Why I wouldn’t have a Heavenly Mother even if such a person existed

Given that there is going to be a discussion at Feminist Mormon Housewives on the firstWomen & Authority chapter on Heavenly Mother1 sometime in the near future, I think it’s high time I explained why this doctrine just doesn’t appeal to me the way it does to most Mormon feminists. I do have personal feelings about this, because LDS friends and missionaries have made personal appeals to me on this matter and I once went through my own struggle on the question of whether there is any sort of “divine feminine,” so I’m going to be very frank with my feelings on this question. If the notion of a Heavenly Mother is very near and dear to you, you may not want to read this post.
Let’s go over what LDS leaders have actually revealed to us about Heavenly Mother. Enough prophets, apostles and seventies have referred to the existence of at least one Heavenly Mother to the extent that most Mormons would consider the idea “doctrinal” (whatever that means). However, there are no definitive references to her in the LDS canon.2 Non-canonical but fairly official sources include the hymn “O My Father” and a reference to “heavenly parents” in the Family Proclamation, neither of which tells us very much about her other than that she exists.
LDS leaders have not revealed her name, nor have they revealed whether or not she has a body, nor have they revealed whether there is just one Heavenly Mother or many.3 As late as 1976, official Church lesson materials were still implying that there could be more than one Heavenly Mother.4 LDS church members are not to pray to her or worship her and may be disciplined by the Church for doing so.
The baptismal interview questions ask the interviewee to affirm his or her knowledge of and belief in God the Father. Same thing for the temple recommend interview. Nothing is said about Heavenly Mother in either case, which brings us to an alarming disparity: knowledge of God the Father is essential for salvation and exaltation, while knowledge of God the Mother is optional.
Finally, we have no communications in the form of official revelation from the person of Heavenly Mother. Many Latter-day Saints believe that Genesis 1:26-27 implies that Heavenly Mother was directly involved in the act of creating the world and the human race, but she is distinctly absent from the parallel creation narrative in the Endowment drama. LDS leaders have not revealed whether she had any role in creating the world (other than some vague and not-so-vague, cringe-inducing teachings on how exalted women are necessary for the birthing of spirit children), whether she played any part in bringing about the Incarnation and the Atonement, or how she interacts with her children today. As far as I can tell, the answer is, “She didn’t and she doesn’t.”
Some have tried to rescue Heavenly Mother from an assessment of silence and absenteeism by arguing for a divine androgyny model wherein any reference to “God the Father” really means “God the Father + God the Mother.” Whatever God the Father is doing, God the Mother does also. Prayers to God the Father are, in fact, equally directed at and answered by God the Mother. However, I believe this model is contradicted by the First Vision, the Endowment drama, and D&C 130:22, as well as any number of LDS statements which teach that the Godhead consists of three persons, not four.
Others have suggested that references to the Holy Spirit as male are in error and that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, God the Mother. This theory would have the most appeal to me if I were a Latter-day Saint, and it probably comes closest to solving the problems I listed above. It gives Heavenly Mother a distinct role in the Godhead and creation, it makes her an active and nurturing presence in the lives of her children, and it even gives her a speaking part in the canon (for example, Acts 13:2). However, the Bible uses distinctly masculine pronouns to refer to the Spirit, and LDS leaders have consistently taught that the Spirit is male. One essay inWomen & Authority recalls the story of a woman who, after asking Bruce R. McConkie whether or not the Holy Spirit might be Heavenly Mother, was told, “Go home and get down on your knees and ask God to forgive you. And if you never sin again the rest of your life, maybe he will forgive you.” Some also reject this possibility because they see it as a necessity that Heavenly Mother has a body.
So, what does the Church teach about Heavenly Mother? (1) She exists (2) She does not communicate with her children, and (3) She does not accept communications from her children. We have a word for parents who behave like that towards their children in mortality. They’re called deadbeats.
Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame was born to parents Rosellen Greenfield and Arthur Gellar in 1977. In 1984, her parents divorced and she was estranged from her father from that point onward, with her father passing away in 2001. In 2000, Gellar told TV Guide, “Just because you donate sperm does not make you a father. I don’t have a father. I would never give him the credit or acknowledge him as my father.”
I don’t know enough about Gellar’s personal story to know if she was being fair to her biological dad, but I have to agree with her in principle. It takes more than mere donation of gametes to make someone a mother or father. It takes love, warmth, communication, guidance, and personal interaction with one’s children. Some people miss out on being there for their children for reasons that they truly cannot help (military service, premature death, etc.), but an all-powerful female deity whose male counterpart freely interacts with the children has little excuse.
