Post 14 A STORY IN WAITING

5 min.

Providential Orchestration and the American Founding

History as a Single, Unfolding Story

History is not a collection of disconnected ages. It is a collection of dispensations. It is a single, unfolding story — a long preparation for liberty, faith, and spiritual renewal. Rome built the framework. America inherited the promise. The Restoration fulfilled the purpose.

Rome gave the world something it had never seen before: a civilization built on law, citizenship, and ordered liberty. It taught that law must stand above rulers, rights must be protected, power must be restrained, and citizens must be virtuous. Rome’s republic was not perfect, but it was foundational. Its rise showed what builds a free society. Its fall showed what destroys one. And its legacy — its roads, its language, its legal order — prepared the world for a spiritual revolution that would reshape history.

Christianity: The Moral Revolution

Into the Roman world came a new message — not of conquest, but of redemption. The gospel spread on Roman roads, in Roman cities, under Roman law. The early Church preserved scripture, carried learning through the dark centuries, and helped shape the moral imagination of the West. Even in its later corruption and division, the church kept alive the memory of Christ, the dignity of the human soul, and the belief that truth matters. Providence used Rome to prepare the world for Christianity — and used Christianity to prepare the world for something more.

America: The Rebirth of Ordered Liberty

When the Founders gathered in Philadelphia, they drew from the deep wells of history: Hebraic wisdom, Greek philosophy, Christian moral order, Roman law and citizenship, British common law, Enlightenment arguments for natural rights and consent. They believed that liberty required virtue. They believed that rights came from God, not government. They believed that a republic must be built on law, not passion.

In other words, America was not an accident. It was the convergence of the Hebrew Law of the prophets, Greece’s reason, Jerusalem’s moral law, Rome’s order, and England’s constitutional tradition. What emerged was a nation prepared by centuries of struggle and thought. These are the fruits of Western civilization in all its complexity.

J. Reuben Clark—born in 1871 in Grantsville, Utah, rising from modest beginnings to become an eminent attorney, diplomat, and counselor in the highest governing body of the LDS Church—brought uncommon intellectual rigor and spiritual conviction to every sphere he touched. His career spanned the US State Department, where he drafted the landmark Clark Memorandum on the Monroe Doctrine, to the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he served under three presidents for seventeen consecutive years. His legal scholarship, diplomatic experience, and deep spiritual insight give extraordinary weight to his reflections on the American Founding.

Speaking of the Founders, Clark wrote:

“The framers were deeply read in the facts of history; they were learned in the forms and practices and systems of governments of the world, past and present; they were, in matters political, equally at home in Rome, in Athens, in Paris, and in London; they had a long, varied, and intense experience in the work of governing their various colonies.”

Clark’s tribute is not casual praise. It is the considered judgment of a man who understood government at the highest levels and who recognized, with spiritual clarity, the magnitude of what the Founders accomplished. He saw them as prepared—intellectually, morally, and providentially—for the task of establishing a system of ordered liberty. Their work did not emerge from impulse or upheaval but from disciplined study, lived experience, and devotion to principle.

Under a spiritual framework, Clark viewed the Founders as part of a long, divinely guided procession of prophets, poets, philosophers, theologians, scholars, reformers, and other inspired minds who prepared the world for the revolutionary idea of individual freedom. Their achievements were not isolated flashes of brilliance but the culmination of centuries of inspired effort to elevate humanity and restrain injustice.

Thus, the Declaration of Independence stands not as a spontaneous manifesto but as a prudent, proto‑constitutional document—rational in tone, grounded in history, and shaped by ideas refined over years. In Clark’s view, its deliberate character contrasts sharply with the radicalism of the French Revolution. The Declaration marked the beginning of a carefully constructed constitutional order, not the eruption of a momentary passion.

By placing the Founders within both historical and spiritual preparation, Clark honored them as men uniquely fitted for their divine assignment. And because he himself was a scholar, statesman, and spiritual leader of rare stature, his praise magnifies rather than merely echoes their greatness.

The Restoration: The Fulfillment of the Long Preparation

By the early 19th century, the world had finally reached a moment of literacy, preserved scripture, stable government, religious freedom, global communication, and moral expectation. The Restoration required all of these. And none of them would have existed without the long arc of Hebrew, Greek, Christian, Roman, and English influences.

The Restoration was not an isolated event. The Lord had been preparing for his latter-day work many years in advance. Over centuries, with meticulous preparation and precise timing, he created the conditions of freedom essential to the coming forth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was the culmination of a story that had been unfolding since antiquity.

