Introduction

In my previous essay, How to Have Mighty Faith in Jesus Christ, I stated that “whores not only rob you of virtue, but they also tell lies.” In this essay, I will expand on this by describing the nature and psychology of deception within the relationship and institution of the Whore Babylon, as characterized by sin, institutional deception, and strategic spiritual bondage.

Admittedly, the topic of whoring is far from wholesome or pleasant. It is not a topic one would readily discuss at the dinner table. And yet, the Book of Mormon often metaphorically compares sin with whoring for many useful and profound reasons. It provides context for the nature of evil and temptation, aiding in understanding its truly powerful and manipulative nature. And so, I, likewise, carry on the discussion in an effort to shed light on why we sin, how we are deceived, and how we can use this truth in discerning how to overcome the lies and deceptions used to ensnare and imprison us.

So, let’s begin by asking a very poignant question:

Why must a whore lie?

The answer is simple and unsettling: A whore cannot tell the truth and keep her customers.

Therefore, inasmuch as we can shed light on these matters, we can metaphorically free her captors and maybe even free her (the institutional leadership) as well.

The Nature of the Product

A whore does not sell sex alone. She sells relief—relief from loneliness, rejection, fear, shame, misery, and responsibility. The physical act is secondary. What the customer truly purchases is a temporary escape from the agony of discomfort.

Institutional churches that metaphorically function as whores sell a similar product. They do not primarily sell Christ, repentance, or transformation. They sell reassurance. They sell belonging. They sell emotional comfort, ritual affirmation, predictable security, and moral soothing.

None of these things are evil in isolation. The deception lies in what the product replaces and pretends to deliver.

The product is carefully designed to provide comfort without transformation, peace without holiness, and hope without repentance. It treats the symptoms of spiritual discomfort while leaving the disease flourishing and debilitating.

Why Truth Is Bad for Business

The true gospel of Jesus Christ is costly. It requires self-examination, self-denial, humility, honesty, repentance, obedience, courage, and endurance. It promises suffering before glory and discipline before peace. It demands that a person actually change in remarkable and profound ways. And none of this change is easy.

This truth is incompatible with mass appeal.

If institutional churches told the truth plainly, it would sound something like this:

“Following Christ will cost you comfort, approval, friendship, stability, and security. It will require you to confront your sins, abandon cherished idols, and stand alone when others either can’t or won’t stand with you. Most of your current habits, desires, and justifications will not survive this process.”

Few people would sign up for that.

And so, the whore lies—not crudely or haphazardly, but strategically.

The Structure of the Deception

This deception always has three components:

1. A product – comfort, reassurance, affirmation, belonging, and the occasional dopamine high
2. A lie – a false interpretation of spiritual reality
3. A narrative – a story that binds the lie to the product

The product is marketed as an easy solution to a difficult problem.
The lie creates justification in a solution other than repentance.
The narrative creates dependence through regular ritual use.

This structure of deception presents an easy-to-sell cost-benefit analysis. It sells maximum benefit with minimum cost. Whereas Christ’s true gospel requires a willingness to sacrifice everything, here and now—a price few are willing to pay.

Predictable Lies the Whore Must Tell

Lie #1: “You Are Basically Fine”

This is the foundational lie.

Institutional whoredom teaches—implicitly if not explicitly—that you are already acceptable, already faithful, already on the right path. It teaches that you are, in fact, doing better than you think you are. Your sins are framed as minor imperfections rather than existential problems. Growth becomes optional, slow, and vaguely defined.

This lie neutralizes repentance.

If you are already “basically fine,” then the radical demands of Christ appear unnecessary, extreme, and even hateful or unhealthy. The cross becomes symbolic rather than literal. Being “born again” becomes a metaphor rather than a transformation.

Christ, by contrast, tells a far more dangerous truth: Except a man be born again, he cannot see (or enter) the kingdom of God. Therefore, the challenge of being born again must be carefully redefined and ritually resolved, which is the grand trademark of institutionalized religions.

Lie #2: “Obedience to Us Is Obedience to God”

This lie redirects moral responsibility away from the individual and toward the institution.

Instead of asking:

• Am I honest?
• Am I humble?
• Am I obedient to God?
• Am I actually becoming like Christ?

The individual is taught to ask:

• Am I in good standing?
• Am I loyal?
• Am I compliant?
• Am I aligned with the leadership and the mainstream of the church?

This lie allows people to outsource conscience and responsibility. They feel absolved of responsibility by simply following institutional expectations while avoiding the far more terrifying task of judging themselves honestly before God.

The whore does not need saints. She needs dependents.

Lie #3: “Participation Equals Faithfulness”

Within the Christian sector of the Whore Babylon regime, “the covenant path” consists of ritual participation and compliance with expectations. Those who are loyal and faithful to church leaders, as fully integrated and committed church members, are considered faithful followers of Christ.

By redefining faithfulness as participation, the whore gives people more than adequate reassurance without requiring inner change or sanctification. Progress is tracked by activity, not by virtue. Righteousness becomes something you do occasionally, not something you are continuously improving upon.

This lie is particularly effective because it provides constant feedback loops that feel like growth, even when nothing is changing. But as long as one keeps getting that dopamine hit, again and again, one is content.

This reminds me of some lyrics by the Bryan Adams song, Heaven:

Baby, you’re all that I want
When you’re lying here in my arms
I’m finding it hard to believe
We’re in Heaven…

Oh, thinkin’ about our younger years…

We were young and wild and free
Now nothing can take you away from me
We’ve been down that road before
But that’s over now
You keep me comin’ back for more…

And that’s precisely what whores do. They keep you coming back for more.

Lie #4: “Leaving Us Is Dangerous”

Fear is the final link in the chain.