Or in other words, just because you donate spirit tabernacles does not make you a mother.
If you’re about to say that maybe there is a really good reason why Heavenly Mother keeps herself in the shadows and does not communicate with her children, my response to you is: please find it.
An Addendum: Are There Any Solutions?
I sent a draft of this post to some friends for feedback before posting it, and I’m adding these thoughts on their recommendation.
Elsewhere I have blogged a bit about my own feelings on God and gender. To summarize, I don’t believe that any member of the Godhead is exclusively masculine or male in respect to divine nature; I believe that God transcends and includes both genders. This Rob Bell trailer actually explains my feelings pretty well (though he botches his Hebrew a bit with a root fallacy):
If you’re asking what I think about Jesus Christ, I agree that the Second Person of the Trinity incarnated as a male human being, but I see that as a characteristic of Jesus’ humanness. I don’t feel alienated or excluded due to the fact that Jesus was male and I’m female any more than I do because Jesus was Jewish and I’m a pasty-pale Caucasian person, or because Jesus was born in Palestine in the first century and I was born in Arkansas in the twentieth century. Those are all characteristics of a human nature. I have many more thoughts on Jesus and gender, complete with the early Christian identification of Jesus as the female Sophia(Wisdom), but I’m writing a systematic theology paper on the subject that’s due next week and I’ll probably post about it then.
All that said, I realize that an androgynous God and Christ isn’t all that appealing to a lot of Latter-day Saints. If I were LDS and absolutely believed in a Heavenly Mother, I would probably believe that the Holy Spirit was Heavenly Mother. It’s the least problematic solution, and the fact that the Holy Spirit is the least developed person of the Godhead in Mormon theology leaves a good opening there. I wouldn’t advocate praying to the Holy Spirit (evangelicals have mixed feelings on that issue), but I don’t see anything wrong with altering your prayer formula to say, “We pray for these things by the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name, Amen.” You could even get away with doing that when offering public prayers and no one would know that you’re involving Heavenly Mother in your prayers except you.
Notes
[1] I have chosen to capitalize references to “Heavenly Mother” and “God the Mother” in this post out of respect for the beliefs of my LDS friends.
[2] Kevin L. Barney and Daniel C. Peterson have published articles arguing that the “Asherah” of the Old Testament could be Heavenly Mother and that Heavenly Mother was indirectly referenced by Nephi in the Book of Mormon. If they were correct, this would negate my complaints about lack of mention of Heavenly Mother in the canon; however, LDS leaders have not commented on their theories. See: Kevin L. Barney, “How to Worship Our Mother in Heaven (Without Getting Excommunicated),” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 41.4 (Winter 2008): 121-46; Daniel C. Peterson, “Nephi and His Asherah,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9.2 (2000): 16-25. Peterson’s essay was originally published in a much longer form in Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson edited by Davis Bitton (1998), available online here.
[3] Again, Peterson and Barney posit that her name is Asherah, but church leaders have not commented on this theory.
[4] Book of Mormon Student Manual, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System, 1976), 1:218; as cited by Linda P. Wilcox, “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven,” inWomen and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism edited by Maxine Hanks (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 11-12.

Comments

Why I wouldn’t have a Heavenly Mother even if such a person existed— 51 Comments

  2. Uhh, McConkie is a bit of an ass from time to time. I wouldn’t go basing your faith or lack thereof on him, if you can help it.
  3. “Oh what songs of the heart” is another hymn which refers to “heavenly parents.”
    Oh, what songs we’ll employ!
    Oh, what welcome we’ll hear!
    When we kneel at our dear Savior’s feet.
    And the heart swells with joy
    In embraces most dear
    When our heavenly parents we meet!
    Thanks for the post, Jack. It’s good for us LDSs to understand the implications of our beliefs. I’ve often had the same questions about Heavenly Mother.
  4. Agree with number two, though I might say “opinionated” or “hotheaded” rather than ass. Also, there are a lot of stories floating around about what General Authorities supposedly said, and I don’t trust most of them.
    Jack, you’ve pretty much articulated why I don’t believe we have a Heavenly Mother. I don’t buy the “God doesn’t want Her to be abused like He is” explanation. Seriously, this woman would have the power to blow up planets. She would be a mature being just like God. If male God can take the abuse, I think female God could as well, unless women really are weak and subordinate, and not the equal partners God has led me to believe they are. While I’m open to further correction, the way I see things now, Heavenly Mother just doesn’t fit. I wouldn’t be surprised if the teaching disappears over the next few decades.