The Thread That Connects Them All

Rome taught the world that law must govern power. Christianity taught the world that love must govern life. America taught the world that freedom must be grounded in virtue. The Restoration teaches the world that truth has not ceased. These are not separate stories. They are chapters of one divine narrative. A narrative that continues today.

We stand at the intersection of civilizations and centuries. We have inherited law, vision, order, and light. The question now is not whether God has prepared the world. He has. The question is whether we will live worthy of the world he prepared.

website: americasgranddesign.com

blog: americasgrand.design

Post 1 — The Purpose of the Series

Providential Orchestration and the American Founding

3 min.

The Hand of Providence in the Rise of Liberty

There are moments in history when the ordinary gives way to the extraordinary—when events align, ideas converge, and a people rise to meet a destiny larger than themselves. The American Founding was such a moment. It did not emerge from accident or convenience. It was the fruit of centuries of preparation, carried forward by individuals who believed that liberty was not merely a political preference but a divine stewardship.

This series begins with a simple conviction: history is guided. Not controlled, not coerced—but guided. Through cultures, through conscience, through the rise and fall of nations, God works patiently to prepare the world for greater light. The Founders sensed this. They spoke of Providence not as metaphor but as reality. They believed that the cause of liberty was bound to the purposes of heaven.

This series traces that preparation. It follows the long arc of ideas—Hebraic, Greek, Christian, Roman, and Anglo‑American—that shaped the Western mind and made the American experiment possible. It explores how moral law, reason, virtue, and ordered liberty converged at a precise moment in time to create a nation capable of defending human dignity.

And beneath it all runs a quieter truth: the need for the Restoration of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It emerged in a world prepared—intellectually, politically, spiritually—for the return of divine authority. This series will not force that connection, but it will honor it. As the narrative unfolds, the Restoration will appear naturally, as the horizon toward which history bends.

Why This Series Matters Now

We live in a moment when the foundations of freedom are questioned, forgotten, or dismissed. Many sense that something essential is slipping away. But the remedy is not despair—it is remembrance. A people who forget the truths that formed them begin to forget themselves.

This series is an invitation to remember.

To remember the ideas that shaped the American mind. To remember the sacrifices that secured liberty. To remember the divine influence that guided a nation into being. To remember that freedom is never self‑sustaining—it must be taught, cherished, and defended.

What This Series Will Explore

Over the coming posts, we will examine:

the nature of Providence in history.
the foundations of American freedom.
the necessity of order for liberty.
the Hebraic and Greek roots of Western civilization.
the Christian, Roman, and English contributions to law and government.
the rise of the American experiment.
the preparation of the world for the Restoration.

Each post builds on the last. Each reveals another layer of the story. Each points toward the truth that liberty is both a gift and a responsibility.

A Nation Prepared

America’s creation was not inevitable. It was prepared. Prepared by centuries of moral development. Prepared by the rise of reason and the refinement of law. Prepared by the courage of those who believed that human beings are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights.

The Founders saw this preparation. They felt it. They spoke of it. And they acted with the humility of men who believed they were instruments in a larger design.

This series seeks to recover that vision.

Transition to Post 2 — Providence in History

To understand the American Founding, we must first understand the pattern behind it. Before we explore the ideas that shaped the nation, we must consider the deeper question: How does God work in history? The Founders believed that Providence guided their cause. In Post 2, we will examine what they meant—and how that belief shaped the birth of a nation.

Waving the Flags of America and the Restoration

Post No. 1 Read Time: 7 minutes.

Painting and comments by Al Rounds: “I was going through all of the old photographs of downtown Salt Lake, and I came across one particular photograph of the Salt Lake Temple with an American flag that hung on the south side of the temple. There was no explanation on the photograph as to why the flag was there. Nor why the flag was seemingly backwards . . .

“The flag was hung in 1896 to celebrate Utah’s statehood, and it was not hung backwards as I had thought. There was just no protocol on how to hang the United States flag until after the turn of the century . . .

“I was very fortunate to interview a woman whose mother helped sew that very special American flag. She told me that the stripes were 6 feet tall and the stars were each about a foot tall. She also said the flag was sewn on only one side such that it could be hung in only the one direction. The flag hung on the temple for the entire year in ‘Celebration’ . . .

“Larry and Gail Miller purchased this painting because of their love of pioneer heritage. And they enjoyed telling the story of why the flag was hung seemingly backwards.”

The American Experiment is Foreordained

In a recent talk, Elder Gary Stevenson invited us, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to wave the flag of the Restoration. Because the events are so deeply and beautifully intertwined, I am setting out, as we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, to wave the flags of both America and the Restoration. To tell the story, I have developed a series of 120 posts, set to be released at a pace of two or three per week until July 2026.

