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As Pres. Uchtdorf said, because we are all that god has with which to work, and he doesn’t do coercion. Well, first, it’s doubtful that “Moses” wrote Genesis. Paul probably did author I Corinthians, but Ephesians may not be from Paul and I Timothy probably is not. It is doubtful that Simon/Kephas/Petros/Peter wrote I Peter. But the authors, whoever they were, lived in a time when those sayings reflected social norms. Someday, people will read about TSM’s paper route and will frown at the environmental immorality that he supported. But to TSM, it was just a part of normal life. The rib story is an add-on… I’m sure the original story had God creating Adam, and some kid in Sunday School said, “So… how did he have children?” Eve had to be added to the story, but Adam couldn’t give birth to her, so the story grew. The Aztec Goddess Coatlicue was said to have been impregnated by a bundle of feathers, and when the child, Huitzilopotchli, was born, he came out of the womb fully grown and wearing armor. At least the rib story is pretty tame.
LDSThomas wrote:Old-Timer wrote:Joni, it is objectively certain that the temple ceremonies were not dictated by God in perfect form . . .
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and the earliest statements by Joesph attest to that view.Ray:
Do you have particular statements by JS in mind?
I have always believed that
“the temple ceremonies were not dictated by God in perfect form”as you said — if I had a JS quote to back it up, that would be awesome! Thanks,
LDSThomas
Joining this late, but this question caught my eye. This doesn’t say so directly, but here’s an interesting conversation:
Quote:Discussing the Endowment:
“Bro[ther] Joseph [Smith] turned to me [Brigham Young] and said: “Brother Brigham this is not arranged right, but we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed, and I wish you to take this mat[t]er in hand and organize and systematize all these ceremonies with the signs, tokens, penalties and key words.” I did so and each time I got something more; so that when we went through the Temple at Nauvoo, I understood and knew how to place them there. We had our ceremonies pretty correct.”
http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V20N04_35.pdf Joni wrote:Another point I’ve never seen mentioned before… Where on earth is Heavenly Mother in the temple?
There was very, very little open mention of a heavenly mother in early revelations/conversations of Joseph so it becomes less likely that he would (have been inspired to) include it.
mackay11 wrote:Joni wrote:Another point I’ve never seen mentioned before… Where on earth is Heavenly Mother in the temple?
There was very, very little open mention of a heavenly mother in early revelations/conversations of Joseph so it becomes less likely that he would (have been inspired to) include it.
From what I’ve read the original mention of a heavenly mother is in “Oh My Father”. Sometime in the distant past I read a piece that looked at Eliza R. Snow’s journals during the Nauvoo period and there was no mention of a heavenly mother during that time or any reports of JS preaching or teaching about it. My sense is that everything written since then has been based on that line in the hymn and nothing more.
I 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
The party line I’ve always been given is, “Well, HF respects His wife so much that he doesn’t want the world to talk disrespectfully about her [them] the way the world talks disrespectfully about God.” I believed that for a long time but now I have to say, Really? Even in the temple? Because God is trusting us with an awful lot of sort of highly classified knowledge in the temple. I think Heavenly Mother(s) isn’t/aren’t mentioned in the temple because she is a woman and therefore not all that important in the long run. It sure makes me feel good.
And I can’t think of too many instances of women in the scriptures or in LDS tradition who are worth mentioning in their own right – they are only notable for their proximity to a man. Wives and mothers. The Mothers Day sacrament talks are usually about Mary, Eve, and maybe some of the mothers of the modern-day prophets. Not that motherhood isn’t important – it’s certainly a principle that I’ve embraced with both hands – but does God see us as breeders and little else? Again, what I learn from the temple is that He does. We are accessories to the men in our lives. The Plan of Salvation doesn’t even seem to apply to us.
GBSmith wrote:mackay11 wrote:Joni wrote:Another point I’ve never seen mentioned before… Where on earth is Heavenly Mother in the temple?
There was very, very little open mention of a heavenly mother in early revelations/conversations of Joseph so it becomes less likely that he would (have been inspired to) include it.
From what I’ve read the original mention of a heavenly mother is in “Oh My Father”. Sometime in the distant past I read a piece that looked at Eliza R. Snow’s journals during the Nauvoo period and there was no mention of a heavenly mother during that time or any reports of JS preaching or teaching about it. My sense is that everything written since then has been based on that line in the hymn and nothing more.
EDIT: Shawn beat me to it
From wikipedia:
Quote:The theological underpinnings of a belief in Heavenly Mother is attributed to Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, who shortly before his death in 1844 outlined a controversial view of God that differed dramatically from traditional Christian consensus.[5] Smith’s theology included the belief that God would share his glory with his children and that humans might become exalted beings, or gods and goddesses, in the afterlife.
