What is the "great church" in 1 Nephi 13:5? Is it the Catholic church?

What is the "great church" in 1 Nephi 13:5? Is it the Catholic church?

I have struggled to find a way to answer this question in a way that isn't painful to people I love. It is one that I have been asking myself for a long time.

But first, some context.

Nephi sees a vision (or perhaps a night dream?) in which he is shown "the formation of a great church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity." The founder of this church is the devil.

Nephi sees this church set up among the Gentiles. In his vision he also sees the discovery and colonizing of America, the loss of many plain and precious parts of the Bible, the state of gentile apostasy, the restoration of the gospel, the coming forth of latter-day scripture like the Book of Mormon, and the building of Zion on the earth.

Answer:
1 Nephi 14:10-11 has the answer to this question:

"There are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people."

There is some rich doctrine in this verse. It also happens to be totally unpopular doctrine today, in a world where truth is assumed to be subjective. "Discover your truth" is quite literally a popular message that bombards us on a daily basis. It's just hedonism wrapped in shiny new paper, basically.

The doctrine is this: there can only be one true church.

"Church" here is a little hard to define. Is the church the people who make the church, or is it something else? The definition of "church" in English is an institutionalized religion, a hierarchy of clergy of a Christian organization, a particular Christian organization typically with its own clergy, buildings, and distinctive doctrine. It can also refer to the church building itself. By the way, other languages have multiple different words to disambiguate the building from the institution, which makes sense.

Let me make it crystal clear to whoever might be reading this: I do not think that being Catholic makes one evil. I do not think that being Catholic makes someone either a literal or a metaphorical whore. I do not personally have strong anti-Catholic thoughts or feelings. Most of my impressions and feelings about Catholicism are quite positive. I recognize that devout Catholics are more similar in lifestyle to me than anybody else I know, followed closely by devout Muslims. I treasure the relationships I have with devout Catholics. I want to support them in their search for faith. I do not want to tear anybody's faith down with the words that I write.

A fundamental latter-day saint doctrine is that Jesus Christ has a church. He leads it. It is the church of Jesus Christ. The reason why "of latter-day saints" is part of the name is to distinguish us from the church he founded while he was alive.

If Jesus Christ has a church which he leads, it means that he cannot lead all churches. While all churches contain some true doctrine, they cannot all be true. Their doctrine conflicts with each other.

Joseph Smith noticed this. He lived in Palmyra, New York which was part of the "burned-over district" of the Second Great Awakening. He often felt like he was in the middle of a "war of words and opinions." He asked himself, "Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?"

We live in a time that is similar to that, only now the common idea is that "rightness" doesn't matter. That whatever you believe is right.

2 Nephi 28 (the whole chapter, but especially verses 21-22) has the answer to this question in more depth. It explores the idea of the falseness of most churches and it describes in detail why they are false. Here is a list of some of the hallmarks of false churches:

• they fight with each other
• they teach with their own learning, not the power of God
• they deny the Holy Ghost
• they deny the power of God
• they say that God is not a God of miracles today
• they teach, "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die, and it shall be well with us." In other words, they teach, "discover your own truth."
• they teach, "a little bit of sin is not that bad - you can twist someone's words, you can take advantage of your neighbor - don't worry; God will just beat us a little bit and then we will be saved in the end."
• they teach other false, vain, foolish doctrines
• they are puffed up in their hearts
• they seek to hide their counsels from the Lord
• their work is in the dark
• the blood of the saints cries against them
• they have gone astray
• they are corrupt
• they rob the poor
• they have rich, fine church buildings
• they have rich, fine clothing
• they persecute the meek, poor, and humble
• they are proud
• they have stiff necks and high heads
• they commit whoredoms, aka sexual perversions for financial gain
• they revile things that are good and say that they are worthless
• the devil rages in their hearts
• they are angry about true doctrine
• they are lulled into carnal security, saying, "everything is awesome! No need to worry about religion."
• they are flattered into believing hell doesn't exist
• they don't believe the devil is real
• they listen to the philosophies of men
• they say, "We have received enough doctrine; we don't need any more!" 
• they reject scripture
• they tremble and are angry because of the truth of God
• they put trust in human ideas and philosophies

Does this list exclusively describe the Catholic church? No!

In my opinion, this list describes a huge number of organizations, many of which are not actually religious at first glance, but are political.

If I take a good, hard, honest look at my own church, I have to admit that I do not see these attributes. Sure, I see flaws with some aspects of my church's culture. But these flaws are almost exclusively related to my United States culture, and are not explicit doctrine or teachings. When you experience the restored church in other places of the world, these flaws aren't there (and other ones are). Humans are flawed. Inasmuch as humans "are" the church, the church will have flaws. Inasmuch as the church is a foundation led by God, the doctrine it teaches must also be fully true. 

