Notice that Mormon’s condemnation of the people comes not from riches, but from their apostasy. Of course there is likely a direct connection between the accumulation of the type of wealth that was available in Mesoamerica and these types of sins, but what is important for the modern reader is to understand that righteousness is the key.
Social: An examination of the particular sins that Mormon describes for the Nephites is instructive. Of course quarrelings and contentions are fairly non-specific, but they are indicative of a schism in the beliefs of the population. There are quarrelings because there are disagreements. While it is true that brothers may invent quarrels for the sake of arguing, in most societies, significant quarrels arise out of significant differences of opinion. Similarly, the contentions are the expansion of the quarrels. They are the dissent, and the most dangerous of the internal threats to Nephite society.
It is the particular catalog of things that is of most interest. We find at the beginning of the catalog the ideas of “plunderings” and “murderings.” This is not a new problem with the Nephite people. We have seen this type of tension in the past:
Mosiah 29:14
14 And even I myself have labored with all the power and faculties which I have possessed, to teach you the commandments of God, and to establish peace throughout the land, that there should be no wars nor contentions, no stealing, nor plundering, nor murdering, nor any manner of iniquity;
King Mosiah found it important to note that he had attempted to establish peace in his own land, and one of the evidences of that peace was the absence of plundering and murdering.
In the wake of Alma and Amulek’s efforts at religious renewal, many priests went to teach the people how to return to the gospel. Note the catalog of things they had to preach against:
Alma 16:18
18 Now those priests who did go forth among the people did preach against all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and malice, and revilings, and stealing, robbing, plundering, murdering, committing adultery, and all manner of lasciviousness, crying that these things ought not so to be— (italics added).
We never receive enough internal information to understand what specific things the Nephites were doing, but it is perhaps important that plundering and murdering always appear together. In the Mesoamerican world, one of the ways of obtaining wealth was the subjugation of other cities through military action – which certainly fits one definition of plundering. Perhaps the murdering is linked to these military actions which are offensive, and therefore motivated by greed rather than the principles of defense which are part of the Nephite gospel.
The next set of sins in the list are “idolatry” and “whoredoms.” The first accusation of idolatry in the Book of Mormon is levied against the Lamanites (Enos 1:20). This would make a great deal of sense if the Lamanites had adopted the gods of the world around them. The next accusation of idolatry comes in the discussion of king Noah, who was a Nephite king in the land of Lamanites, and apparently affected by the Lamanite lifestyle (Mosiah 11:6).
We begin to see this same accusation levied against the Nephites later in time:
Alma 1:32
32 For those who did not belong to their church did indulge themselves in sorceries, and in idolatry or idleness, and in babblings, and in envyings and strife; wearing costly apparel; being lifted up in the pride of their own eyes; persecuting, lying, thieving, robbing, committing whoredoms, and murdering, and all manner of wickedness; nevertheless, the law was put in force upon all those who did transgress it, inasmuch as it was possible.
There are several things about the passage from Alma 1 that are interesting. First, these are accusations against the people in the land of Zarahemla, not Lamanites. Secondly, they are people who “did not belong to their church…” As we have seen in the past, there is a social division among the hegemony of city-states that fall under the land of Zarahemla. There are those who are members of the church, and those who are not. Those who are not are frequently those to not only espouse ideals that are contrary to the church, but they are also those who promote the very aspects of society which we find characteristic of the Lamanites, and characteristic of the things that are the most divisive. In particular, we note that these non-church people are practicing “idolatry.” As with the case of king Noah, this makes sense in that they would be accepting the gods of the surrounding cultures, and along with those gods the concepts that go along with them. It is not insignificant that these are also the people who push for kingship. All of these factors indicate the influence of the outside world on the Nephite people.
We do not know exactly what is meant by “whoredoms,” a term that appears to interchange with “adultery” at times in the prophetic calls to repentance. This could be as simple as immorality, or it could be related to the pressures from the outside for multiple wives, as we saw in Jacob 2 and saw hinted at in Amulek’s description of his household (Alma 10:11). Since all of the other significant sins listed are related to the incursion of Lamanite religion into the Nephite world, it appears probable that there is at least an element of the Lamanite world view present in the conflict that is described as “whoredoms” or “adultery.”
What is most important in this catalog of sins is the effect that they had upon the fabric of Nephite society: “…which were among themselves, which brought upon them their wars and their destructions.” These sins, which were elements of the Lamanite lifestyle that were being promoted inside of the Nephite cultural area, were “among themselves,” or they were the sources of civil unrest. This unrest, as well as the violation of God’s promise of protection upon righteousness, was the reason that the Nephites had wars and destructions. From Mormon’s moral perspective, the wars were caused by disobedience. From the perspective of the social sciences, they were caused by the internal divisions created by the attempts to alter the very definition of Nephite society by bringing in the Lamanite worldview (particularly the economic and political trappings of the Lamanite world).