“Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery:
babylon the great
the mother of prostitutes
and of the abominations of the earth.
I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people,the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.”
– Revelation 17
Continuing the theme from Ryan’s article last week let’s consider for a bit the apocalyptic imagery of the “great harlot” from Revelation. Harlot is a word that has become archaic in recent years. It just means a prostitute or a promiscuous woman, so why would this simple word go the way of usury, fornication, and adultery? It’s simple, because when usury stops being a bad word, then the act of usury is accepted by society. As the exploitation becomes more socially acceptable the harsh words that used to be used to describe it become conveniently “outdated.”
Kind of like watching a fuse burn down or an hourglass empty out, the words of the past are slowly losing meaning for society because the purpose of their meaning has been lost. Not only is harlotry socially acceptable, but long ago the social disgraces of deeper meanings of the term were lost and forgotten as the acts of prostituting ourselves as a society to the highest bidders garnered new names, such as ambition, celebrity and success. “Anything for a buck.” They used to say. Before that it was “harlot.”
Other terms that have lost meaning to society are idolatry (which is associated with adultery in the Bible), judgement, and hell. These words all have become translucent as they’ve faded away down the neck of the hourglass of human history. The title of today’s article was inspired by the redefinition of the word “pimp” which used to be a guy (talk about hijacking language, the female version of this used to be ‘madam’) who bosses around prostitutes, buying and selling them, exploiting them. Now it’s a complementary term to describe someone or something that is extravagantly decked out. If something is shamelessly and obnoxiously adorned with “bling” it can be said to be “pimped-out.” The great harlot “was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls.” She was all “pimped-out.”
As the time shortens human admiration for things that glitter far exceed their desire for morality and godliness. We roll toward the point of no return that was reached in the days of Noah, when there is no redeeming quality left to be found throughout all of mankind. Not for lack of self-proclaimed redeeming qualities of course, but from God’s perspective a society of tiny and weakling beings that revel in their own self-sufficiency, superiority, and collective divinity are completely hopeless. It’s like the moment that a child declares to her parents that she “hates” them. Not in ignorance, but in pure and irreversible rebellion. That is a line that we have crossed as a nation and as a world. Reminds me of another word that very few know the meaning of any longer. Debauchery.
Consider the fading meanings of these words to be the signs of the times. For a long time I wholeheartedly supported the adjustment of Bible translation languages to match modern vocabulary, but now I think this is misguided. What will we do with marriage? Male? Female? Where do we draw the line? Those KJV-only folks may have had a really good point underneath all of the nonsensical “if it was good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for me” rhetoric. Yet rhetoric is how these words get changed, how truth gets watered down and how light gets blocked out.
Rhetorical people are more concerned with persuading others than with telling the truth. They are careful to exaggerate and downplay until they are giving the father of lies a run for his money. It’s despicable and more widespread now than ever. Many of you have noticed our “DON’T READ THE COMMENTS” blurb and have cut back the contributions. It’s not that we don’t appreciate your contributions, but if the internet has an armpit it’s gotta be the comment sections, even of decent sites. Sadly, any website that tries to stay decent while prostituting itself to advertisers and rabid content directing and truth blocking censors can’t really be called decent can it?
We’ve referenced a certain internet blogger a time or two that has built for himself a much larger following than our own by speaking the brutal truth seemingly without shame. I’ve myself appreciated his caustic cynicism and satirical approach because frankly I do expect some ideas deserve a good tar & feathering sometimes. However, his most recent article struck me as pretty hypocritical, while I agree with pretty much everything he says about false teachers like Osteen, I couldn’t miss the irony. The irony that Matt Walsh exchanged his humble self-hosted “(and alpaca grooming tips)” blog for a spot on a pimped-out, sold-out, click-bait, ad-saturated excuse of a “news” page run by a Joseph Smith apologist. Kettle black much Matt?
Look, I myself authored an article about how buildings owned by the LDS mega-institution are not necessarily immune to true-believers. However, this is the definition of Biblical prostitution. If you don’t have an ad blocker these sites look like the adult magazine section of 7-Eleven in the 80s, only without the black covers over them. The LDS preaches and teaches “temporal blessing” as adamantly as Osteen. When in reality both have created for themselves a mob-like mafia network that blesses and curses those that do & don’t tow the line. If these are “blessings” then the “Corporation of the President of the Church” (it’s seriously called that, can’t make this stuff up) is their god, because it’s from that they receive their “temporal blessing” their promotions, their kickbacks. It’s nothing like what Jesus taught because it’s not about Jesus. Not that Jesus’ name isn’t tacked on to the name like some sort of pin the tail on the donkey sort of after-thought. If they had more space they may have included Jesus’ supposed twin brother satan in that name as well. I’m sure they would have if it made good sense to the “Corporation of the President of the Church.”
Sour grapes though right? I mean, this site has less than 100 members and gets a whopping 5 unique visits a day. 4 of those are probably Russian spam-bots trying to rape a comment thread instead of pay for it like a legitimate “john” (johns used to be the word used for clients of prostitutes). The 1 real visitor was probably LDS and is probably offended now never to return. Before you go, please know that I honestly believe that you could be a real Christian, unlike most Christians, and unlike your whole “corporation” until 2001 when it was decided that you’d call yourselves such. (Gordon Hinckley “Living in the Fullness of Times,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2001, p.5)
If you don’t get anything else from all of this, please get that the internet is so thoroughly saturated with pimps, prostitutes, and johns, that your news, your shopping, even your research is only going to lead you into a hole. If you shop on eBay for the best “pink flower towel” you won’t find the “best match”, instead you’ll find whoever pays their pimp the most commission. If you search Google for “america pimp” you’ll never find this site. Instead you’ll find the glorification of greed and sexual immorality. Girls that strip down to be gawked at are called “empowered” instead of prostitutes, even pornographic stars aren’t called prostitutes. If they aren’t prostitutes then nobody is.
If it can snare the likes of Matt Walsh, whose sole claim to fame is his alpaca grooming skills and his incorruptible world-view, then what good is it? The internet is a Pandora’s box, no, a Pandora pile of all of the “best” that mankind can muster and the weight of it is weighing so heavily on the earth that a major fault line is about to explode any moment now.
Of course we’ll receive “temporal blessings” from it! A good pimp lets his “girls” keep some of those earnings, it keeps them and the johns coming back. He “blesses” them from the abundance of the spoils of his own kingdom. Much like satan promised Jesus the kingdoms of this world. Of course in the last days “people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy…” Of course, because when the devil said look what I’ll give you to worship me, they said: “It’s a deal!”