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I heard the phrase “Heavenly Mother” in a testimony on fast Sunday recently. Im curious what anyone can tell me about Heavenly Mother. I have only heard the phrase a few times. It has peaked my interest recently and i cant stop thinking about it. Can anyone enlighten me? Here’s something I wrote on it a while back that links to Kevin Barney’s excellent Dialogue article about Asherah & Nephi, well worth a read. While we don’t have a lot of modern revelation about HM, there are some interesting parallels in ancient Israelite worship in a book I read by William Dever, an archaeologist. http://www.wheatandtares.org/10529/the-plan-of-asherah/ Lots of speculation, but not much official.
hawkgrrrl wrote:Lots of speculation, but not much official.
That about sums it up. Unfortunately such speculation creeps in and becomes “doctrine” for many. I don’t think there is any doctrine about HM.
There was some sidebar discussion on this topic back in January. The first reference to Heavenly Mother in LDS literature was in the poem “My Father in Heaven”, by Eliza R Snow. It was written in October, 1845 and published a month later in the Church’s Times and Seasons. The poem was written almost a year and a half after the death of JS. This poem was later put to music and re-titled “Oh My Father”.
There isn’t any reference to a teaching by JS that there is a Heavenly Mother, so best we can tell, ERS postulated the existence of a HM by sheer logic:
Quote:In the heav’ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare.
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me I’ve a mother there.
The only thing we can say for sure is that it’s a natural extension from JS’s teachings of both sealing for time and eternity and of eternal progression.
Today, there remains no clear doctrine from scripture or revelation. However the Church has recently asserted as
de factodoctrine, the concept of “heavenly parents”. In all honesty, I believe the Church is overstepping to declare this as doctrine without a specific accepted-by-vote revelation or declaration, but hey, that’s another story. Besides, if such a doctrine were presented to the general membership, it would be unanimously accepted, so OK. Doctrine or no, it is clearly a teaching of the Church. The Family: A Proclamation to the World states,
Quote:Each [person] is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.
A recent essay, entitled “Becoming Like God”, published on lds.org,
https://www.lds.org/topics/becoming-like-god?lang=enghttps://www.lds.org/topics/becoming-like-god?lang=eng” class=”bbcode_url”> Quote:Latter-day Saints have also been moved by the knowledge that their divine parentage includes a Heavenly Mother as well as a Heavenly Father. Expressing that truth, Eliza R. Snow asked, “In the heav’ns are parents single?” and answered with a resounding no: “Truth eternal / Tells me I’ve a mother there.” That knowledge plays an important role in Latter-day Saint belief.
Dallin H Oaks said in GC in April, 1995,
Quote:Our theology begins with heavenly parents. Our highest aspiration is to be like them.
But with all that in mind, let me reiterate what I said back in our own discussions in January:
On Own Now wrote:In strict LDS theology, there is not a clear concept of Heavenly Mother. It’s more like circumstantial evidence… there must be one, or some.
The reality is that although “God” is central to Judeo-Christian religion, we don’t know that much about Him either. We are taught that He has a body of flesh and bone, that He was once as we are, and that He is our spiritual parent. If we assume a Heavenly Mother, then we know exactly those same things about Her. Things that we know about God that we don’t know about Heavenly Mother: He listens to our prayers, He set forth the Plan of Salvation, He directed the creation, He appeared to JS… and we know His name. That’s an awfully small canon of information about the being that we worship and in whom we put our trust.
Yet LDS theology isn’t focused on God (or Mrs. God), but on US. That’s one of the most important elements of our Church, IMO. This is all about US, not about God.
I wrote this in our January discussionI believe Joseph Smith taught about Heavenly Mother. As the following from Wikipedia states, there isn’t clear evidence of that, but it makes sense to me:
Quote:Although there is no clear record of Joseph Smith teaching of Heavenly Mother publicly, several of Smith’s contemporaries attributed the theology to him either directly, or as a consequence of his theological stance. An editorial footnote of History of the Church, 5:254, presumably quotes Joseph Smith as saying: “Come to me; here’s the mysteries man hath not seen, Here’s our Father in heaven, and Mother, the Queen.” In addition, a secondhand account states that in 1839, Joseph Smith had told Zina Diantha Huntington, after the death of her mother, that “not only would she know her mother again on the other side, but ‘more than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven’.”
Wikipedia
There was some discussion about that wiki page and I wrote:I think there is sufficient evidence (there is more than what is referenced on the Wiki page) that Joseph Smith taught some people about Heavenly Mother, so saying Eliza R. Snow wrote a poem “acknowledging the existence of a Heavenly Mother” works for me.
I do agree that it fits entirely with JS’s cosmic view, and that he, himself, MAY have said it. Even if he did, there’s no correlation to any revelation. He’d just be using the same reasoning that ERS used. I’m fine with saying that the concept originated out of the swirling soup of JS’s teachings, whether directly by him or as a result of him doesn’t truly matter. I don’t think his view of Deity and eternal progression works WITHOUT a Heavenly Mother, so it’s a conclusion that he set up, whether or not he stated the conclusion himself. If some attribute it directly to JS, I have no problem, because that’s as likely as not.