  5. Perhaps it will surprise you that I agree that there is a published and acknowledged LDS Church doctrine regarding “Heavenly Mother”, after all the objections I’ve raised about other putative or implied doctrines, elsewhere.
    It wouldn’t be in the highly-correlated hymnbook or the Proclamation on the Family without that being true.
    Would you agree that this following restatement is accurate with respect to the published doctrine? “LDS Scripture implies the existence of Heavenly Mother. No other information is available from LDS canon, and no speculation about this implication is a doctrine of the Church.”
    If you do, (and here’s where I risk my straw man, so correct me if I’m wrong about that), then I have a few issues to raise.
    First, I know of no one who is holding inquisitions if a Mormon is praying to Heavenly Mother, only if they’re telling others that they do and that it’s OK to do it AND they’re in a position of implicit teaching authority, such as a BYU professor’s post or a publishing scholar’s book discussing Church doctrines.
    I know of at least one anecdotal case where an LDS woman’s daughters did oblations to “the Goddess” with her open consent and at least implicit encouragement, without her losing her standing in the Church.
    And now that I want to recall it, I can’t remember whether any specific general policy statements have ever gone out. I could be completely wrong about this.
    Second, I take issue with the induction that because the doctrine is scant, and no direct role is acknowledged for Her, Heavenly Mother is a deadbeat. With nothing known about the divine role of a Heavenly Mother, nothing can be said about her apparent silence.
    For a counterargument, (pure speculation) consider this: If She exists, and is a goddess, presumably on precisely equal footing with God the Father, then She sent Her Son just as much as He did, and gave that Son all power in heaven and earth to do Her will, which is the same as His will. That’s not the act of a deadbeat.
    Third, your McConkie account is had second-hand (the cite is third hand and polemic, but I chased the original Dialogue article by Lavina Anderson), but looks like solid scholarship. If he did it, he was being a jerk, and I won’t apologize for him. I can’t say if he did, but I hope he regretted it years later and sought his own forgiveness.
  6. Re: no overt mentions of mulitple Heavenly Mothers since the seventies — I do find it interesting that the temple marriage ceremony and the Proclamation on the Family are very carefully worded so that polygamy is not disallowed, and the number of spouses that God has cannot be nailed down.
    A question for Rob: You say that there are no inquisitions punishing those who worship a Heavenly Mother unless they go public about it. Leaders aren’t allowed to discuss it, and if they do they are denounced as heretical. Isn’t that a de facto ban on discussion or worship of such a person? I was at BYU when the professor in question was kicked out of her job for publicly speaking out on the issue. The chilling effect on discussion was intense.
    The lack of resolution of this problem seems to create a lot of confusion and bad blood between disagreeing parties. Women, from what I can tell, don’t become goddesses in LDS theology. They are “queens and priestesses” to their husbands, who are deified in the afterlife. In the temple there is no goddess helping Elohim create worlds, and Eve’s job is to follow Adam around without saying a word after she’s triggered the Fall. If we use this to infer the role of Heavenly Mother(s), then this would explain why these women are not goddesses and Mormons are not encouraged to worship or speak to them.
  7. If you use the wording of the Temple ceremony to infer that women don’t become goddesses, you must infer that men don’t either. Godhood isn’t mentioned for anyone. The wording of the Temple ceremony has changed throughout time–women weren’t even allowed to receive Endowments originally–and I don’t think it can be used literally to tell us how the world was created or what my relationship to my husband should be. I might not believe in a Heavenly Mother, but I don’t think that lack precludes my being exalted in the same way as my husband, whatever that entails.
  8. arguing for a divine androgyny model wherein any reference to “God the Father” really means “God the Father + God the Mother.”
    This is my preference based upon our usage of names as titles from time to time, for example God refers to Adam and Eve together as “Adam” which translates to “mankind” in the creation narratives () in addition to the example of Eloheim that you have already pointed out. I am not really bothered by Her presence being only implied in the scriptures and the temple for some reason. Probably because I am a dude.
  9. Women, from what I can tell, don’t become goddesses in LDS theology.
    This is an idea I am starting to hear more and more and I think it is absolutely indefensible, especially based on the logic in the rest of this comment. Post-The Fall Eve is subjugated, therefore, women are not exalted. Seriously, what?
  10. Oh, so many thoughts…
    First, maybe She is off working and left HF at home to watch after the children. He’s pretty resentful about the whole arrangement (what about His needs and His wants?), so He is making it up to the guys down here with the whole ‘men preside and women stay home’ thing. (Which would imply He really does feel our pain at being marginalized…) And we aren’t allowed to contact Her so she doesn’t find out the trouble he’s causing.
