Culture: These three verses are easy to read as a simple description that church-men (as opposed to the king-men we will see in Alma 51:5 and functioning more like political parties than religious adherents) were law-abiding and non-church-men were not. We might even justify this position by supposing that church-men were the “good guys” while non-church-men were the “bad guys.” This simplistic reading, however, would gloss over Zarahemla’s social dynamics.
Zarahemla was experiencing a fundamental schism between the Nephite religion and a competing religion, both of which were intricately involved in politics and culture. Mormon portrays church-men as not just obedient (versus disobedient) but obedient to a particular belief system that reflected their politics and social understandings. The non-church-men did not share all of those fundamental assumptions and, hence, would disobey along the lines of the political/social differences. The non-church-men’s persecution fell along socio-economic and religio-political lines: “because of their humility; because they were not proud in their own eyes, and because they did impart the word of God, one with another, without money and without price” (v. 20).
Mormon’s note that the church functioned “without money and without price” is not simply opposing Nehor’s professional priests. This difference, marked by rich clothing, was an economic difference—a class structure. Many non-church-men, perhaps even a majority, approved of Nehor-style priests.
Even in the way Mormon couches the Nephite virtues we can see the thrust of the non-church-men’s argument. Church-men were despised “because of their humility; because they were not proud in their own eyes.” In addition to the spiritual connotations of humility and pride, I argue that these distinctions are also economic. The egalitarian Nephite religion (as preached by Benjamin) opposes a professional and wealthy priesthood (Noah and Nehor). As Mormon unfolds his description of the Nephite church, notice how often the definition follows economic rather than doctrinal concepts.