I think that you'd be hard-pressed to deny that the Catholic church has historically been involved in a serious number of things on this list, even if you are a devout Catholic. For example, the historic practice of indulgences.

Personally, I like to believe that most devout people of all creeds are, "the humble followers of Christ." I think this includes some (perhaps most) of my Catholic ancestors. I know that many of them wanted to be members of the church of the Lamb of God. I know that in many cases they sacrificed greatly to practice their faith. I know that many of my ancestors knew at least some true doctrine and believed it. I do not have any known non-Christian ancestors, but even if I did, I am confident that these statements would apply to them, too (except I guess they wouldn't explicitly be "followers of Christ"). 

This is why it is so important to me to get them the opportunity to actually become members of the true church of the Lamb of God. I have been told repeatedly in the temple by various temple presidents that the majority of people whose temple work we do will accept the ordinances we perform for them. It's their choice. I don't know how this works, but I have faith that it does. I do know that you can't force someone to believe anything.

In a recent Facebook exchange with a kind, polite person of a different faith, I was deeply bothered by the idea that it doesn't really matter which baptism you have; that they are all valid. I want to affirm that one's baptism does matter. It must be performed by someone who has the proper authority from God to do so, by the immersion of a physical body either in person or by proxy. Baptism is the only way to become a member of the church of the Lamb of God. It is for sure a weird, physical ritual, but Jesus Christ himself was baptized (by immersion in the river Jordan, which I have visited multiple times - it's muddy and gross) so why should we think we need it any less than he does? Are we any better than him? 

TLDR: The "great church" includes the institution of the Catholic church but it is not exclusive to it, and many (maybe most?) individual people within the Catholic church want (and have long wanted) to be members of the church of the Lamb of God, including the majority of my known Czech ancestors. 

Jesus Christ has a church on the earth today. It is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It isn't my place to determine who is and isn't a "humble follower of Christ." It is my place to be sure that I, myself, am one. It is my place to try to help other people become one. By far the least stressful way for me to do this is to research my dead ancestors and perform temple work for them.

Coming to know God

How to express the feelings in my heart? I'm not sure that it's possible.

Today I went to the temple. The kind of worship in the temple is not the same as the kind of worship in church buildings. Anyone can enter into the church building when it's open (unlike some extremely beautiful Catholic cathedrals and churches in France, for example, which are open all the time). To enter a dedicated temple you must qualify to have a temple recommend. It's a piece of paper that is signed by both your bishop and your stake president after being interviewed separately by them. The first and most important requirement to enter is to have faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Other requirements include being baptized, paying a full and honest tithe, keeping the dietary/health code, and following the law of chastity (abstinence before marriage, total fidelity after).

At church, we worship God in these ways:
- we sing hymns
- someone says an opening and closing prayer to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, and we end by collectively saying, "amen."
- we listen to people share their testimony and when they close in the name of Jesus Christ, we collectively say "amen" again.
- There is one ritualistic, symbolic practice: the sacrament. A priest prays to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ to ask him to bless and sanctify the bread and the water to the souls of all those who partake or drink of it. We do this to remember the body and blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for us, and it's a symbolic witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves his name. We are promised that if we do this, we will always have the holy ghost with us.
- we separate into classes which are divided by age and/or gender and the singing, prayers, and teaching continue.

Inside the temple it's not like that at all.

In the temple, you present your recommend at the front desk. An officiater scans it. If it's valid, they let you enter. You go to a changing room. You change into white clothes: a white dress with long sleeves (and pockets) for women, white pants, white shirt, white tie for men. White socks, white slippers. If you are doing baptisms, you actually get changed into a thick, white jumpsuit which the temple launders. Usually when we go to the temple we do endowments or sealings.

The temple endowment is totally full of symbolism and ritual. Basically, you sit in a room and watch a film for about half of it. It's a participatory film which occasionally stops for you to do various things which are all pretty simple, but loaded with symbolism. At one point, you go into a new room. I am not sure how much of it I'm allowed to talk about so I'll err on the side of less.

The film is a narrative story about the creation of the earth and the point of human existence. Some big takeaways from the endowment ceremony are these:
- Jesus Christ is completely, perfectly obedient to the Father
- Adam and Eve's story is at least in part symbolic
- It was always the plan that we would need a Savior

Today there was a deaf woman in the room so the endowment ceremony had a film playing the entire time with actors signing the words as well as close captions.

And this is what really deeply touched me: I realized because of the deaf film that at the very end of the ceremony, the final reference to the Lord, it's actually about God the Father, not Jesus Christ. That... Completely changed my perspective about the entire endowment ceremony.

Beyond that, it changed my perspective about the word "Lord."

Actually, it very deeply bothers me - something about it, but I can't exactly explain what.

I had previously assumed that the word Lord was almost always Jesus Christ in the scriptures. I know that LORD in the Old Testament refers to Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ.