    Second: “Or in other words, just because you donate spirit tabernacles does not make you a mother.” Um, yikes. People really think that? That there’s a HM (or multiple HMs) just for spitting out little spirit babies? If that’s the way it is, I don’t want to be in the CK, thankyouverymuch.
    Third to Rob: there has been an official statement from GBH saying that we are not to pray to HM: “Logic and reason would certainly suggest that if we have a Father in Heaven, we have a Mother in Heaven. That doctrine rests well with me. However, in light of the instruction we have received from the Lord Himself, I regard it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven” (Gordon Hinckley, “Daughters of God,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 1991, p.100. See also The Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p.257 [which came out when he was president])
  11. I don’t think there’s much solid basis for the idea that women in the Celestial Kingdom have pregnancies and vaginal deliveries of billions of spirit kids after having endless “Celestial sex.”
    The whole idea is rather ridiculous (how do you physically “birth” an intangible spirit anyway?), and flies in the face of statements from Joseph Smith that spirits are eternal. I think the parent-child relationship between us and Heavenly Parents is one of adoption. Free and loving consent.
    As for why Heavenly Mother isn’t in the scriptures – I’d wager it’s one of those “precious things” removed.
    As for why she’s not taught in the LDS Church – probably because no one wants to have to deal with her. The membership aren’t exactly clamoring for further light and knowledge on the topic, and I see zero interest in pursuing the subject from LDS leadership.
    Ask and ye shall receive.
    Go hide under a rock, and God may just oblige to leave you there.
  12. #5 Rob ~ When religious practices are forbidden from public worship, they’re forbidden in private as far as I’m concerned. That the LDS church will tolerate prayers to and worship of Heavenly Mother just so long as you keep your mouth shut about it is a pretty crappy consolation prize.
    As for my assessment of Heavenly Mother as a potential deadbeat, in this case I’m perfectly fine with taking absence of evidence as evidence of absence. The LDS leaders or Heavenly Mother herself are free to show me otherwise at their leisure.
    If She exists, and is a goddess, presumably on precisely equal footing with God the Father, then She sent Her Son just as much as He did, and gave that Son all power in heaven and earth to do Her will, which is the same as His will.
    How are we inferring that she has the same will as the Father? Jesus and the Father are said to be one, but they’re able to have different wills (Matthew 26:39). For all we know, she totally hated the Atonement idea and wanted to try something else.
    Finally, I was open about the source of my BRM account so that people could take it with as much salt as they choose. I agree that it’s got a spotty provenance, but it sure does sound like something BRM would say.
    #6, 7, 9 Molly, ifrit, Mephibosheth ~ I think it’s the subordination of women to their husbands in the temple liturgy and the historical recaps of the Second Anointing along with Heavenly Mother’s muted, uncertain role that leads people to conclude that exalted women won’t truly be goddesses. Maybe someday I’ll blog about it in more detail, but it’s really not the subject of this post.
    #10 & #11 Nicole & Seth ~ My sentence about donating spirit tabernacles wasn’t meant to imply a vaginal spirit birth, and I really can’t help it that Mormons have been all over the map on that issue. I was trying to word that in an open-ended fashion, but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job.
    #11 Seth ~ It’s fair enough in the LDS paradigm that Heavenly Mother could be one of the “plain and precious things” removed from the Bible, but I think your explanations for her absence from LDS teachings are weak. Since when was revelation from God decided by the popular vote of the LDS membership?
    Besides that, the fact is, members were trying to pray to and reach out to Heavenly Mother in the post-ERA 80s and early 90s. The leadership knew about the movement, and they stepped on it. You just can’t lay this one at the feet of the members; it’s the leaders who are saying “no” to a more central role for Heavenly Mother.
  13. I already fingered the LDS leadership on this one. I’m willing to accept the “Boyd K. Packer killed it” explanation – if that is what in fact happened.
    I think my experience of the scriptures is that God does often wait for the people to initiate the relationship and will not force it on them. I also think that God allows the errors of a few to negatively impact the many (we have many examples of this).
    Short of it is that I don’t think it’s God withholding here. I chalk it up to the human side of the equation – somewhere.
  14. So, is it fair to say that people (Mormon leaders and membership included) haven’t stopped removing plain and precious things from the gospel today?
  16. Jack, I understood the whole donating spirit tabernacles thing wasn’t your idea and isn’t official. I guess I just find it odd (and sort of insulting) that other people think that’s why She’s there – and that maybe it’s only reason She’s there.
