The Greek word from which we derive “devil” ultimately means “the one who divides.” This is, after all, the goal of that Russian propaganda. And when we allow it to do just that, we are doing not only Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill’s work but the Devil’s as well.