The whore must convince her customers that independence is perilous, that questioning is rebellion, that standing alone is pride, and that leaving the institution means spiritual death.

Even when the product no longer satisfies, fear keeps people loyal and active. They remain not because they are fed, but because they are afraid.

Thus, comfort and fear work together: comfort draws people in, while fear keeps them there.

Why the Lies Work

The whore’s lies succeed because they align perfectly with the weaknesses of fallen humanity.

They appeal to:

• The desire for easy appeasement of intrinsic human needs
• Fear of suffering
• Desire for approval
• Aversion to responsibility
• Love of ease
• Discomfort with uncertainty

The whore does not create these weaknesses. She exploits them.

She tells her clients what they already want to believe, then sells them a system that lets them keep believing it and demanding it indefinitely.

The Final and Most Dangerous Lie

The most dangerous lie is not any single falsehood. It is the claim that this system is the pure doctrine of Christ. This system is Christianity.

Once this lie is accepted, true discipleship appears extreme, repentance appears unnecessary, and Christ’s true doctrine begins to look unreasonable and impossible.

The whore does not merely sell a counterfeit gospel. She redefines righteousness so that counterfeit virtue looks authentic and authentic righteousness seems mean and harsh.

Christ and the Whore Are Opposites

The whore survives by telling comforting lies. She studies the fears and longings of men and then speaks precisely what they want to hear. She says you are fine as you are. She assures you that nothing essential needs to change. She offers warmth, familiarity, reassurance, and rest—so long as you remain with her. Her promise is simple: Stay, and I will make you happy. Be with me, and I will replace your suffering with bliss.

Christ makes no such promises.

He does not soothe your conscience before you have repented. He does not flatter your ego before you are made clean. He does not preserve illusions, shy away from sacred cows, or pretend that comfort is the same thing as peace. Christ tells the truth first—and the truth so often wounds before it heals. It cuts through self-deception, exposes hidden motives, and names sins that the whore carefully avoids mentioning or fixing.

The whore lowers the standard so that no one must climb. Christ raises the standard and then commands you to rise.

The whore makes demands that cost little and will not save you. Christ gives commandments that cost everything and save eternally. The whore arranges life so that nothing essential is disturbed. Christ overturns tables, breaks false securities, and requires repentance without pretending you are better than you are.

The whore whispers, “You are acceptable. Stay with me. There is no need to change or improve.”
Christ says, “You must be born again. Take up your cross and follow Me.”

One numbs pain without curing the disease.
The other allows pain so that mighty faith, repentance, forgiveness, and healing become possible.

The whore sedates the soul so it can remain asleep and untroubled. Christ awakens the soul—even when awakening is terrifying—because only the living who are fully conscious and rational can be healed.

One keeps you comfortable in death.
The other leads you through death and hell, then back to life.

Conclusion: Why This Matters

This matters because deception is not neutral, and undeserved comfort is not harmless.

The Whore Babylon does not merely offer an attractive religious experience; she prevents repentance. She does not merely distract; she arrests development. And in doing so, she keeps men and women from becoming what God intends them to become.

At stake is not church preference or theological nuance. At stake is whether a person will ever truly come to know Jesus Christ—not as a symbol, not as a comforting idea, not as a figurehead of a corporate religious system—but as a living Lord who commands, corrects, sanctifies, and saves.

The lies of the whore are effective precisely because they feel merciful. They promise relief without repentance, peace without holiness, and hope without transformation. They tell people they can be saved while remaining essentially unchanged. But Christ does not save men in their sins; He saves them from their sins. Any system that obscures this truth—no matter how sincere, organized, or emotionally supportive—stands in opposition to Him.

This is why the scriptures speak so harshly of sin. It is not because God despises weakness or immaturity. It is because He despises anything that keeps His children from growing up. The whore freezes people in dependency. Christ prepares them for growth and glory.

Every person must eventually choose which voice they will trust.

The whore says, “Stay where you are. You are safe. You are accepted. You are doing well enough.”
Christ says, “Arise. Repent. Come out of Babylon. Follow Me.”

One speaks to fear.
The other speaks to faith.

One offers sedation for the journey.
The other offers a way to triumph and overcome the tests of mortality.

There is no neutral ground between these two paths. One leads to stagnation, spiritual atrophy, and perpetual damnation masked as peace. The other leads through discomfort, loss, and sacrifice—but ultimately to healing, freedom, and eternal life.

The purpose of this essay is not to condemn institutions or mock those who remain within them. Many are sincere. Many are searching. Many are doing the best they know how. But sincerity does not cancel deception, and good intentions do not negate falsehood. Truth must still be spoken plainly, because without truth, repentance cannot occur—and without repentance, salvation remains theoretical.

If there is hope in all of this, it is this: the lies can be unlearned, and truth will prevail. The key is to be on the side of truth that exalts rather than condemns.

The whore’s power collapses the moment truth is believed and acted upon. Her grip weakens the moment a man or woman decides to stand in holiness and strength before God, rather than hide behind the façade of institutionalism. Christ does not require perfection to begin—only honesty, humility, and the willingness to improve.

To leave the whore is frightening. It feels like death, because in many ways it is. It is the death of illusions, identities, reputations, and securities that were never authentic or eternal to begin with. But Christ does not call us out of Babylon to abandon us in the wilderness. He calls us out so He can lead us—by the hand, along the iron rod, through the mists of darkness, and finally to the Tree of Life.

This is why it matters. Because the choice before us is not between churches, styles, or traditions—but between temporary comfort and Christ, between sedation and sanctification, between remaining as we are and becoming what God intends.

And in the end, only one of those paths leads to eternal life.

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