Social: Mormon tells us that those who did not belong to the church termed those who did “Christians.” Mormon is our narrator here, and he apparently understands “Christian” in a favorable light, because he has that word in Moroni’s mighty prayer. However, Mormon is aware that this term was originally an “outsider” name for the members of the church.” It is quite probable that the members of the church did not have a specific name for themselves, other than Nephite, since that term would, for most of Nephtie history, designate both the religion and the political allegiance of the person so designated. For those who were politically “Nephite” but religiously opposed, they would need a different term by which they could make a distinction that was probably not made internally. Thus “Christian” would be applied from the outside. It is quite certain that the original application of this designation was derogatory, for the outsiders were precisely those who denied the Christ, and contended against a belief in the atoning Messiah.
This is quite similar to the situation for the early members of the “church” in the Old World. We hear that these disciples of Christ are first called “Christian” in the city of Antioch (Acts 11:26). Antioch would have had a similar problem of differentiation. There were Jews in Antioch, and the first “Christians” were also Jews. The need to separate the types of Jewishness would have been more important to the outsider than the insider. Inside the group, we know who we are, and need not have unique names for ourselves when we are with others in the group. This is very similar to the phenomenon known from several pre-modern peoples where their self-name translates to “the people.” Specific modifiers are needed for other groups, and since we humans tend to think our own group is the best, out-group names not infrequently have pejorative connotations.
The notion that the appellation of Christian was intended to be pejorative in the Book of Mormon instance may be deduced from the care with which Mormon explains the adoption of the name by the members of the church. The very fact that Mormon must take time to explain the adoption of the name suggests that it was not necessarily intended to be complimentary in the beginning.