Priestcraft

What Does the Book of Mormon Say About Inequality? Series

The Book of Mormon contains some surprising insights concerning economic inequality.  This series explores several topics addressed by the LDS scripture and its insights for today.

What Is Priestcraft?

Priestcraft is a unique word used in the Book of Mormon.  It refers to when people use the gospel in order to become rich and/or famous - directly or indirectly.  It is not at all a type of sorcery, like 'witchcraft'.

At times, individuals accused of priestcraft in the Book of Mormon are liars who pretend to be teachers of God in order to deceive the people into giving them riches.

At other times the priestcraft is more subtle - where a group or class of people benefit temporally from an incorrectly applied, or completely perverted, doctrine.

Priestcraft is problematic in the Book of Mormon in two ways.

First, it introduces the concept that one can and should be able to charge money for religious services.  This is an evil and an iniquity, and is not a part of the Gospel of Christ according to the Book of Mormon.  Furthermore, it can cause inequality by redistributing money from the many to the few.

2 Nephi 26 should make that clear:

27 Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation?  Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance.

28  Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness?  Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.

29  He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold, priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.

30  Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing...

31  But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish.

The second way priestcraft is dangerous is because it justifies inequality.  It is an ideology that suggests there should be inequality, that some should possess more than others, and that the poverty of others is justified.  Priestcrafts then become the ideological underpinnings of inequality in Nephite society - where social, civil, and religious checks to inequality could be eroded away through the twisting of religion.

So, in order to understand why priestcraft causes inequality (and why that is a serious problem) we need to introduce a few events in the Book of Mormon.

A Short History of Priestcraft

Iniquitous Kings

The first priestcraft to plague the Nephites are iniquitous kings - especially King Noah, for which there is great detail.

We know from the book of Jacob that at the beginning of their society the people were taught that wealth inequality and persecuting the poor is "iniquity and abomination" (Jacob 2:12-21).

And yet, that is certainly not the message that King Noah's partners in crime, the High Priests, taught. They taught the people in word and deed that it was okay for a class of people to be fabulously wealthy, and well within the rights of King Noah to tax the people in order to facilitate that wealth.


King Noah used the High Priests to keep himself in power and wealthy, while the High Priests twisted religion to make themselves and the king wealthy.  Their actions are priestcraft and therefore evil in its own right, but with the added iniquity of causing serious inequality among the people.

When Abinadi the prophet came to challenge the put to death for challenging the authority of the king and his priests, for he threatened the carefully crafted scheme.

You know from the iniquitous kings article that after King Noah the Nephites formed a new church and a new government focused on eliminating the iniquities of the past. 

Nehor

Shortly after the new church and government is organized, Alma, who is the leader of both, receives his first challenge in Alma 1.


A man named Nehor begins teaching the people a very easy, but ultimately false, doctrine that all people will be saved, and there is no need for people to do anything (including serving the poor).  Many people enjoy his ideas so much that they give him money, and he thereafter establishes a church, with him as the rich and famous head.  He even begins teaching that priests such as himself ought to be rich and popular - so therefore it should be a requirement of the faithful to facilitate this.

Alma is unsure how to deal with the false teachings.  After all, his government protects religious freedoms, but Nehor's teachings were not only false, but caused inequality by massively redistributing wealth from the many to Nehor and his cronies.  Furthermore, Nehor's example and sophistry caused the people to commit iniquities.

Before Alma can form an appropriate response to Nehor's priestcrafts however, Nehor murders Gideon, a hero of the revolution against King Noah.  Nehor is then put to death for his crime.

Nehor's death unfortunately does not stop the priestcrafts.  His strategies are passed on to others and these followers are thereafter referred to as the 'Order of Nehors', a secret combination which plagues the Nephites and the Lamanites for generations after Nehor as false churches are established in order to extract wealth from the people.

The episode with Nehor proves to Alma that he must act to limit future priestcrafts.  His reactions offer further insights into what the priestcrafts were all about.

Alma strengthens laws to prevent people from using religion to lie, steal, rob, and persecute others. People were free to believe in false teachings, but not to practice their beliefs if those beliefs deceive the people and steal from them.

Alma also recognizes the need to counteract the dangerous ideas that Nehor introduced to the people.  He taught his priests to believe this, Alma 1:

26  ... and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength.

27  And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely.  ...

29  And now, because of the steadiness of the church they began to be exceedingly rich, having abundance of all things whatsoever they stood in need...

30  And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all... without respect to persons as to those who stood in need.

31  And thus they did prosper and become far more wealthy than those who did not belong to their church.

So Alma and the teachers espouse equality in their behaviors and teachings, including in giving to the poor and needy.  Because of their equality everyone has an abundance of what they need, but when wealth comes the people do not turn away the poor.

Equality, in ethic and practice, led to more wealth generation than those who were not part of Alma's church, who practiced priestcraft and iniquities.


Order of Nehors - Zoramites

After Nehor's death, his followers hone their skills and priestcrafts, causing economic and spiritual chaos among the Nephites and Lamanites alike.  The article Dissension and War details several of the activities of these priestcraft-practicing dissenters. 

The most detailed of these stories are the Zoramites - found in Alma 31-35.

Alma - now solely the religious leader of the land - leads a group of missionaries to reclaim the Zoramites who have dissented from the religion and government and have formed a camp to themselves away from the Nephites.  They observe the strange practices of the Zoramites - including their once a week religious observance of standing on a tower and chanting about how much better they are than other people, and how God elected them to be superior.

