The Great and Abominable Church — What It Is and Is Not

1 Nephi 14 describes a system of spiritual corruption — not a denomination

Few LDS scriptural phrases have been more misused — by critics of the Church and sometimes by members themselves — than “the great and abominable church.” Critics claim it proves that Latter-day Saints view all other Christians as belonging to a satanic institution. Some members have made the same mistake, using the phrase as a dismissal of every tradition outside their own.

Both readings are wrong. The text does not support them. And the correct reading is actually more sobering and more applicable than the mistaken one.

The question is not which denomination Nephi saw. The question is what he saw. And what he saw was a principle, not an institution.

What Nephi Saw

In 1 Nephi 13–14, Nephi is shown a vision that spans from the founding of the church by Christ through the apostasy, the age of exploration, the American founding, and the Restoration. Within that vision he sees two churches — and only two. The angel who explains the vision is explicit about this:

1 Nephi 14:10

“And he said unto me: Behold 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.”

This is the text. It is stark. The angel divides the entire spiritual landscape of human history into two categories: the church of the Lamb and everything else. Before reacting to that, it is necessary to understand what “church” means in this context — and it is not what modern readers typically assume.

The “church of the Lamb” in 1 Nephi 14 is described as a numerical minority scattered across the world — not a large, organized institution. It is defined by allegiance to Christ, not by institutional membership. Similarly, the “great and abominable church” is not an organization with a headquarters. It is a system, a force, a pattern of spiritual corruption that operates across and within human institutions.

1 Nephi 14:12

“And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few… and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.”

What the Great and Abominable Church Is

Nephi describes the great and abominable church in terms of what it does, not what it is called. Its characteristics are:

Characteristics of the Great and Abominable Church — 1 Nephi 13–14

• Corruption of scripture — Deliberately removed “many plain and precious things” from the gospel record (1 Nephi 13:26–29)
• Pursuit of worldly status — The harlot’s ornaments: gold, silver, silks, scarlets — the desire for praise and riches of the world (1 Nephi 13:7–8)
• Persecution of the righteous — “The blood of the saints” is on her hands (1 Nephi 13:5, 9)
• Broad reach across nations — Her dominion is “among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people” (1 Nephi 14:11)

These are functional characteristics — things the entity does. They are not creedal characteristics. The great and abominable church is not defined by what it believes about the Trinity or justification. It is defined by its relationship to truth: it corrupts it, suppresses it, and persecutes those who preserve it.

1 Nephi 13:26–29

“And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.”

The defining act is the removal of plain and precious truths. This is why the Restoration was necessary: not merely because people were sinful, but because truths had been deliberately removed from the record. The great and abominable church is the force behind that removal — and its operation is historical, not merely eschatological.

What It Is NOT — A Denomination

The interpretive framework most consistent with the text was developed by Stephen Robinson and others: the great and abominable church is a category — the category of everything arrayed against God’s truth, across all nations and institutions. Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s earlier writings used the phrase more narrowly, identifying it with a specific institution; later editions of his work corrected that reading, broadening it to the apostate spirit operating throughout the world. The narrower reading does not survive close contact with the text. The broader category reading does.

This is critical. It means that the great and abominable church can operate within religious institutions — including, in principle, institutions that call themselves LDS. Nephi does not describe it as external to the religious world. He describes it as penetrating all human structures where worldliness, corruption, and the suppression of truth take hold.

Conversely, sincere believers in other traditions who love God and preserve the truth they have received are not, by their denominational membership, part of the great and abominable church. They belong, in Nephi’s framework, to the church of the Lamb — defined by loyalty to Christ and to divine truth, not by organizational affiliation.

The Deliberate Corruption of Scripture — 1 Nephi 13

The act that makes the great and abominable church “most abominable” is the removal of “plain and precious things” from the gospel record (1 Nephi 13:26–29). This is not a claim that we can today point to verses scissored out of surviving manuscripts; Nephi locates the loss in the formative period, as the record passed from the apostles “unto the Gentiles” (1 Nephi 13:26). What is lost, in his account, includes “covenants of the Lord” — that is, ordinances and authority — and the plainness by which scripture was once understood.

