Post 23 THE AGE OF RENAISSANCE

5 min.

When the World Began to Awaken

For centuries, Europe drifted through a long night of stagnation. Political and ecclesiastical authorities enforced orthodoxy more fiercely than they nurtured truth. The abuses of the Inquisition nearly disgraced the very church it claimed to defend. Yet as this darkness began to lose momentum, something remarkable stirred. Minds opened, creativity reawakened, and the dignity of the individual soul resurfaced. This rebirth—known as the Renaissance—marked a decisive turning point in humanity’s journey toward liberty, learning, and spiritual restoration.

A New Confidence in Human Reason

The Renaissance was not rebellion; it was rediscovery. After generations of restricted access to knowledge, Europeans reclaimed the God‑given ability to think, learn, and discern truth. Scholars immersed themselves in ancient Greek and Roman texts. Artists explored the beauty of God’s creation through realism and perspective. Scientists questioned long‑held assumptions about the natural world. This awakening restored confidence in the individual mind and laid the foundation for later movements that would champion conscience, liberty, and personal faith.

Scripture and the Rise of Personal Conscience

As learning expanded, so did the desire for scripture in one’s own language. Gutenberg’s printing press multiplied the Bible, but the Renaissance multiplied the hunger to understand it. This environment produced figures like William Tyndale—classically trained, fluent in ancient languages, and driven by the conviction that every soul deserved direct access to God’s word. His English translation of the Bible reshaped the English‑speaking world.

The World Opens Westward

The Renaissance expanded not only the mind but the map. Advances in mathematics, navigation, and shipbuilding made oceanic exploration possible. Into this world stepped Christopher Columbus, who believed he was part of a providential plan—opening a hemisphere where liberty could take root and where God’s future work could unfold.

The Fall of Constantinople and the Spread of Learning

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 accelerated the awakening. Eastern scholars fled to Italy with precious manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship. Humanism emphasized truth, virtue, and the dignity of man, inspiring confidence in the capacity of human thought to understand the natural world and to seek God through reason as well as revelation.

Art as a Window into God’s Creation

Renaissance art responded to unfolding mathematical principles of balance, harmony, and perspective. It became a branch of knowledge in its own right—revealing divine truths through depictions of God, his creations, and mankind’s place in the universe. Works such as Leonardo’s Last Supper and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes expressed human dignity with unprecedented power.

Political Transformations and the End of Old Orders

The failure of the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire to provide a stable, unifying framework spurred political change. City‑states, national monarchies, and emerging national languages rose to counter the influence of Rome. Feudal structures weakened. New political identities took shape. The Renaissance paved the way for the Reformation, which would challenge ecclesiastical authority even more directly and expand the sphere of individual conscience.

The Descendants of Joseph: A Parallel Story on the American Continent

The beginning of colonization in America is a bittersweet story that contains powerful lessons for mankind. Many of these lessons are taught in the Book of Mormon, which explains the origin and destiny of some of America’s early inhabitants, predicts the clash of two civilizations, and outlines the pattern Americans must follow to avoid a similar fate.

For millions who accept the Book of Mormon as sacred history, the story of the American continent forms a crucial parallel to the Renaissance unfolding in Europe. According to that record, many early inhabitants of the Americas descended from Lehi, a descendant of Manasseh, son of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. As such, they are a part of the lost Ten Tribes. Their story began in 600 BC when they left Jerusalem and soon thereafter sailed to the Promised Land (the American continent).

Within a few years of their arrival, two great people were established, whose key role, as foretold by the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, was to write a record that would join with the record of Judah unto the confounding of false doctrines. Written by a succession of prophets, this record conveys knowledge of their ancestors, reveals the Lord’s covenants to their descendants, and restores plain and previous things that have been lost form the Bible. It is called the Book of Mormon.

In 34 AD as recorded in Jerusalem, Christ said, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one- fold and one shepherd.” In fulfillment of these words, the resurrected Christ visited America, taught his gospel, and established his church. So powerful was this experience that the people were all converted unto the Lord. They lived for two hundred years with “no contentions and disputations among them.”