  17. @Nicole, thanks for the quote.
    @Seth, BKP takes a lot of heat from academicians, but Nicole’s quote comes from a talk wherein GBH asserts the same thing. If BKP is in the mix, so are all of the Twelve.
    @Jack — How are we inferring that she has the same will as the Father?
    The inference stems from the analogy of a perfect human marriage, which is impossible unless the partners in that marriage want the same things. Among many other things, my wife and I want our children not to die before we do or suffer as orphans in their childhood. In that respect, her will is the same as mine. By that analogy, no less invalid than yours, A divine HM would certainly want the same things as a divine HF would, based on that. Ergo, She sent Her Son, and She let HF get it done.
    So, why not, if we’re arguing from an absence of evidence, and basing our reasoning on a projection of mortal characteristics to immortal beings?
  18. Jack, your description of Heavenly Mother as an absentee parent if she exists at all is only with reference to theology and scripture. That doesn’t make her absentee; it just means that the people writing, canonizing and maintaining the scriptures are not interested in her. The fact that she has no place in some human’s invented theology doesn’t mean she’s not there.
    I have definitely known the powerful presence of the divine feminine. Don’t say its not there just because you haven’t really gone looking. I may be wrong, but from how you have described it here, the implication is that your fruitless search for the divine feminine was largely a theoretical one.
  19. I agree that it can’t be just BKP who is suppressing Heavenly Mother all by his lonesome. We can gnash our teeth at BKP for the more uproarious things he says and does all we want, but the fact is, it’s not like he says and does them in a vacuum where the other LDS leaders are constantly embarrassed and chagrined by him. They’d reign him in if they wanted to, but they don’t.
    The inference stems from the analogy of a perfect human marriage, which is impossible unless the partners in that marriage want the same things.
    I don’t agree with this.
  20. Kullervo, my post is mainly about what the LDS church teaches concerning a divine feminine, and I’m calling Heavenly Mother an absentee parent based solely on those teachings.
    What is it that you think a person must do to experience this divine feminine that you’ve experienced?
  21. Oh, and with respect to the BRM quote, it actually sounds a lot like him from the early 60′s, so I don’t doubt it. I hope that came across.
    @Molly — Of course it’s a ban on worship, that much has been explicitly stated. And it’s also a de-facto ban on academic discussion in Church-sponsored places like BYU. So, discuss it elsewhere outside that imprimatur, as we’re doing here.
  22. What is it that you think a person must do to experience this divine feminine that you’ve experienced?
    I believe that we can experience the divine, but I disbelieve that we have control over when and how we experience it. I think that teaching god-on-demand leads to an inevitable lowering of the bar of what counts as experiencing god until it is basically indistinguishable from experiencing anything else, and only god by semantic exercise.
    I think that divinity can and does reveal itself to us, but I have absolutely no clue as to what makes it happen. Take shrooms, maybe?
  23. I just mentioned BKP because he’s the popular whipping boy on the Internet. I agree with others that he can’t be the only one with this stance.
  24. I’m surprised nobody has surmised another possibility.
    Just, totally theoretically, what if:
    Worlds aren’t created by couples, but everybody gets a world. And while we are spirit children of a couple, we are primarily HF’s children. We don’t know how spirit children are created; maybe it doesn’t take two parents or anything like that, and we are actually just HF’s. Or something along those lines. However, as HF’s wife, it would seem natural to us (especially to people in the early church days), that the wife would be the mother.
    HM might have her own worlds with her own children. Or some other business that she goes about that isn’t relevant to our lives. She has her own job, for lack of a better term.
    To relate it to human terms, let’s say Kullervo became a partner at a law firm and had a bunch of junior associates working for him. In terms of their job, he would/could be considered like a father figure, guiding them along the path of lawyerliness.
    For them to look up to me–a CPA whose knowledge of the law comes mostly from John Grisham novels–or ask me questions about the law would be weird and inappropriate. However, I am still Kullervo’s wife. My role is just different.
    Just sayin’–it might be a more egalitarian system than we realize, because we don’t know what the structure of relationships in the afterlife is–not really. And we don’t know what else is going on besides our world.
    So, I think that it could be considered that HM is just auditing the CK equivalent of Fannie Mae. (You know, like I was.)
    Or, actually I don’t know what I think about it at all because I haven’t thought that hard about it. But it’s
  25. I guess to the end that I just said, that falls into the ‘she’s not my Heavenly Mother if she’s not present for me’ category. However, it doesn’t mean that she might not take special interest in people if the situation arose or be quite fond of us. She just might not be the right person to direct our worship at, because her job might fall under a different category.
