Alma addresses the group at large, repeating the spokesman’s request for assistance since they are “cast out” of the synagogues. It might seem obvious to a modern audience that God can be worshipped anywhere; however, comparing the synagogue to a temple, with its restrictions on access, might be a better analogy. The difference, of course, is that the entrance requirements at the temple are spiritual, not economic. All are able to meet them. In Antionum the entrance requirement was economic and social. Entering Zoramite sacred space required a change in economic and social status, something these poor people cannot do. Alma’s solution is to shift the emphasis from communal worship to individual.
Rhetoric: Alma asks two rhetorical questions about the issue of access. Typically, his listeners would answer “yes” to both when Alma clearly intends the answer to be “no.” Thus, from his opening remarks, he challenges their underlying religious assumptions, opening the possibility of seeing religion in a different light.
Alma’s fundamental point will be the importance of seeing religion, not as communal and place-oriented but as individual and faith-based. In doing so, he may reemphasize the validity of family shrines or true religion’s nonreliance on place. Our modern understanding of faith has developed to the point where it has its own religious meaning. In both Hebrew and Greek, the words we translate as faith have the original meaning of steadfastness, or loyalty. One has loyalty to the government or to one’s communal religion. The individual has faith in God. Alma’s lecture on the nature of faith results from his desire to teach these Zoramites the difference between loyalty to a communal religion (which requires adherence to community norms) and the power of individual faith (which has much fewer norms).