Gordon B. Hinckley Affirms God’s Hand In U.S. Founding

While serving a mission in Brazil, some people asked me why God chose to restore Christ’s true church in the United States. Trying to explain God’s motives is dangerous territory, his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not ours, but we know that he desires immortality and eternal life for all men.

One thing that I was able to explain, however, is that the United States was the first country that guaranteed a right to free exercise of religion in the modern world. The church couldn’t have been restored in the other nations of the world because the state was controlled by other churches already, who would have been against the Restoration and destroyed it in its infancy. A country that guaranteed the right to free religion and the seperation of church affairs from state affairs was absolutely necessary.

Thank you President Hinckley for all your years of church service and for clarifying God’s will on so many important issues for us today.