Eventually, there was a great division among the people. However, they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they willfully rebelled against the teachings they had received, a condition which led to the gradual destruction of one group by the other.

The surviving group, lacking the coherency of the previous order, broke into tribes and carved out territories. As prophesied, these groups warred among themselves and were scattered, driven, and nearly destroyed through disease and conquest.

Far from the myth of ruthless savages, the native peoples encountered by the French and English in the early seventeenth century were fairly advanced tribes whose members enjoyed many rights and freedoms, whose rulers depended upon the acquiescence of their people in order to continue their rule. In direct contrast to the divine right of kings’ stranglehold on Europe, many native Americans were practicing common consent.

As the early settlers passed along their observations of these democratic organizations to their former homelands, the minds of European philosophers were influenced and enlarged. In turn, these philosophers furnished much of the intellectual base for the American and French revolutions, profoundly affecting world history.

After the resurrected Christ visited them, these people lived in unity, peace, and righteousness, an enlightened society blessed by the gospel. But eventually, as the record states, they willfully rebelled against the truth they once embraced. Their decline was not due to ignorance but to rejection, and their scattering, warfare, and suffering were consequences long foretold.

Together, the Bible and the Book of Mormon stand as three witnesses of Jesus Christ. These records are given because God loves his children and wants them to remain on the straight and narrow path, avoiding the destruction that follows rebellion and disobedience.

We are fortunate to have this account—not only for what it teaches about the early inhabitants of America, but because it stands as a warning voice. It shows, in sobering clarity, how a once‑enlightened people fell when they turned away from Jesus Christ and his teachings, and why their scattered condition invites modern readers to consider the consequences of rejecting divine truth.

Yet the Book of Mormon also promises that a remnant would be preserved. Many Native American peoples, though battered by disease, conquest, and displacement, retained a deep love of freedom.

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce captured their feelings in these words, “You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented to be penned up and denied liberty. Let me be a free man–free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose. Free to think and act and talk for myself.” According to prophecy, many descendants of the biblical Joseph will yet assist in preparing the world for Christ’s Second Coming and in building a culture rooted in the inspired founding documents of the United States.

A Divine Preparation for What Came Next

Seen through the lens of faith, the Renaissance was not merely a cultural flowering but a deliberate stage in God’s long preparation of the world. Gutenberg broke the chains on knowledge. The Renaissance awakened the human mind. Tyndale gave the English‑speaking world the Bible. Columbus opened a hemisphere where freedom could grow. The descendants of Joseph preserved a record and a legacy that would influence the birth of a nation. Each step expanded human agency and moved the world closer to freedom of expression, belief, and the Restoration.

Conclusion

From the Bible came the idea of the inherent worth of every soul. From its teachings came moral law and moral conduct, the English legal tradition, the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution. From the Renaissance came the courage to question, to learn, and to seek truth. From the descendants of Joseph came a sacred record and a legacy of governing. And from the Reformation and Enlightenment would come the spirit of personal responsibility and free examination.

The Renaissance was the moment when humanity began to look outward, upward, and inward all at once, preparing the world for further enlightenment, for the spread of freedom, for the restitution of all things, and for the unfolding of God’s purposes in the latter days.

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The Early Reformers

John Wycliffe (1330-1384)

The Early Reformers: Preparing a World Ready for Renewal

The rise of constitutional liberty and religious reform were not sudden events. They gathered strength through centuries of struggle. Each step forward came because someone dared to confront unchecked power and insist that truth must answer to God, not to institutions. Among these early voices, John Wycliffe stands as a turning point—a mind and conscience that helped redirect the course of Western civilization.

Foundations of Freedom

The Magna Carta cracked open the door to accountable government, placing the first limits on absolute authority. In the generations that followed, reformers widened that opening. They challenged monarchs who claimed divine right and church leaders who claimed infallibility. Their courage laid the groundwork for the advancement of civil and religious liberties and ultimately the restoration of divine authority.

