Every religion asks you to sacrifice something. But some sacrifices set you free, while others turn you into a slave. The documentary Trust Me. The False Prophet uses real-life footage to expose the difference between the two.
I find the implicit promise of “true crime” documentaries deceptive: that life can be better understood when viewed through the lens of human evil. This perspective is tempting and even addictive, partly due to our innate fascination with evil, which psychologists refer to as “negativity bias”. Therefore, I usually avoid watching such productions, knowing that their focus on evil can affect my inner balance.
This is why I had no inclination whatsoever to watch Rachel Dretzin’s first documentary about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) in Utah, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey. However, a social media post mentioning “underage wives” without revealing anything about the film convinced me to make an exception for Trust Me: The False Prophet. And I’m glad I did.
Central to the documentary’s narrative structure is sexual abuse within a religious context. The film gradually reveals a whole web of circumstances, beliefs, shortcomings, and manipulations that made the abuse possible, and does so at a pace that is respectful of the viewer’s religious sensibilities. The director handles the information with surgical precision, without moralising or claiming to fully elucidate the mechanisms of the abuse, which is a strength of this approach. From the outset, the film relies on the viewer’s common sense and empathy, which keeps them engaged and attached to the victims even after the film has ended.
What is it about?
Taking advantage of the power vacuum left by Warren Jeffs’ life sentence, Samuel Bateman proclaims himself a “prophet” and establishes a new polygamous group, splitting off from the FLDS. The story follows this second-rate individual’s rise to the status of spiritual dictator and how he consolidates his authority through religious manipulation and psychological terror.
The entire story is told from the perspective of Christine Marie, a psychologist specialising in human trafficking, sexual assault, and the psychological dynamics of cults. She is also a survivor of religious and sexual abuse committed by another so-called prophet who was never held accountable for his actions.
Together with her husband, media producer Tolga Katas, she infiltrates Bateman’s circle under the pretext of documenting a stigmatised community in the United States. They gain the group’s trust, but in the process uncover damning evidence of the exploitation of women and underage girls in Bateman’s inner circle. They collaborate with the victims and authorities to expose him.
At first glance, the film appears to be constructed with broad, recognisable strokes, and to a certain extent, is predictable for this type of crime. However, the true weight of the documentary isn’t apparent at this level. “One of the truly rare and exceptional qualities of this footage,” said the documentary’s director, “is that it allows you to witness mind control as it’s actually happening—something documentaries about coercion and brainwashing rarely achieve.” This kind of exposure inevitably provokes different responses. What follows is my own response.
Nostalgia
I watched the documentary with a strong sense of familiarity towards the victims. Their clear faces, which hid none of their minor imperfections, their long hair in natural colours styled in elaborate yet uniform hairstyles, and their simple floor-length dresses seemed familiar to me in a strange way.
In my church, as in the Orthodox Church, I had seen women whose identity was entirely shaped by religion. From their often austere and drab attire—in stark contrast to the splendour of colour, form, and diversity in God’s creation—to their drastically limited access to culture, their entire lives—in their physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions—seemed not guided by religion, nor even touched by it, but rather held captive by a rigid and burdensome doctrine whose precarious grace bore the appearance of an additional punishment rather than a boundless divine gift.
At the time, I genuinely wondered if their way of practising their faith was closer to God’s intention for humanity than what I was experiencing. Nevertheless, despite admiring the courage with which they embraced a way of life so different from the spirit of the times and despite fundamentalist voices around me in those years seeking to replace common sense with their own authority, I could not embrace this kind of religious rigour. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t.
But what if . . .
Over time and with changing circumstances, that path no longer seemed appealing. But what if I had been born into an environment that allowed me only one option, as was the case with the victims in the documentary? What if I had had just a little more willpower and managed to align my behaviour with the values I was cultivating at the time?
Beyond this introspective exercise, these questions actually rephrase a very concrete concern regarding the way sincere people searching for spiritual answers can be protected from the seduction of religious manipulators, regardless of their scope.
Specialised literature has thoroughly mapped out the unethical techniques of persuasion and control employed in religious contexts. I will address these in a future article. In this text, however, I would like to explore a specific aspect of how we live out our faith that makes us vulnerable to religious manipulators.
Ignorance
Moroni Johnson, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for aiding and abetting child sex trafficking, can be found on LinkedIn with just a few clicks. His profile still lists the details of the business whose profits fuelled both Samuel Bateman’s finances and his delusions of grandeur. But Johnson is no ordinary criminal. As one of Bateman’s early followers, he pushed four of his daughters into the man’s arms. The documentary also suggests the internal logic behind this act.
“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.” (1 Timothy 4:1–3).
Following the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the “prophet” transfigured by his detention into a symbol of martyrdom, FLDS members could no longer marry, since only he had the authority to officiate marriages before God. Furthermore, while in prison, Jeffs prohibited sexual relations between married followers. If the “prophet” was deprived of this prerogative, then it had to be suspended for everyone.
Johnson had violated Jeffs’ decree by having children with his wife. The guilt he felt had, in his mind, become the hell he believed he would face at the end of his life. Then, Bateman appeared. Claiming that Jeffs had died in prison and that his spirit had settled upon him, Bateman tore Johnson from the prison of his own conscience. Bateman himself then married twenty women, including nine underage girls, showing utter indifference to the ostracism that FLDS members had reserved for him because of this transgression.
