Review — Willka Wasin Wiraqocha: The House of the Lord

I recently had the opportunity to read a new book that I stumbled across by accident on Amazon. Okay, do I spend too much time window shopping on Amazon? Maybe, but it turns out pretty well in the end for me. Such was the case with Willka Wasin Wiraqocha: The House of the Lord.

The title of this book is in the Quechua language, followed immediately by the English translation. The subtitle to this book is what truly intrigued me when I first found this: If Jesus Christ had visited South America, what would that worship have really looked like?

I first ran into the legends of Wiraqocha, a bearded white god descending from the sky somewhere in the Andes who taught the Inca people with love and compassion a few months ago when my father, Philip Kraus, sent me a link from a BYU Studies Report comparing the Inca god to Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon. The comparisons were strikingly similar to Quetzalcoatl/Kukalcan in Mesoamerica.

Van C. Evans, in writing this book, does not touch on the geography debate of the Book of Mormon at all. He does not even hypothesize that the Incas were the Nephites and Lamanites per se, leaving the conclusion to the reader after they do their own research into that issue. He does hypothesize, however, that Jesus Christ visited His sheep in the Andes mountains as He promised He would (see John 10:16, 3 Nephi 16:1-3). These people were Christians; they loved Jesus and built temples to worship Him. They sought to be like Him, come closer to Him, and enjoy His presence. (It should also be noted that the Inca tradition places their first ancestors as coming to the Andes shortly after a great flood where few remained on the earth, some linking them to leaving after the tower of Babel fell.)

This book is written in a scholarly tone, and spends a chapter introducing the many sources and the origin of these ancient manuscripts to show the credibility the author has striven for. A whole chapter is used, then to introduce the Inca god Wiraqocha, or Jesus Christ.

Wiraqocha is a bearded white god who descended from the sky near a small island in the Andes. He taught the people five main laws -- the law of sacrifice, the law of obedience, the law of the gospel, the law of chastity, and finally the law of consecration. He taught with love, sometimes reprimanding with love and inviting the people to repent. During the time of His visit, the wicked were swept off of the land and approximately 190 years of peace followed. Christians remained in the Andes for some time, even up to the late 1300s with a prophet-king who warned that bearded men from across the sea would subject his people if they would not repent withing three generations.

Wiraqocha stayed with His people for a long time, walking a Holy Path through the Inca Empire and blessing and healing the people of various cities. At the end of His journey, at the sea, He warned of false Christs who would come to deceive and subject his people in the Andes should they transgress His laws and walked away on the sea as if it was land. The Spaniards, bearded men from across the sea, fulfilled that prophecy, but not before writing their history and remarking that had they almost believed the Indians were Christians except they did not use the name 'Jesus Christ'.

The Inca people built temples to their Lord along the Holy Path. All were destroyed by the Spaniards, but one remained hidden enough that even today, shamans and small groups of people worship Wiraqocha and perform temple ordinances therein, including washing and anointing, baptism, an endowment telling the story of the creation (in which Wiraqocha and His brother create the earth under the direction of their Father) and progress through three kingdoms to return to Wiraqocha's presence, and marriages for time and eternity. (They do not, however, have priesthood authority). There is even a site where two temples were built -- one to a Father, and another to a Mother, even though the Incas were monotheistic. Latter-day Saints can know what scholars do not -- they also believed in Heavenly Parents. (Some scholars believe they were dedicated to a Heavenly Father and Mother Earth, which could correlate to Latter-day Saint theology of Heavenly Parents, or it is also possible that the temple dedicated to Heavenly Mother was later used for idolatrous worship of the earth. Nonetheless, the temple symbols found in our temples are found in both, and both were used by ancient Andean Christians and cannot be understated.)

It also briefly mentions that Peru -- the fourth country to gain over 100 stakes of the Church despite its much smaller population -- has all of its temples built along the Holy Path of Wiraqocha, despite the smaller populations compared to Peru's bigger cities. (Lima does fall on this path, which will soon have two temples.) The author hypothesizes that the reason this happened was because that land had already been made hallow by the visitation of the Lord, Jesus Christ two millennia ago.

A great deal of the book talks about the worship that goes on in the temple to Wiraqocha, which the author has learned from first hand experience. To any endowed member, this book is a must read. It will mean the most when you have been through the Temple, and so I would not recommend reading it beforehand.

One thing is for certain, however -- one cannot read this book and walk away not knowing that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of all men, and that He lives.

You can find the book for sale here.
The BYU Studies report that I initially read can be found here.