  26. I don’t agree with this.
    That’s self-evident, and it’s perfectly fine with me. And as we can see by Katy’s stuff, the theories you can spin from what little Mormons are actually compelled to accept by virtue of their Church membership are getting numerous, and all on an equal footing. That’s the fun of arguments from silence.
  27. I enjoyed reading your perspective on this issue.
    It’s true that in a couple of places John seems to use masculine pronouns to refer to the Holy Spirit. This seems significant, since Holy Spirit is neuter in Greek. But to me that’s not definitive, because ultimately the antecedent is paraklEtos (KJV “Comforter”), which is masculine. If paraklEtos were a unique coinage, that might be meaningful, but the masculine form preexisted John’s usage. So, although John seems to conceive the Holy Spirit as in some sense masculine (as do I, for that matter), that’s not a slam dunk case. If someone wants to see the Holy Spirit as feminine instead, I don’t think John’s usage would be an insuperable obstacle.
    On the Mother figure not showing herself, I see that the same way I see the lack of women holding the priesthood: it’s simply a reflection of human religious culture, which equates divinity with maleness.
  28. I once heard an idea in one LDS discussion that God the Father is basically the Executive to an equally powerful Legislature of Heavenly Mothers. Basically, he carries out the edicts made by his wives.
    Fun, fun, fun.
  29. KatyJane ~ That actually sounds a bit like the answer that my husband half-jokingly gave this morning: “I think Heavenly Mother is running her own universe, where women hold the priesthood and the Godhead consists of Mother, Daughter and a (female) Holy Spirit, and that she has a friendly competition going with her husband to see who has the best universe.” My reply: “Can I go to that universe?”
    Kevin Barney ~ It’s true that in a couple of places John seems to use masculine pronouns to refer to the Holy Spirit. This seems significant, since Holy Spirit is neuter in Greek. But to me that’s not definitive, because ultimately the antecedent is paraklEtos (KJV “Comforter”), which is masculine. If paraklEtos were a unique coinage, that might be meaningful, but the masculine form preexisted John’s usage. So, although John seems to conceive the Holy Spirit as in some sense masculine (as do I, for that matter), that’s not a slam dunk case. If someone wants to see the Holy Spirit as feminine instead, I don’t think John’s usage would be an insuperable obstacle.
    Oh. My. Gosh. That is brilliant. Why did I never think of that before?
    This is why I love you.
  30. First, in regards to the Holy Ghost, we have a personal appearance of him found in 1 Nephi 11:11. Nephi describes him as he looks upon him and states that he is a man.
    In regards to our Heavenly Mother we know from the doctrines of the restoration that no man is exalted who is not married. Those who enter into the Celestial Kingdom do so arm in arm with their eternal companion at their side. This doctrine is taught in D&C 132 19-20 Notice how many times in that scripture it uses the word “they”.
    Note also the doctrine taught in D&C 130:2. “That same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy. The familial bonds known to us on earth are but an extension of the heavenly order of things. All that takes place on earth that is right – that is good and proper – is patterned after the order of heaven and will be known to and enjoyed by all who obtain an eternal inheritance there.
    In the words of the apostle Paul: “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole human family in heaven and earth is named”.(Ephesians 3:14-15) The pattern our Father in Heaven has chosen for us to folow as we work out our salvation is to take upon us his name through baptism. As we honor that name and adhere ourselves to this family identity we become aquainted with the society of heaven. We learn what it is to be a Father and a Mother, and we relearn the society we once knew in our pre-mortal state.
    In truth we only know the Father through the namesake he sent to us, His Son Jesus Christ. It was Christ who spoke to Abraham, and Moses. The Father appears only briefly, even to Jospeh Smith He shows Himself only long enough to state that the Savior is His Son. We should not be suprised that our Heavenly Mother will wait to see us again until our work here is done.
  31. You can believe all that if you want, Mike.
    As for me, if the grand celestial order of the universe really is a massive patriarchy where the men are in charge of everything while the women wait quietly in the shadows, I’ll gladly go to hell.
    Thank you for pointing out 1 Nephi 11:11 though. I wasn’t aware of that reference.
  33. Bruce R. McConkie actually backs me up here.
    “Mormon Doctrine” – under the entry “Spirit of the Lord”, McConkie states that the term may refer to:
    1. the spirit body of Christ
    2. the “light of Christ” – meaning the ability that all of us derive from Christ which enables us to recognize truth
    3. a synonym for the Holy Ghost
    He states that it is sometimes hard to know which one is meant. Sometimes, it is plain enough – such as in the instance of the Spirit personage who appeared to the Brother of Jared in Ether 3 – since he identifies himself as Jesus.
