Other constitutions were inspired, too.
It's not just the United States. God has a hand in other countries, because we're all His children.
In 1850, the first Latter-day Saint missionaries arrived in Denmark. Erastus Snow and Peter O. Hansen baptized almost 2,000 converts in Denmark and surrounding areas, over the course of the next four years. It was, by all accounts, a successful mission.
One woman who joined the Church in that time was Dorthea Kirstine Mikkelsdatter. She was born in the small Danish town of Lihmskov, 255 kilometers west of Copenhagen. Dorthea was a deeply religious person, first dedicated to the Lutheran faith before she heard the message of the restored gospel. She and her husband, Mads, were baptized into the Church in January of 1852, likely in freezing cold Scandinavian waters.
The next year, they and their six children joined a group of Saints aboard the ship “Benjamin Adams,” sailed from Liverpool to New Orleans, and made it from there to Jackson County, Missouri. But while groups of handcart pioneers left for the west around them, Dorthea contracted cholera. She did not live to see the Salt Lake valley.
As her 4th great-grandson, I’m grateful for her spiritual leadership.
The part we don’t normally hear about stories like these is the political landscape. Erastus Snow and Peter O. Hansen were only able to proselytize in Denmark because the Danish king, King Frederik VII, had signed the Constitution of Denmark the previous year, which protected religious freedom for the Danish people. Elder Snow himself acknowledged that “probably an earlier mission to that country would have proved a failure,” because the political environment would not have allowed it. This constitution was a key piece in the conversion of many Danish Saints, many of whom emigrated andstrengthened the stakes forming in Utah and the western United States.
There’s no question in my mind that the Constitution of Denmark was divinely inspired.
We hear a lot about the U.S. Constitution in Latter-day Saint circles, including in our Sunday meetings and even in General Conference, which feels out of character for a global Church. What does this sound like to Saints in other countries? Does it mean their country is lesser in the eyes of God? Is the United States God’s chosen country? The answer, of course, is no—our Heavenly Parents do not play favorites. The U.S. Constitution’s divinely-inspired origin does not preclude other countries from having Providence play a role in their founding or their foundational documents.
Which is why I was delighted to see, in this month’s Liahona, the article titled “Our Inspired Constitutions.” Read that again—it’s plural. Constitutions. The article tells about the constitutions of Denmark, Mexico, and Cape Verde, and how the Lord’s hand can be seen in the creation of all of them. It’s a reminder that God loves all His children, no matter where they live.
We get hung up on America being “the Promised Land”—even though there are and have been many promised lands. It’s also true that many of the promises made in the Book of Mormon probably did not happen in areas that would become the United States.
There was a stretch of time in this dispensation when gathering in the United States, and in Utah, was the right thing for many Saints to do. By gathering together geographically, the Saints were able to strengthen each other. But that’s no longer the directive. Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught:
“[The] revealed words speak of … there being congregations of the covenant people of the Lord in every nation, speaking every tongue, and among every people when the Lord comes again. …
“The place of gathering for the Mexican Saints is in Mexico; the place of gathering for the Guatemalan Saints is in Guatemala; the place of gathering for the Brazilian Saints is in Brazil; and so it goes throughout the length and breadth of the whole earth. Japan is for the Japanese; Korea is for the Koreans; Australia is for the Australians; every nation is the gathering place for its own people.”
There’s no reason to believe one country, one language, or one culture to be superior to another. It doesn’t matter if you’re a patriot, an immigrant, or a refugee. It doesn’t matter if you proudly wave the flag, or if you have a complicated relationship with your country’s politics. The gospel of Jesus Christ has a place for you.
None of this detracts, at all, from the inspired nature of the Constitution of the United States. The Lord is clear in saying, “I established the Constitution of this land.” But if He loved us enough to plow a political path forward for religious freedom in the United States, it stands to reason that He would do it in other places, too.
I’m grateful that He did, and that my ancestor heard the gospel. Because the Lord inspired a constitution in a country 5,000 miles away and just larger than Maryland, generations have been a part of the Lord’s church—including me.