2 New Essays – Woman and Priesthood & Heavenly Mother

I’m all for the feminists. I’d love to see women get the priesthood. I’d love to see a female apostle someday. This Mother in Heaven thing is trickier. I’m not sure people are thinking this through clearly.

People aren’t happy the church isn’t clarifying anything, but what would you have them clarify?

Full scale adoption of King Follet doctrine? Now we’re back to the insanity of everyone gets their own world and becomes their own Heavenly Father when they die. Not bloody likely. We’re going in the opposite direction.

No to full scale King Follet, but Mother in Heaven is a distinct, separate entity. How does that work? Does Jesus have a wife now? Does the Holy Ghost have a wife? Where is grandpa and grandma god? This puts us in our own crazy style polytheism.

Maybe we nix all that and nix our view of anthropomorphic God all at the same time and say Heavenly Mother is just an aspect of God?

You can see these all have HUGE doctrinal implications.

Full scale adoption of King Follet doctrine? Now we’re back to the insanity of everyone gets their own world and becomes their own Heavenly Father when they die. Not bloody likely. We’re going in the opposite direction.

No to full scale King Follet, but Mother in Heaven is a distinct, separate entity. How does that work? Does Jesus have a wife now? Does the Holy Ghost have a wife? Where is grandpa and grandma god? This puts us in our own crazy style polytheism.

Many people find hope and inspiration in those teachings, I think it’s a little insensitive to call it all “insanity” or “crazy.” What conceptualization of any afterlife isn’t crazy or insane when viewed through someone else’s eyes? Might as well shoot for the moon. How does a mother in heaven being a distinct, separate entity work? It seemed to work out fine for Jesus and heavenly father.

Many Christian denominations view god as genderless. Making god male and our father already crosses a bridge where there are lots of assumptions.

I do think the polytheism implications of a mother in heaven present an interesting wrinkle. I certainly don’t think it’s new territory for Mormonism.

Maybe we nix all that and nix our view of anthropomorphic God all at the same time and say Heavenly Mother is just an aspect of God?

Talk about huge doctrinal implications. Do what you want, it’s your faith.

People aren’t happy the church isn’t clarifying anything, but what would you have them clarify?

(I wasn’t sure where your original post was coming from, so thanks for editing.)

I look at this as a happy and uniquely Mormon moment, one that may stretch into months and years. Heavenly Mother has already been declared doctrinal. Not everything labeled “doctrine” is actually taken in, loved, and consumed by church members. But it seems that Heavenly Mother is. I just hope for time and space for all to flesh out the implications.

[Admin Note]: Just for clarification, I edited churchistrue’s comment to remove the more inflammatory stuff at the end. I apologize for not having time to let you know personally in a PM, churchistrue. I got caught up in a project and simply failed to do so.

Sincerely, mea culpa.

[Admin Note]: Just for clarification, I edited churchistrue’s comment to remove the more inflammatory stuff at the end. I apologize for not having time to let you know personally in a PM, churchistrue. I got caught up in a project and simply failed to do so.

Sincerely, mea culpa.

Thanks. I’m surprised someone thought what I wrote was inflammatory. It must have been interpreted in a different way than I meant it.

I assume it was the “Yes – I am talking to you Hawkgrrrl”. I am not a moderator, but the only reason I didn’t mildly call you out for it is that I was in a big rush when I saw it and didn’t have the time to type a reply about it.

I was re-reading an essay from 1992, from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (see here)

Elohim, the name-title for God, suggests the plural of the Caananite El or the Hebrew Eloah. It is used in various Hebrew combinations to describe the highest God. It is the majestic title of the ultimate deity. Genesis 1:27reads, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them” (emphasis added), which may be read to mean that “God” is plural.

For Latter-day Saints, the concept of eternal family is more than a firm belief; it governs their way of life. It is the eternal plan of life, stretching from life before through life beyond mortality.

[Emphasis added]

Rather than seeing Heavenly Mother as the Holy Ghost as the 3rd member of the godhead (after Christ as the 2nd member of the godhead…since Christ is not more important than his Heavenly Mother), I would rather place greater emphasis on my Heavenly Mother’s place in the godhead by thinking Elohim is Heavenly Father and Mother as the ultimate deity we worship as one, Christ is the 2nd member of the godhead as the savior and redeemer, and the Holy Ghost is the 3rd member without body to perform it’s function to testify of our heavenly parents.

What I don’t like in this article is the final statements:

Today the belief in a living Mother in Heaven is implicit in Latter-day Saint thought.

Let’s not make it implicit. Let’s make it very clear and very up front and forthright…that my daughters know their divine heritage and worth. Perhaps that is what they are trying to do with the 2 new essays…make it less implicit.

Just as “man” in the scriptures implicitly meant man and woman or all mankind…god implicitly means Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother or Heavenly Parents as our gods we worship. There is no separation.

Perhaps we have just misunderstood that god gave man the priesthood…since, as Pres Bednar points out, “Priesthood is not male”.

Perhaps by making things less implicit and more clear…our eyes will be opened to new meanings the Lord wants us to know as a church.

That may have been how it was intended, but it could be interpreted as something a lot more aggressive.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The people that are bummed at the church continuing to stay vague on this doctrine, what are you hoping the church would say?

I go back and forth on what on want. My strongest reaction is – stay silent. To me the essay didn’t bring up anything it just left her hanging there.

My lesser reaction, but it is still a strong one, give her some meat and bones. In our thread alone we have more meat from sources like Encyclopedia of Mormonism than the essay has. I read on a blog that a group, with women included, have worked extra long and hard on these last two essays. When I read that my disappointment increased.

Did Eliza Snow make up the idea? If not where did she get the idea? Can they point to the King Follett address? Is she a prophetess? A lot of times we get the idea that Joseph collected ideas from other places, i.e. masonry for temple rites. Did Eliza or Joseph collect this idea from prevailing teachings in other faiths? Ashera? Wisdom? etc.

Last of all I wish they had entitled it “The Feminine Divine”. That’s all we know and likely it is all we will ever know.