    But here’s the money-quote:
    “But when we read the account of the appearance of “the Spirit of the Lord” to Nephi (1 Ne. 11), we are left to our own interpretive powers to determine whether the messenger is the Spirit Christ or the Holy Ghost. Presumptively it is the Spirit Christ ministering to Nephi much as he did to the Brother of Jared, for such is in keeping with the principle of advocacy, intercession, and mediation, the principle that all personal appearances of Deity to man since the Fall of Adam, excepting appearances of the Father and the Son together, have been appearances of Christ.”
    (McConkie, “Mormon Doctrine” pp. 752)
  34. Jack, great post! If I wasn’t LDS, I think I would probably fall under the “God ascends gender” camp, too.
    Although, I do like the idea of HF and HM having competing universes to see who gets the most kids back. I wonder if Her kids miss out on having a dad, or if She is more forthcoming with information about Him :)
  35. I am more comfortable with a notion of a division of labour of mutual children than I am with the idea of competing universes.
    The LDS scriptures teach that there are inhabitants of many worlds. The worlds are populated by the children of the heavenly parents. I think I can envision a reality in which Heavenly Father has stewardship over those sent to Earth, Heavenly Mother has stewardship over those sent to Vega. They talk each night about the crazy things the kids are doing.
    In reality, though, I just don’t give much thought to the subject. Maybe this makes me a terrible person. I don’t know. I have enough trouble trying to get through each day without trying to figure out the inner workings of the entire universe.
  36. Jack,
    Another source of a belief in Heavenly Mother is deduced from the King Follet discourse, taking into account the separately advanced concept that one must be sealed in the temple in order to attain exaltation.
    a) in the King Follet discouse (which is not official doctrine), JS said that humans progress and become gods as Elohim did, and as an infinity of generations of gods before him did.
    b) and in order for men and women to be exalted, they must be eternally sealed as man and wife, and be exalted together.
    In other words, if Molly Mormons become the wife half of a god-pair, and if we humans become gods and have spirit children in the same manner that Heavenly Father did, then that implies Heavenly Father was eternally sealed to someone of His generation.
  37. Seth: “I once heard an idea in one LDS discussion that God the Father is basically the Executive to an equally powerful Legislature of Heavenly Mothers. Basically, he carries out the edicts made by his wives.”
    That was something I put forth a while back. Though I did not use the Executive/Legistlature analogy. I thought maybe it’s a committee and Heavenly Father is working off a list of honey-dos.
    Or, as that1girl implied in comment #10, HF and Jesus took the kids out camping in mortality and are going to bring back the worthy ones.
    I’ve also read speculation that the Holy Ghost could be female, and still not be Heavenly Mother. So I agree with Keven in that regard. I read somewhere, by a modern member of the 1st presidency I believe, that the Holy Ghost will finally receive a body towards the end of the Millennium. That implies to me that the Holy Ghost may be a spirit child of Heavenly Father.
    The scriptural and prophetic silence about who the Holy Ghost is (we’re told only the HG’s purposes/mission) is reminiscent of the silence about Heavenly Mother. That, and the occasional scriptural reference to the Holy Ghost as “it” instead of “he”, also creates the impression that the Holy Ghost might be female. (Not that “it” is ever intended as a denigration, but perhaps as an avoidance of “he”.)
    If the Holy Ghost is to receive a body before the end of the Millenium, that implies he (she?) is a son (daughter?) of Heavenly Father who attained unto god-hood in the pre-mortal existence as did Jesus/Jehovah. And, if a male spirit child of Heavenly Father could attain unto god-hood in the pre-mortal existence (Jesus), why not a female spirit child?
    And if Jesus is our spirit brother, why couldn’t the Holy Ghost also be our spirit sibling?
  38. I know I’m late coming in Jack, but you’ve given me some serious things to think about. Your takes makes a lot of sense to me- both logically and emotionally. I don’t have anything of depth or substance to add, but just wanted to thank you for your thoughtfully written musings.
  39. As far as I can recall you’ve never talked of Catholicism (or Orthodoxy) on this site, but I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the role of the Virgin Mary/Theotokos in the early church, and why she plays so little role in Protestantism in general and Evangelical Protestantism in particular, beyond just a generalized rejection of anything which was seen as too ‘papist’. Do you think her lack of visibility in Evangelical churches is unfortunate or should change?