The historical record is fully consistent with this. The Christian canon was not delivered intact; it was a contested human process settled over centuries, with books like Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and Revelation disputed well into the fourth century — Athanasius’s letter of A.D. 367 is the first surviving list matching the twenty-seven books Protestants now receive. More tellingly, the New Testament itself testifies that apostolic writings existed which were never preserved: Paul references an earlier letter to Corinth that is simply gone (1 Corinthians 5:9), and an epistle to or from Laodicea that no one possesses (Colossians 4:16). And the text that did survive was not transmitted with the pristine fidelity often assumed — the longer ending of Mark, the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11), and the Trinitarian insertion of 1 John 5:7 are recognized across the scholarly spectrum as later additions absent from the earliest manuscripts.

None of this “proves” the Restoration by itself; the doctrine rests on revelation, not on manuscript forensics. But it dismantles the assumption the critic needs — that the Bible we hold is the complete, untouched, self-authenticating deposit of everything God revealed. By Scripture’s own admission, apostolic writings have been lost, the canon was decided by men, and the text was edited in transmission. That is precisely the situation Nephi described.

Who Belongs to It

D&C 10:67–68 clarifies the LDS understanding of who belongs to the church of the Lamb. Christ defines His church not by institutional boundaries but by reception of Him:

D&C 10:67–68

“Behold, this is my doctrine—whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. Whosoever declareth more or less than this, the same is not of me, but is against me; therefore he is not of my church.”

The church of the Lamb is precisely this — the community of those who receive Christ and keep His commandments, wherever they are, in whatever denomination they live. Membership is defined by repentance and coming to Christ, not by organizational affiliation.

1 Nephi 14:3–4

“And that great pit, which hath been digged for them by that great and abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children, that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell — yea, that great pit which hath been digged for the destruction of men shall be filled by those who digged it.”

The pit dug for others will be filled by those who dug it. This is the principle of spiritual boomerang that runs throughout scripture: those who set traps for the righteous will fall into them. Nephi is not predicting denominational collapse. He is describing the inevitable consequence of building your organization on the suppression of divine truth.

The Church of the Lamb vs. the Church of the Devil

Nephi’s vision is ultimately simple: there are two loyalties. Everything in human history ultimately serves one of them. The great and abominable church is not a building or a creed. It is the accumulated weight of human choices to suppress truth, persecute the righteous, and serve worldly power instead of God.

Revelation 17’s “whore of all the earth” and 1 Nephi’s great and abominable church are describing the same spiritual reality from different prophetic vantage points. Both agree that her power is temporal and her end is certain. Both agree that the saints of God will ultimately prevail over her, not by military force but by the power of the Lamb.

1 Nephi 14:14

“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.”

The saints of the Lamb are not defined by institutional membership. They are defined by righteousness and the power of God. They are scattered across the face of the earth. They are a minority. And they are armed — not with weapons but with the kind of power that ultimately outlasts everything the great and abominable church can throw at them.

Why This Matters for How We Read History

The concept of the great and abominable church changes how an LDS reader understands Christian history. It explains the apostasy: not as a complete failure of every believer everywhere, but as the corruption of the institutional structures through which divine authority was to be transmitted, while sincere believers continued to follow Christ as best they could with the light they had.

It also changes how we read the present. The great and abominable church is not merely historical. Anywhere that truth is suppressed for worldly gain, anywhere that the praise of the world is sought over the approval of God, anywhere that the plain and precious things of the gospel are traded away for institutional convenience — there the principle described in 1 Nephi 13–14 is operative.

The warning is not primarily for Baptists or Catholics. It is for every institution and every individual who must choose between the praise of the world and the truth of God. That choice is made in every generation. Nephi saw it. He wrote it down. The question is what you will do with what he wrote.