John Wycliffe: A Voice That Refused to Bow

Born in 1330 and shaped by the scholarship of Oxford, Wycliffe saw clearly what many feared to say: the church of his day had drifted far from the simple, apostolic pattern of the New Testament. Immersed in scripture, he rejected doctrines without biblical foundation, challenged the pope’s supremacy over kings, condemned clerical corruption, and insisted that no earthly power could stand above the word of God.

Wycliffe’s loyalty was not to tradition but to truth. That quiet, disciplined conviction made him dangerous to the most powerful institution on earth. Yet he would not retreat. His courage became a spark that helped ignite the long arc of reform.

Scripture for the People

Wycliffe believed that every soul deserved direct access to God’s word. Over twelve intense months beginning in 1380, he translated the Bible from Latin into English—an act the church had forbidden for centuries. By placing scripture into the hands of ordinary people, he shifted spiritual authority from institution to individual. It was revolutionary. It was defiant. And it changed everything.

Opposition and Suppression

Rome struck back. Wycliffe was condemned, his writings banned, his followers scattered. Protected for a time by Oxford, he continued to teach until a stroke ended his life on December 31, 1384. But death could not silence what he had set in motion.

Jan Hus: Conscience in the Fire

Jan Hus, born in 1369, took Wycliffe’s torch and carried it into the heart of Europe. A brilliant preacher shaped by Wycliffe’s writings, he called the church back to humility, purity, and scripture. He condemned indulgences, rejected papal infallibility, and exposed the entanglement of church and political power.

For this, Hus was excommunicated, his chapel destroyed, and an order given that he must personally answer for his beliefs. Offered safety if he would recant, he refused: “Do not force me to what I cannot do without contradicting my conscience.” On July 6, 1415, he was burned at the stake—singing as the flames rose.

His death did not extinguish his message. It amplified it.

A Legacy That Could Not Be Contained

Wycliffe and Hus prepared the world for a seismic shift. Their courage emboldened the reformers who followed—Luther, Zwingli, Calvin—and helped awaken a world long held captive by unchallenged authority. They proved that one voice, anchored in truth, can redirect the destiny of nations.

The Turning of the Age

The story does not end here. A new age was about to break open, driven by three extraordinary men—Gutenberg, Columbus, and Tyndale. Through the printing press, the mariner’s compass, and a freshly translated Bible, ideas would travel farther and faster than any power could restrain. These forces would open new worlds—geographical, intellectual, and spiritual—shaking the foundations of traditional Christendom and propelling humanity into an era of discovery, reform, and awakening.

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19 — THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS

Providential Orchestration and the American Founding

6 min.

A Partnership Forged in Power

For a thousand years, Europe lived under a single commanding assumption: authority was sacred because authority was shared. Kings ruled bodies, the church ruled souls, and together they forged a world where obedience was not merely civic duty but a religious mandate. In this fusion of throne and altar, dissent became treason against both heaven and earth.

As medieval society matured, monarchy and church discovered how mutually profitable their alliance could be. Kings commanded armies but lacked legitimacy. Popes commanded souls but lacked enforcement. Their partnership solved both problems.

However, cooperation soon hardened into doctrine: God ruled through kings, and kings ruled through the church. To resist one was to resist both. Authority became holy, hierarchy unquestionable, and conscience had nowhere to hide.

By the thirteenth century, papal power reached its zenith. The Roman pontiff claimed to stand as the Vicar of the Almighty, supreme judge over kings and kingdoms. Monarchs eagerly embraced the belief that their crowns were bestowed not by the people but by God himself.

From this alliance emerged the political theology that would become the divine right of kings: kings ruled by divine appointment; their authority was absolute; and obedience was an act of faith. In such a world, faith became a tool of governance and governance a tool of faith. Rebellion was not merely a crime; it was a sin. A system forged in power became sanctified as divine will.

When Church and State Become One

The consequences of this alignment were profound. The church defined orthodoxy. The state enforced it. Together they regulated thought, prescribed worship, criminalized dissent, and subordinated conscience to authority.