The first page of 1 Nephi has a reference to praying to "the Lord." I assumed that as Jews, maybe they were misguided in their understanding of the identity of God. That seems like a very reasonable assumption, one that I share with all Christian faiths, I guess.

The last page of 2 Nephi is a reference to calling on God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. This is how I worship God. I just assumed Nephi learned more about the nature of God as he got older and finished the record.

Turns out, the Lord can refer to God the Father. It is unambiguously a reference to God the Father in the temple. Therefore, mightn't it be similar elsewhere in the scriptures?

Ergo: I made mistakes in my interpretation of the scriptures. In my search to highlight parts of the scriptures that refer to Jesus Christ, I sometimes highlighted the wrong thing.

THAT BOTHERS ME. A LOT.

So here's the possibilities I came up with for what the words about God in the scriptures could refer to:
- God the Father
- Jesus Christ
- the Holy Ghost
- both God the Father and Jesus Christ
- both Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost
- both God the Father and the Holy Ghost
- All Three At The Same Time

(Oh how the medieval numerologists are shouting with joy to see there are seven possibilities.)

The eighth: it could be ambiguous.

I am really unsatisfied with the idea of worshipping and learning about an ambiguous, unknowable God. It actually...the feeling in my heart when I consider that as a possibility is complete incredulity and dissatisfaction. It neither fits with what I believe and feel to be true nor with any shred of logical reasoning in my head. Meaning: if God is ambiguous and unknowable, why should I worship him at all.

This new idea (to me) that the word Lord can refer to a member of the godhead that isn't necessarily Jesus Christ doesn't compel me to despair and give up my faith - ha! No.

But it does make me yearn with every piece of my soul to study this very carefully and thoroughly - and a highlighter, a book, and lots and lots of time is NOT going to be the most successful method to do that. It will take too long and be too subjective.

I need to find a way to search the scriptures for all references to all the names of God (including pronouns - eghh), export them into a spreadsheet including the verse in which they fall, label them as being one of the eight possible cases, and then study hard the ambiguous examples until I understand which "God" they actually mean.

I could spend my entire life doing this.

But though it seems daunting, I know it would be incredibly worthwhile. What is more worthwhile to study in the scriptures beyond the nature of God?

Just as ASL shed a whole lot of light on my understanding of this topic, so will studying the scriptures in other languages/translations. The word cruncher app I've been playing around with gets me all the scriptures in English, the Old Testament in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek.

How I wish it could also have a parallel translation of the Bible - the whole Bible, not a dumbed-down abbreviated version - in Czech. I don't get why my church doesn't have its own digital version of the Bible in languages other than English; there has to be a way to get this thing I crave. But how?!

Just as strongly as I believe that God could, if he wanted to, make himself known to me through a visitation of an angel, or a clear vision, or any number of miraculous ways - I understand that one of the main purposes of this life is to try to walk by faith. It would defeat the purpose if I had the answers given to me. I believe that the promise repeated in the scriptures is true: if I ask, if I knock, if I search, if I ponder, if I pray - I can come to know God. 

But there is within me still a deep feeling of terrible loneliness that it has to be this way, that I have to be separated from God at all. I do not like it. It is so unsatisfying in a way that words don't come close to describing. 

Also, it's kind of like researching my ancestors. I really enjoy hearing people describe my great grandparents. I enjoy reading the stories. I enjoy collecting the records. I feel a lot closer to them as I hear their words describe these dead people.

But I never fully believe anything that is said or written about these dead ancestors of mine, at least completely. Like, I always have somewhere in my consciousness an understanding that all the records, all the memories of these people contain blatant biases. All of the records are flawed. I am certain that the scriptures - and certainly many or perhaps most of the interpretations of them! - are flawed. It definitely does not make it worthless to search these extant records meticulously. I don't even care that it's a weird approach to spirituality, to try to use computers to come closer to God.

But won't it be so great when we finally, finally get to meet our ancestors and actually know them? Far better than that - won't it be incredible to meet God and talk to him face to face? 

He feels so far away to me sometimes.

And even at the times when I feel closest to him, it is still farther than I want it to be. 

I believe and trust that there are multiple epistemologically valid ways to get closer to him. For example, trying to keep the commandments as I understand them. Trying to be like him, even if I fail. Just because I personally feel very little confidence that asking a simple, humble prayer will get me the closeness and the answers I seek doesn't mean I won't try it.

As with all of my really, truly deep interests, a thorough, thoughtful analytical treatment is probably my favorite way to try to come to know something because I probably overvalue facts and logic. I hypothesize that as I search the scriptures, there will be less cases of "ambiguous God" than I thought, and that the cases that are ambiguous will bother me less the more I study them. I also hypothesize that the ones that do bother me might be solvable through reading other scriptures (or perhaps even nonscriptural texts). Or perhaps answers will emerge through searching the scriptures through a different translation in a different language. We will see.