Alma's Church

We Latter Day Saints tend to picture the church that Alma The Younger's organized as similar to the church we belong to today. The Book of Mormon tells of a church that was quite different than the one we are accustomed to. In Alma's day the be a christian you had to believe that a Christian choses to have all things in common with his fellow saints; to wear fine twined apparel amounted to pride; that it offends God to use your substance if the way you seem fit; that withholding your substance from anyone is need was a sign that you haven't any interest in the Kingdom of God; that prospering according to your own genious (free market system) was anti-christian; that prospering collectively is God's plan; that class stratafication is a sign of the church failing in its progress; that following the all in common approach yield tremendous blessings from God on the collective whole; and that the strength of the Lord is with a nation collective and people individually causing all enemies to be frustrated in their attempts to fight, bring into bondage, etc.