Within ten years, the unified Nephite society was essentially dissolved. “There were many churches which professed to know the Christ, and yet they did deny the more parts of his gospel.” The original disciples, save three, had died by this time. The loss of the eyewitnesses appears to have allowed room for disputation, and therefore there existed separated congregations which interpreted the gospel in different ways.
There was also, of course, “another church which denied the Christ.” That was the common theme of the influence of the outside world on the Nephite faithful. Reading between the lines, there was a period of relative isolation from other nations, and then a time when the connections between people started up again. One of the ways to acquire riches was always through trade with outside peoples. They traded not only in goods, but apparently in ideas. Those ideas infiltrated Nephite society and returned them to the more divided people that they were before the great destruction at Christ’s death in the Old World.