There is no alleviating of the church’s problems in the ninth year. The problems deepen with greater inequality among the people, even those who belonged to the church. This, of course, was of great concern to those who did try to maintain the beliefs and covenants of the church.
Once again, we see more details for this social division that we have seen before in Mormon’s writings. Perhaps there was something similar in the book of Lehi that was lost, but we don’t see it in the book of Mosiah. Perhaps a part of the reason is that Mormon is discussing the problems that arose from the introduction of the new form of Nephite society. There were two changes, one to the government and one to the religious community.
Mormon used the Amlicite uprising to show the problems that arose from the change from monarchy to judges, and perhaps these details are intended to be a parallel showing the types of issues that arose from the separation of the religious community into churches and non-churches. When it was easier for non-church people to reject egalitarianism, it became more difficult for those in the church to withstand the social pressures to follow the attractive movement to more visibility and prestige modeled so much around them.
It is certainly a problem that modern readers experience frequently. The desire to be like the attractive image of the world around us can certainly affect the way we present ourselves. Sometimes, we might similarly drift so far into the tempting trappings of the world that we forget some of the more important gospel principles we have covenanted to uphold.