3 Nephi 7

Well, they didn’t get their king. But in Year 30 they assassinated the chief judge. And that divided people into factions, effectively wrecking the government, which relies on a certain amount of unity and compromise.

This time, things went tribal. Everyone sided with his or her own family or close friends. Reason and fairness went out the window.

Now I know tribes are good. (Think of how we revere the Tribes of Israel, as a concept, at least.) And, indeed, this new tribal society closed its ranks and skipped invasions. But government regulations, the bedrock of a viable state, fell in an onslaught of backroom deals among tribal compacts, sweet deals worked up for cronies. And the cronies involved some of those who’d murdered the preachers a few years earlier.

This was Satan’s victory lap. He’d torqued almost a whole nation into alienation from one another. True, he ratcheted up family relations. But in the process he annihilated any sense of national pride.

So, by my calculations, in less than six years a once well-behaved nation had begun to choke on its own spiritual body waste. There’s that old proverb about a dog always returning to its own vomit or a pig to its native slop. If ever a proverb had been validated, it was now.

In turn, this backroom clan that had infested the country with its chicanery met and conferred their puny kingship on a man named Jacob. He had a long reputation for spitting on preacherly messages.

It was a minority, pretty numb in its effect on the general populace—if one can call it a “general” anything, since tribalism ruled. But all tribes hated the Backroom Clan, who despite its relative weakness, deserves capitalization now. (I’m not sure how that will translate.)

Jacob, putative king of the Backroom Clan, ordered his people to flee as far north as they could, set up a cult kingdom, and wait for Nephite dissenters to trickle into their ranks. They hurriedly vacated, so quickly no one could arrest them on the way.

In Year 31 Nephite tribal divisions continued, so that families per se became the basic unit of society, with friends as allies. While they did agree that families would not war on each other, each family had its own laws and money systems. If there was any consensus, it was that prophets didn’t deserve to live. The people publicly stoned visionary men.

Headstrong Nephi (Jr.—which I’ll leave off from now on) had seen visions and had taught in the public square. He had a modicum of religious authority. He’d seen the reversal of faith close up. So he started up a new revival tour, cheekily defying public prejudice (and subconscious shame) as he preached loudly across the territory. People made a ruckus because, frankly, his sermons were irresistible: no one could be oblivious and few could resist chest-beating guilt. More strikingly than even that, Nephi exorcised possessed listeners and even raised his brother from death after the people stoned him for being an accomplice to Nephi’s preaching. Other miracles ensued, all tinder to the wildfire of wrath people felt toward this charismatic in-your-face rebel-for-Christ.

Year 31 ended, and while Nephi got few converts, the ones he got were firebrands for God, outspoken zealots. Meanwhile, the once-possessed or recently healed started their own mini-ministries. This lasted through Year 32 and Year 33.

I should note that all these converts got baptized. That was a must. So Nephi had ordained baptizers who did the deed, strong-armed men who lived near lakes and rivers.