Moroni Johnson, illusorily saved by Bateman’s sins, threw himself wholeheartedly into the abyss in an attempt to save himself. In this fatal leap, he dragged his entire family down with him.
Grace
How different might Moroni Johnson’s life have been if he had realised that the forgiveness of his sin (as he perceived it) was not in the clay hands of Samuel Bateman, but had been prepared for him millennia ago by hands bearing the marks of nails from the cross?
He would have understood and believed that the salvation of mankind is not the crowning achievement of spiritual endeavours, but a process that began before the first man faced his first sinful temptation.
The realisation that when God created free beings, He also accepted the possibility that they might turn their backs on Him, offers so much spiritual independence! And if this risky scenario were to materialise, God would not intervene with manipulation and coercion, but would allow love to manifest its healing power while maintaining the same framework of freedom. In other words, He would sacrifice Himself rather than annul Creation. He would forgive.
The fact that God planned our salvation through Christ before we sinned is one of the most misunderstood proofs of His love. When a person comes to feel that, despite knowing their darkest secrets, God does not abandon them, this love begins to heal them.
This healing takes the form of an inner transformation process, in which the Holy Spirit restores us like a painting, re-establishing within us the image according to which we were created in the beginning. Sometimes progress is slower than we would like and, at other times, we experience setbacks. However, it is very important to remember that we do not overcome our limitations by focusing on them, but by getting back up after every fall. Whatever we learn in this life involves an uncomfortable phase of incompetence.
The aftermath
Three of Johnson’s daughters remain firmly convinced that Bateman, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2024, is a faithful martyr. Only one daughter, Moretta, managed to break free from the veil of manipulation through her own incarceration.
Moretta and Naomi (Nomz) Bistline are two of Bateman’s adult wives who each served a year in prison for their role in the abduction of underage “wives” who were placed in foster care following Bateman’s arrest. Moretta and Naomi had been their husband’s most ardent and vocal followers. Fortunately, the time they spent away from him in detention gave them the respite they needed to break free from their religious slavery. But what a price they had to pay for this freedom!
In an interview after her release, Nomz confessed that, after everything she had been through, it was hard for her to believe in an all-powerful God at the helm of all things.
“Nobody understands how difficult it is to rewire your brain from the way you were raised,” she said. “Learning how to completely deconstruct it, deprogram it, and rewire it to think another way… I’ll think to myself, ‘Why do I feel this certain way?’ And then I can route it back to some of Warren Jeffs’s training, and it’s like it’s not even true. I know now it’s a complete myth.”
Silence
Without any explicit intention, the documentary ends up offering a theodicy of great emotional power. After learning about the horrors taking place in the “prophet’s” home and realising that four underage girls are among the victims, Christine Marie finds herself faced with a heart-wrenching dilemma. Her instinct is to intervene immediately and rescue those children from abuse. However, she is also fully aware that this would not eradicate the deeply ingrained lies in the minds of those girls and women. In fact, premature intervention could cause more harm than good. It would destroy their trusting relationship and bind them even more tightly to the self-proclaimed prophet.
Thus, the viewer comes to understand, alongside Christine, that in order to save them, she must remain silent for a while. She must continue her life as if nothing were amiss, eating and sleeping peacefully in her own home on the very same nights when she knows that just a few houses away, some children are experiencing hell on earth.
If this is not a harrowing illustration of God’s compulsion to save people, then what is? People trapped in the snares of their own minds; people who numb their days with fleeting pleasures; people who shatter their humanity in pursuit of money, power or even just a semblance of love. People turned into animals by the pain inflicted on them by others devoid of humanity. People alienated through sin from the image in whose likeness they were created; estranged from the one who is their Father, and from whom they draw breath.
Given the thousands of forms of atrocious suffering in our world, could God not burst into our dimension and rescue us? How can He continue to exist while we, His children, live through hell on earth?
We have witnessed the spiritual torment endured by Christine Marie. We must imagine God’s suffering. And we must consider that, although He has the physical power to intervene, He chooses not to do so because our salvation requires not just a geographical relocation, but also the deconstruction, deprogramming, and restoration of thought that Nomz is striving to achieve alone today.
The Way
We cannot be spiritually saved unless we realise that the seeds of evil in our souls must be uprooted, just as Bateman’s victims could not truly be saved if they believed he was the “prophet”.
But couldn’t God orchestrate the entire rethinking process from start to finish, regardless of any opposition? He could if He were to override our freedom of choice and brainwash us like those “prophets”. But God loves us too much to do that. He suffers the trauma of our existence in sin alongside us, working for our salvation despite all evidence to the contrary. That is, to make possible that non-instantaneous, assiduous process of transformation that Moroni Johnson has failed to achieve, up to this point.
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” Christ preached. When we try to save ourselves through spiritual performance or earn forgiveness through rituals, we are sidestepping the Way. We contrive methods that, while perhaps not manifesting as criminal behaviour as depicted in the documentary, can have no final destination other than spiritual decay. We can downplay the impact of Pharisaic legalism, of course, but we cannot forget its role in the crucifixion of the Son of God.
Nomz said that a nightmare like the one she experienced could happen to anyone, and I think she’s right. I just hope that one day she realises that salvation like the one she experienced can also happen to anyone.