Through this arrangement, the same forces that produced the Inquisition — fear of disorder, hunger for control, and the belief that unity required coercion — produced a political order in which kings wielded sacred power and the church wielded political power. The human soul was caught in the gears of both.

Heresy became anything outside the boundaries of acceptable belief. God grew abstract and distant. Free will yielded to ecclesiastical control. The seeds of theocracy were sown — and they dominated the Western world for centuries.

By defining heresy as anything outside of acceptable belief and behavior as determined by the church, the church would greatly limit the spiritual quest of ordinary people. To ensure conformance with an ever-changing orthodoxy, the state would become the arm of power. Warped by speculative thinking, God lost his corporeal form, and free will yielded to the iron yoke of man-made ecclesiasticism. Thus, were sown the seeds of theocracy–the combining of church and state, and the divine right of kings–both of which would be undone by the American Revolution and the subsequent events of the Restoration.

The Long Road to Liberty

Yet beneath this immense structure of power, discontent smoldered. Reformers challenged corruption. Philosophers challenged absolutism. Scientists challenged dogma. Ordinary believers challenged coercion.

Slowly, painfully, the conviction grew that when church and state become one, both faith and freedom are corrupted. This conviction crossed the Atlantic. The immigrants who carried the Bible into the New World also carried a longing for liberty. In a land unburdened by centuries of tradition, a new people dared to separate what Europe had fused.

They declared that governments derive their just powers not from divine right, but from the consent of the governed. They insisted that conscience belonged not to kings or popes, but to every human soul. They enshrined this principle in the First Amendment, ensuring that religious hierarchy and civil government would never again be bound together by law.

The American Founding did not merely reject a political doctrine. It overturned a millennium of assumptions about authority. It broke the chain that bound conscience to coercion — and in doing so, prepared the world for something far greater.

Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Discovery, Colonization, Independence, and Restoration

For centuries, the medieval church constrained the spiritual quest of ordinary people. Orthodoxy was enforced by the state. God was filtered through speculative theology. Human agency yielded to man‑made doctrine.

Had the divine right of kings endured, so too would the religious systems it empowered — systems that suppressed inquiry, punished dissent, and defined God through abstraction rather than revelation. But the Founders shattered that world. By opening a realm where conscience could breathe, they opened a realm where God could speak anew. Into that world stepped Joseph Smith Jr.

God Revealed Anew

Revealing a personal God, Joseph Smith declared that “if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form,” a God who feels sorrow, rejoices with gladness, weeps real tears, and has interest in all his children; a God whos majesty does not exist at the expense of the dignity of mankind. Having also declared that “the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s,” the Prophet was not only willing to defy conventional thinking by challenging the traditional definition of God–which is supported by neither scriptures nor logic–he was willing to advance a truth that would overrule philosophy, outrank science, and confront falsehood. With those words, he did more than challenge centuries of philosophical speculation. He restored a truth scripture had always whispered: man was created in the likeness and image of God.

As the Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith rose against the two great tyrannies that darken the mind of man: the tyranny of false doctrine and the tyranny of inherited tradition. Through inspired Founders, the Lord broke the political chains that bound a young nation; through the Restoration, he broke the spiritual chains that bound his children. Whenever God prepares to pour out greater light upon the earth, he first enlarges the freedom of his people, that they may receive truth with willing hearts.

A Divine Sequence

Seen together, the pattern becomes unmistakable: the divine right of kings fused church and state, suppressing conscience and revelation. The American Revolution shattered that union, creating a world where liberty could flourish. The Restoration entered that world revealing truths that could not have survived under the old order.

Political liberty cleared the path for religious liberty. The Founders built a nation ready to receive God’s prophets. And God, in his divine wisdom, prepared the world for the truths of the Restoration long before it came.

A New Principle is Born

When the American Founders declared independence, they rejected the entire medieval system in a single stroke: “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” No pope. No king. No divine right. Only conscience, reason, and the inherent dignity of the human soul.

The First Amendment completed the revolution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” For the first time in centuries, religious and secular power were separated — not to weaken faith and belief, but to protect them.

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