These posts explore the backstory of mankind’s creation, God’s unfolding work on behalf of his children, the discovery of the Western Hemisphere, the founding of America, and many of the key events that followed, all under the dual themes of “History is Prophecy Unveiled” and “How and Why Judeo-Christian Influences Came to America.” The content is tailored to resonate with three specific audience groups.

Group one comprises those who share the view of America as a nation founded under divine guidance; a nation where wise men were raised up to establish a government to be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles. With its distinctive democracy and representative government, America serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration to the world.

Group two consists of those who generally hold a favorable view of America, believing that Providence may have played a role in its founding, but often lack strong spiritual or patriotic sentiments. They see the colonists as motivated primarily by economic opportunities rather than religious or spiritual influences. Many are easily convinced that America’s founding was rooted in greed, conquest, and mistreatment of others, at times making its legitimacy questionable in their eyes.

Group three consists of deceiving intellectuals and sophists. Openly hostile to America, they comprise a disparate group of individuals who write history and commentary, serve in politics and leadership, and advocate from positions of trust in academia, media, entertainment, and think tanks that there was nothing foreordained about the American experiment. To this group, American history was not an inevitable chain of events leading to a sure conclusion, rather it was a movement founded on selfishness and greed. Individually and collectively, they dismiss the Declaration of Independence, consider the Constitution outdated, and pursue a strategy of tearing down the structure of democratic capitalism and representative government, with a twisted desire to rebuild it based on Marxist ideology.

Based on my experience, people are generally engaged in attempts to persuade others through conversations, actions, and the written word. As a missionary for my Church, I aim for my research and writing to address questions, to spark interest, and introduce ideas that may have been dismissed or never considered.

History provides a wider view of life, acting as a source of inspiration and resilience. The story of America defines us as individuals and as a nation, offering plenty to be proud of. Core values like liberty, justice, and personal responsibility play a vital role. Much like music, poetry, and art, history expands the mind and opens the heart to new possibilities.

I want people to understand how members of the LDS faith view life before birth, the purposes of mortality, and life after death; to explore how and why our perspective on the Trinity differs from the biblical view as interpreted by traditional Christianity; to gain insight into how we balance faith, works, and grace; to consider our approach to personal prayer, institutional revelation, and our willingness to follow modern day apostles and prophets; and to reflect on how we see the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I also want the general populace to understand our unique beliefs on the fulfillment of prophecy and how and why America was founded in keeping with God’s grand design.

When looking at history, it is important to remember the respect owed to those who laid the foundation of Western civilization and America’s creation. Together, we stand on the shoulders of Hebrew prophets, the sages of Greece and Rome, the Founders, philosophers, and religious leaders of far-reaching civilizations, and the multitude of key figures of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. Culminating with the vision and work of the Founding Fathers and those who continued their efforts, we are the beneficiaries of those who have gone before. The evidence is compelling that the American experiment unfolded by Intelligent Design. At the very least, let’s resist and stop the mindless destruction of Western civilization and the American nation.

SUMMARY

Big Idea

America’s founding and history are not accidental but are guided by a divine plan, particularly as understood within the context of the LDS faith. The narrative aims to highlight how America’s origins and development are deeply intertwined with spiritual principles and why understanding this perspective matters in current discussions about the nation’s identity and values.

Key Points

Series Purpose: A collection of 120 posts is being launched in celebration of America’s 250th birthday, focusing on the discovery, founding, and significant historical moments of the nation, especially through the lens of Christianity’s arrival in America.

Audience Groups:

Group one: Believes that America was divinely inspired and founded on holy principles.

Group two: Generally positive about America but views its founding as more pragmatic and less providential.

Group three: Hostile toward America’s founding, seeing it as selfish and illegitimate, and advocating for fundamental changes to its governance.

Purpose of Writing: To offer historical context, inspire thought, and share the LDS perspective on faith, America’s founding, and related theological principles.

Importance of History: History is presented as a source of inspiration and identity, shaping individuals and the nation while promoting values like liberty, justice, and responsibility.

LDS Beliefs Highlighted: The text seeks to explain LDS views on the nature and character of God, mankind’s pre-mortal existence, the roles of noble and great souls in advancing God’s work on Earth, the vital importance of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice, the divine role in America’s creation, and its aftermath.

Call to Respect Foundations: Emphasizes honoring the figures, philosophies, and events that contributed to the founding of Western civilization, America’s formation, and the spread of truth; further arguing that these events are a product of Intelligent Design rather than random chance.