In Year 26 the Nephites in New Nephite City packed up and herded family and animals back to their homelands from north to south. They had lots of leftovers, food storage for the trip and for restocking their kitchens at home. Other stuff too, from furniture to jewelry.
Here’s the amazing thing, though: they let former Gadiantons who wanted to stay Lamanites have tracts of land, so long as they vowed not to break the peace. Now that’s faith in humanity, one thing that had lapsed over the years.
Prosperity flooded over the land like high tide. All through Years 26 and 27 peace generated justice, fair laws and good political judgment, led by General Gidgiddoni and Judge Lachoneus. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men, to coin a phrase.
Nothing could block this tide (except a return to sin, of course).
Year 28: Road construction resumed.
Civil engineering thrived. Low unemployment, good social security net for the poor.
It couldn’t last.
Year 29 began a new wave of civil unrest—from bragging to spiteful litigation, the whole gamut of self-willed, self-absorbed selfishness. Money lay at the center of almost every dispute. Money and education.
Merchants, lawyers, and office-workers divided into classes. Some had the wherewithal to pay for good schooling, others didn’t. So the rich thought of the poor as stupid and the poor thought of the educated as pompous.
Not everyone responded to everyone else the same, of course. Some bit their tongues, even when scorned or snubbed. But others could only speak the language of payback.
The whole society broke apart into the haves and have-nots, both despising each other. By Year 30 this fracture broke up the church, except for a few Lamanites who were dug in with their principles and doctrine. It was a devilish time, Satan himself machinating layer upon layer of arrogance and quest for power. Satan is also a greed machine with no “off ” button. He set different classes—and sub-classes, and sub-sub-classes—all running in their own skewed directions.
So peace was short-lived. What else is new on the planet?
Year 30 rang in the new calendar with a confirmed verdict of societal guilt, a pox on the collective morals. Satan was bussing people around like babies in a shopping cart, grabbing poisonous products off the shelf and pushing them in the babies’ ravenous mouths.
I’m not talking about sins of omission, forgetting to trim the occasional twig of malice. I’m talking about malevolent criminality. Violation for the thrill of it.
Lachoneus Jr. had taken over his father’s judgeship (patriarchy and nepotism straddling a fine line indeed).
Spirit-filled men started preaching at assorted venues, willy-nilly, all complaining in God’s name about the ridiculous short-term change of fortune. Every speech or sermon started and ended with the story of Jesus and his doctrine, the Great Reconciliation.
For some reason the legal profession took special umbrage with these preachers. Maybe it was because the law wouldn’t let lawyers throw the book at preachers. Freedom of speech and all. So they had to act by stealth, hiring hit men to off the preachers secretly, make them disappear.
Word got out and complaints were filed on the dead men’s behalf. These killings were actionable civil rights breaches. The hit men were ratted out, and they in turn fingered the corrupt judges who had hired them. The judges went to trial, but because they were so tight with the whole legal community they beat the rap. This led to backroom deals and demonic vows to support one another in whatever crime struck their fancies. Satan swore them in, metaphorically if not literally. The vows spread from the original perps to their families: everyone would do whatever it took to foil a conviction for murder. Including murder.
They also agreed to revolt and install their own king, replacing the judges, whose fate one could only guess, though would probably be right about.