Cult leader Samuel Bateman sentenced to 50 years in prison

In 2022, Netflix released the popular Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, a documentary miniseries detailing a Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also LDS, or Mormon) fundamentalist offshoot, led by Warren Jeffs. The popular docuseries relates the travesty of modern polygamy and the cult’s sexual abuses—sometimes of underage girls. Jeffs was arrested in 2006 and is now serving a life sentence plus twenty years for raping two “child brides.”

Although difficult to imagine such wicked practices still existing in the US today, only this week, a self-proclaimed prophet of the same cult was sentenced to 50 years in prison for similar crimes. How can we account for such evil? Doesn’t this prove that “Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst?” 

Today we’ll explore this tragedy and the quote—see if you can guess who wrote it. 

Samuel Bateman’s abuse and sentencing

The LDS (or Mormon) church officially ended the practice of polygamy in 1890. However, the “Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” split off and continued to practice polygamy, teaching that the practice led to greater exaltation in heaven. Although it dwindled over time, recently comprised of only a few dozen members, Samuel Bateman claimed control over the sect in 2019. Over the next two years, he began taking adult and child wives from his followers, according to the plea agreement. 

The horrors of such abuses are impossible to capture into words. However, to paint a sickening picture, they found Bateman, on the run, pulling a trailer with three girls, aged 11 to 14, stuck inside. There was no ventilation. The trailer had a couch and a makeshift toilet.  

During the trial, the judge said, “You took them from their homes, from their families and made them into sex slaves. . . . You stripped them of their innocence and childhood.”

How does someone like Bateman accomplish such evil? To manipulate their followers, cult leaders manipulate people’s spiritual sensibilities and desperation to their own twisted ends. But, of course, Bateman, just like Jeffs before him, claimed to be a true prophet from God. So did Joseph Smith, Muhammed, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and more. 

This raises the question: How do Christians know true from false prophets? 

How do we determine true prophets? 

Biblically, there are two main ways to determine a true from a false prophet.

First, the fruit of their actions. 

Jesus teaches, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:15–17)

Second, whether their words prove true. 

“If you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:21–22)

By the way, the penalty in the Old Testament for false prophecy is death. Precisely because it can be so powerful and easily abused, God takes it even more seriously. Bateman and Jeffs made predictions that did not come true, and both committed the most heinous abuses. 

The answer is not difficult. 

The danger of religion

Does religion’s ability to be twisted make it inherently evil? Here, I define religion as a structured system of beliefs, with sacred texts, hierarchical authority, liturgy, and regular social practices. In other words, paradoxically, religion is the human endeavor to manifest and connect with the divine. 

The quote in the introduction, “Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst,” is not given by an atheist, but by C.S. Lewis in his commentary on the Psalms. Jesus doesn’t abolish religion per se, but his harshest judgments are directed at religious leaders throughout the Gospels. Indeed, people who cause children to stumble are singled out as the object of God’s severest wrath (Matthew 18:6). So, we can be confident Jeffs and Bateman, while perhaps “religious leaders,” are not speaking for God. 

There is nothing inherently wrong about religious practices done in service to God. However, religion on its own cannot work, precisely because people are so often deceived, full of sin, and afflicted with perverse motives. While religion tries to reach up to God, in reality, God must reach down to us.

The call of Christians to pure religion

It’s the duty of true believers to pursue love and justice, protecting against predatory people twisting hope into despair. Under the New Covenant, we know our calling to genuine religion, to love and protect the innocent. 

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27)

How can you practice true and faultless religion this Christmas season?