The great errors of the Zoramites were shocking to Alma, and his reaction is understandable when you read the Zoramite prayer: the repetition, the requirement of people to get up and say the same prayer, the social pressure, the clothing, and only being able to pray at this one place. In Alma 32, the poor are concerned because they were not allowed to go into this place, and were taught they could only pray there.
These were gross errors of social pressure, of dominance by an aristocratic class over the working-class people. The wealthy had their own theology. They brought into their synagogue words like “holy, holy, holy.” There was a sacrilege that would have been a gross offense to Alma the high priest. “Holy, holy, holy” were words that were spoken in the Holy of Holies, in the temple, not in a make-shift synagogue atop some bizarre Rameumptom. Then the content of the prayer would have been a shock to Alma, “We know, O God that thou art a spirit.”
Most offensive of all may have been the statement in Alma 31:16, “Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from our brethren; and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren, which was handed down to them by the childishness of their fathers; but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children; and also thou hast made it known unto us that there shall be no Christ.” Imagine Alma’s response to the claim that they knew by revelation that there was no Christ!