Of course, not all the Zoramites receive this 'elected' status.  A class of poor people, who had built the synagogues and tower of the Zoramites themselves, were barred from entering them.  And yet they stayed in the camp of the Zoramites because they believed that their only chance of connecting with God was by praying at the very synagogues they were barred from entering.

The Zoramites had separated themselves from the Nephite government and religion because both had made it more difficult to practice priestcrafts.  They practiced the priestcrafts in order to become rich - in this case by deceiving an entire group of people into working for them in poverty, without receiving any religious benefit.

The priestcraft was carefully calculated to create this inequality.

Alma and his missionaries have no success with the wealthy Zoramites, but the poor are humble enough to listen to them.  Alma teaches the poor that they do not need synagogues and towers to pray, but should pray wherever and whenever they can.  He then offers this stern warning, Alma 34:

28 And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need - I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.

Alma's counsel is the opposite of the philosophy of the Zoramites.  His teaching "destroys the craft" of the Zoramites, ie destroys their money-making scheme.  In retribution, the Zoramites dissent to the Lamanites, and wage war on the Nephites in order to impose their scheme on all people.

So How do These Priestcrafts Contribute to Inequality?

It Directly Causes Inequality

By deceiving people into believing that false teachers should be compensated for their services, priestcrafts redistribute money from the majority to a deceitful minority, creating inequality.  To the Book of Mormon people, aside from wicked kings and their taxes, there is no mechanism that can distribute money to a minority.

In the new government, leaders are volunteers or justly compensated for their time - they do not become fabulously wealthy (unless the Gadianton Robbers take over).  There are no corporations, no enterprises, and no products that everyone simply must have - there is no reason for a small group of people to receive a portion of money from everyone else, except through priestcraft.

In a society where mass redistribution of income is unheard of, and inequality is considered an 'abomination', priestcrafts are very alarming.

Why wouldn't people see the unjust redistribution and simply not give their money to practitioners of priestcraft?

The Nephite people seem to rely heavily on priests and teachers to learn of the scriptures and the gospel.  The average person does not have access to education, literacy, copies of scriptural records, and travel experience.  Without these tools it is easy to fall prey to teachers you are raised to trust.  And thus the inexperienced and the uneducated also become the poor.

They Use Religious Authority to Excuse Inequality
 

Remember that the Nephites are taught that inequality is an 'iniquity and abomination' (Jacob 2), and that they covenant to share their resources with the poor, or lose their remission of sins (Mosiah 4).  Priestcrafts of necessity include some false teaching that it is actually okay for inequality to exist, and therefore it is okay to withhold resources.  This ideology is necessary for any serious economic inequalities to persist in Nephite society.

With King Noah, Nehor, and his successors, the lie was that it was okay for a king, or priests, to become wealthy - it was part of the religion.

For the Zoramites, they pushed a lie that they were for some reason elected of God, superior to all other people, and therefore it was acceptable for them to be temporally superior as well.

For Korihor in Alma 30, he taught that the people should prosper "according to their genius" and strength - or that it was okay if someone had more, because they earned it with their intelligence and work, and therefore it was also okay if others were poor.  No action should be required to correct inequality or poverty.

This is a very dangerous precept, because a people who no longer see inequality as an evil and injustice, and rather see it as justified by religion, will not act against it, even though doing so would actually be in the best interest of themselves and their religion in its true form.

They Relinquish the Obligation to the Poor

Alma's teachings to serve the poor in reaction to priestcrafts indicates that serving the poor is a teaching priestcrafts purposefully omitted.  Nehor and his successors were popular precisely because of that omission.  Their teachings were easy - the requirement to help the poor is difficult, especially if you consider passages like Jacob 2 "be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you".

By teaching the people that they no longer had to care for the poor a religious mechanism for mitigating and eliminating inequality was also removed.

In the place of care for the poor comes disdain and hatred.  The easiest way to remove the guilt of seeing poverty and inequality is to cover that guilt with hatred.  The easiest way to do this is to attack the character of the poor.  To exaggerate the sins and character flaws of the poor in an attempt to justify their predicament.

If true teachers and prophets come to challenge iniquity, priestcrafts, and the persecution of the poor, then their are viciously attacked, or simply murdered as in the case of Abinadi and many other prophets.

Inequality thus increases, in addition to its other consequences, like increasing iniquity and social instability.  Priestcraft is thus a central part of nearly every pride cycle, as the inequality in the pride cycle is caused by priestcraft.

Priestcrafts cause the Zoramites to not only cease temporally providing for the poor, but also come to hate the poor.  This emotionally allowed them to take advantage of the poor against any healthy conscience, while simultaneously also deceiving the poor into remaining in their camp, although they were being exploited.

Ultimately, priestcraft is the ideology which allows for inequality to even exist.  In the chapter on Teachings about Inequality we will look at how the Book of Mormon dismantles several modern priestcrafts.

Chapters Concerning Priestcrafts

We were only able to look at a few passages about priestcrafts in this article, but feel free to take a look at a few more:

2 Nephi 26 and 2 Nephi 28 - Prophesies concerning priestcraft
Mosiah 11 - Priestcrafts of King Noah and his priests
Alma 1 and Alma 4 - Alma and Nehor
Alma 8-16 - The Mission to Ammonihah

Alma 21; 22; 24; 25; and 43

Alma 21; 22; 24; 25; and 43 - Amulonites and Order of Nehors among the Lamanites

(Alma 21; 22; 24; 25; and 43

Alma 30 - Philosophy of Korihor
Alma 31-35 - The Mission to the Zoramites
Helaman 13 - Samuel the Lamanite's Mission to the Nephites


What Does the Book of Mormon Say About Inequality - Table of Contents