For my part, I don’t think I can make that leap. Utah-era mormons ‘remembered’ all kinds of things that JS said or did. For me, the best evidence that he DIDN’T teach it (at least not openly) is ERS’s own poem. It doesn’t state what everyone already knew. It sets up a logical rhetorical question, and then provides an answer that matches ‘reason’. Even so, that’s only how I view it, and certainly, we don’t have much information.
I’ve always believed if we talk about a Heavenly Father and becoming like God / being gods, we have to talk about a Heavenly Mother, as well – and when we say “God”, it has to mean “two-Gods-made-one-God” and/or a “council of the gods”. The divine feminine has been around for thousands of years, as Hawkgrrrl pointed out – and it has been fought by the patriarchal religious leadership for just as long. Even if we have next to no detail for accepting it, I love the fact that we do accept it – and it points to how radically progressive our theology is capable of being if we only would accept it fully.
Of course it is doctrine. The entire concept of temples, sealings, kings and queens, the family proclamation, gender roles, etc… without a heavenly mother, it all falls apart.
It actually one of the better Mormon doctrines out there. It’s almost embarrassing that the Mormon Church is so embarrassed by their own beliefs and have that recently tried to deny this because this is one of the good ones.
The church needs to just own up to it. I think it would help them in the long run.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
cwald wrote:It actually one of the better Mormon doctrines out there. It’s almost embarrassing that the Mormon Church is so embarrassed by their own beliefs and have that recently tried to deny this because this is one of the good ones.
Conspiracy theory, perhaps, but I sort of think the reason the Church keeps a low profile on it is because of the obvious next question of how polygamy enters in. Are we all offspring of the same Heavenly Mother? How many Heavenly Wives does God have?Yeah. That could get messy. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
I’d love to see us own Heavenly Mother and completely disavow polygamy. The problem is that polygamy existed in the early days of the church, and too many people descended from it to disavow people’s great grandparents. With 51% of earthlings being female, I still don’t see how polygamy makes any mathematical sense in the eternities. Is it my imagination, or do more women than men yearn for Heavenly Mother? I didn’t used to, but I do now. And, yes, I think part of the reason we don’t flesh her out is because the beautiful picture of heavenly parents goes to pot when there are a thousand mothers crowding into the frame. I hope that will change. I was going to stay neutral on this thread and just read the rest and not comment anymore – but I have to put my two cents in. I buy that Heavenly Mother is “doctrine” in that it fits in with what is taught in and about the temple, and if all of that is true then logically there must be a Heavenly Mother along with a Heavenly Father. In my mind this is very much like the Jesus being married debate (or doctrine) – If we believe that in order to enter into the Celestial Kingdom one has to be married, then Jesus must be married. (There are other reasons I believe he is married unrelated to this.) I do stick to my guns that this really is all supposition and speculation, but it only makes sense if one believes the other stuff – realizing, of course, that some here do not and others here have serious questions and doubts about the other stuff.
SO…even if there is a Heavenly Mother, why do we think the creation of spirit children is sexual? In other words, if we believe that Heavenly Father is the Creator of our spirits and therefore our Father, how do we know or why do we think he needed a partner to do that? I get the whole “As man is…” couplet, and thus God must be married if that’s the case – but I have a hard time believing the creation of spirit children is sexual. Isn’t it just as possible that Heavenly Mother is really just Heavenly Wife?
(Disclaimer: I normally dislike getting into this kind of theological/philosophical discussion, not because I don’t enjoy them but because I think they are fringe doctrine/gospel which don’t matter to our salvation.)
On Own Now wrote:Utah-era mormons ‘remembered’ all kinds of things that JS said or did.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I don’t like how some leaders blamed JS for the priesthood ban.
cwald wrote:Of course it is doctrine.
The entire concept of temples, sealings, kings and queens, the family proclamation, gender roles, etc… without a heavenly mother, it all falls apart.
That’s how I see it. To me, the existence of Heavenly Mother is clearly doctrine but there are no details that are doctrinal.
cwald wrote:It actually one of the better Mormon doctrines out there. It’s almost embarrassing that the Mormon Church is so embarrassed by their own beliefs and have that recently tried to deny this because this is one of the good ones.
What was said recently?!?!
Ann wrote:Is it my imagination, or do more women than men yearn for Heavenly Mother?
No. Every boy and man wants his mommy. I really mean that.DarkJedi wrote:(Disclaimer: I normally dislike getting into this kind of theological/philosophical discussion, not because I don’t enjoy them but because I think they are fringe doctrine/gospel which don’t matter to our salvation.)
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent”
If HM is “two Gods made one God” with HF and to know this Godhead is required for life eternal/salvation – then it follows that our knowledge of HM might just be VERY important.
The whole classification of what doctrines are important for our salvation is pretty speculative and slippery IMO.
:lolno:
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