In two short years, the Nephites whom Mormon depicted as completely faithful after repelling the Gadianton threat have quarreled to the extent that they have broken up the church. An apostasy so rapid suggests that Mormon’s glowing picture of faithfulness was a literary device rather than an accurate historical depiction. For the society to alter so completely and so quickly, they had to be building on values that were already present and either accepted by or acceptable to the majority of the people. As Mormon continues to describe this new apostasy, it becomes apparent that it really is a continuation of the same trends that we have seen before. The people have simply returned to their previous state when they were willing to accept Gadiantons as leaders. The text does not mention the fate of the Lamanites who were described as being righteous.
It continues to be significant that Mormon’s description of this massive apostasy results from “a great inequality in all the land.” Equality was an important principle of the Nephite gospel, part of Benjamin’s covenant, and a major theme of his discourse. For at least two hundred years after King Benjamin, the church represented an ideal in which all men were equal before Yahweh, in which no man esteemed himself above another, and in which even the king supported himself with the labor of his own hands.
The people’s increasing prosperity has come through the expansion of trade networks. The elite goods that traveled along these routes also brought ideas from the rest of the Mesoamerican world, including the desirability of a social hierarchy. The tremendous influence of this economic system led directly to the wearing of “fine apparel” as a means of displaying the new wealth. When a society recognizes not only the prosperity, but the value of displaying that prosperity, the difference between those who could afford the displays and those who could not became visually obvious. Class differences were determined by what one wore, and class segregation became easier and more absolute.
These developments of social ranks conflicted with the Nephite gospel’s value of egalitarianism. The newly wealthy, who were creating and establishing this “higher” class, had to either give up their wealth and higher class or give up the religion that condemned it. Apparently wealth won out. The “common” people also discerned some value in the new system, as many of them also left the church. The church was “broken” because its people left to follow a different god.