  40. I appreciate your thoughts Jack.
    I’ve have always had a problem with the concept of a Heavenly Mother for two reasons:
    1. One has to employ the Mormon art of assumption to reach Her- which I dislike/hate. For example: “We need to be married to become like God – so God must be married”. The canon is what I look to and Heavenly Mother is not in there (sorry to disappoint all you “Family Proc = modern scripture” folks). At least not explicitly
    I admit that Genesis 1:27 NRSV is compelling (“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”) But that still leaves a lot of blanks to fill in. I think the Peterson/Barney attempts to uncover Asherah also fits this category – compelling but with a lot of blanks. Great for discussion and debate – but not something I’m going to bank on.
    2. We Mormons spend so much time trying to make God like us that we end up dethroning Him. I once read an explanation for praying to Heavenly Mother: “Heavenly Father wouldn’t understand what its like to be pregnant”. I absolutely reject this characterization of Deity (I also don’t accept the King Follet Sermon as scripture – but that’s for another time) I admit that ~God as Father with a body~ is a pretty fundamental Mormon belief and that it inevitably leads to problems – which leads to assumptions – to explain away the problems. I would just rather pare down our supposed understanding of who God is (cutting away non scriptural assumptions) than expanding God and risking the disrespect that could follow.
    I should also note that I know some people with some profound experiences with a Heavenly Mother and I would never discount them. I’m just not going to pray to an assumption.
  41. CJ, #40: Your comment illustrates well why the topic of Heavenly Mother is avoided in correlated material. And you’re right about avoiding speculation and assumptions, because such matters are not binding upon members. And as I think about it, even “higher doctrines” (let alone assumptions) are not binding upon members. Even temple recommend interviews closely parallel the baptism interview, and are kept pretty basic.
    One of the nice things about discussing more arcane doctrines (and speculations) with Jack is that she realizes that such things are not “binding” upon members, even if the Brethren privately endorse some of the things that might be correct. And she doesn’t twist them in order to mock them.
    I realize I’ve done plenty of speculation on this thread and other similar threads, and I feel a little guilty about “looking beyond the mark” whenever I engage in such speculation.
  42. I once heard Marvin Ashton of the Quorum of Twelve say, “We don’t have a doctrine of Mother in Heaven. We just have a hymn.”
  43. You have thoroughly explained my distaste for the Heavenly Mother doctrine. As a Mormon feminist I find the theoretical Heavenly Mother a continual source of religious angst.
  45. #39 Cody ~ Honestly, my thoughts on the virgin Mary would be brief and disappointing because I just haven’t thought about it much. Protestant theology was quick to eliminate any idea that Mary was divine or co-suffered in the atonement, and I think there’s still a mild tendency in Protestantism to downplay Mary’s role as sort of a reaction against perceived Catholic excesses.
    If you haven’t seen it yet, Kiskilili at Zelophehad’s Daughters did a good post on the subject:
    #40 CJ ~ Loved your comment. We really think alike on this.
    #41 Bookslinger ~ And she doesn’t twist them in order to mock them.
    Ha, thanks. I’m honestly surprised that I didn’t offend more people with my “deadbeat” analogy. I was pretty worried about it as I drafted the post, but I couldn’t let go of the comparison.
    #43 Parker ~ Ashton spoke the truth.
    #44 Rebecca J. ~ Thanks for stopping by! (Hey, I got three BCC bloggers to comment on my post, I must be moving up in the world . . . ;) )
    #45 Seth ~ What compelling reason is there to believe in Heavenly Mother? You don’t have to answer like you’re talking to an evangelical, you can explain it from within the LDS framework.
    I ask because it seems to me like we don’t need a good reason to reject Heavenly Mother. What we need is a good reason to believe she’s there in the first place.
  49. Okay.
    But I think gender can be transcendent without the current existence of at least one deity from each gender.
  50. Jack, as long as you keep including diplomatic and “couching” phrases (if… then…) in your opinions, it emphasizes that the discussion is hypothetical and speculative, and therefore non-threatening.
    Is there anything in the early “Christian Fathers’” writings about a Heavenly Mother? And are any 2nd and 3rd century writings going to be in your grad program?
    Is there an Evangelical equivalent to the LDS “Journal of Discourses” where we can find off-the-wall Evangelical ideas and speculation?
    The fractured multi-denominational nature of Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism seems to prevent using any such source as an “Aha! Gotcha!” tool like the JoD has been used by critics of the LDS church. It would be too easy for a modern to disclaim it by saying “Oh, that’s not our church.”
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