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’.”[6]:65
In addition, members of the Anointed Quorum, a highly select leadership group in the early church that was privy to Smith’s teachings, also acknowledged the existence of a Heavenly Mother.[6]:65–67[7] Also, the Times and Seasons published a letter to the editor from a person named “Joseph’s Specked Bird” in which the author stated that in the pre-Earth life, the spirit “was a child with his father and mother in heaven”.[8]
In 1845, after the murder of Joseph Smith, the poet Eliza Roxcy Snow, published a poem entitled My Father in Heaven, (later titled Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother, now used as the lyrics in the popular Latter-day Saint hymn O My Father), acknowledging the existence of a Heavenly Mother.
The danger of using Wikipedia, though, is that any one of us could have written the article, and that doesn’t make it definitive. If I had been writing it, I wouldn’t have have said that Eliza R. Snow’s poem “acknowledging the existence of a Heavenly Mother”. I would have said “postulated” the existence. ‘Acknowledge’ makes it sound like ERS had special knowledge that she decided to let out. I believe that JS, if he didn’t already believe it, would have liked ERS’s take, and likely would have adopted it into his framework. But 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.
On Own Now wrote:
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 think it’s fair to look to God and Mrs. God because that’s what my husband and I are supposed to be aspiring to. Even if we don’t literally become like God ourselves, surely the relationship is allegorical for what my husband and I can expect in the CK? But when it comes to Heavenly Mother, the only conclusion I can draw is that she just doesn’t matter all that much. And the conclusion I’ve drawn from the temple endowment is that
Idon’t matter all that much. Women are merely a tool for men to achieve exaltation. While we’re on the subject of ‘O My Father,’ can we STOP singing that in sacrament every Mother’s Day. Yes it mentions Heavenly Mother in one line. But that song is a BEAR to sing, at least at the speeds WE tend to take it at.
Let’s also stop trotting out ‘Love At Home’ every Mother’s Day. That song makes me BARF.
That is all.
😆 Joni wrote:Women are merely a tool for men to achieve exaltation.
One of the few times in recent memory that I spoke out in a church class forcefully was to speak against the concept that if one spouse doesn’t measure up then they will be replaced with someone that does. The concept of being traded in really depersonalized my relationship with DW and I had a visceral reaction to it.
Joni wrote:Let’s also stop trotting out ‘Love At Home’ every Mother’s Day. That song makes me BARF.
I was wondering about that. I seem to have linked “Love At Home” and motherhood in my mind. Even though, to read the lyrics, motherhood is not mentioned. Perhaps I have been conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs.
Joni wrote:On Own Now wrote:
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 think it’s fair to look to God and Mrs. God because that’s what my husband and I are supposed to be aspiring to. Even if we don’t literally become like God ourselves, surely the relationship is allegorical for what my husband and I can expect in the CK? But when it comes to Heavenly Mother, the only conclusion I can draw is that she just doesn’t matter all that much. And the conclusion I’ve drawn from the temple endowment is that
Idon’t matter all that much. Women are merely a tool for men to achieve exaltation. While we’re on the subject of ‘O My Father,’ can we STOP singing that in sacrament every Mother’s Day. Yes it mentions Heavenly Mother in one line. But that song is a BEAR to sing, at least at the speeds WE tend to take it at.
Let’s also stop trotting out ‘Love At Home’ every Mother’s Day. That song makes me BARF.
That is all.
😆 😆 !!My mums least favourite ever song at church:
Mother I loooove you, mother I dooooo,
Father in heaven has sent me to youoooooo,
When I am neaaaaar you, I love to heaaaaaaar you,
Singing so softly that you love me too.
Mother, I love you, I love you, I doooooooo.
She will make “fingers down her throat” gestures/rolling eye-balls if ever it’s sung by primay
“There is joy in every sound.” Um, not if you have babies. Or toddlers. Or school-age children. Or teenagers. I guess there is joy in every sound if you are empty nesters and your hearing is starting to go. But the only way we can celebrate womanhood is by celebrating motherhood (When was the last time you heard a sacrament meeting talk about how great women are? Not wives or mothers but women) and the only way we can celebrate motherhood is spraying this veneer of fakey-nicey over it. On the one hand the Church puts us down and on the other hand it puts us on a pedestal. Hey, how about if you just let us be
people?Joni wrote:And the conclusion I’ve drawn from the temple endowment is that
Idon’t matter all that much. Women are merely a tool for men to achieve exaltation.
Is this what you believe or are you lamenting that this is the way the Church presents it?I ask because the distinction is critically important.
On Own Now wrote:Joni wrote:And the conclusion I’ve drawn from the temple endowment is that
Idon’t matter all that much. Women are merely a tool for men to achieve exaltation.
Is this what you believe or are you lamenting that this is the way the Church presents it?I ask because the distinction is critically important.
I have to be honest, I can’t separate the two. I’m not at the point where I can look at problematic aspects of the endowment and assume that they are false or contrary to God’s will. I believe the unimportance/inferiority of women as presented in the temple to be factually true and in keeping with the way God created us. And to be honest, I am pretty frustrated with Him.
While I’ve got my ranty pants on, I think it’s notable that the only covenant my husband makes regarding me is the law of chastity. I covenant to “hearken to” (obey) my husband. He covenants not to cheat on me but the endowment doesn’t say he can’t beat me or emotionally abuse me. My husband doesn’t do either, but given the choice, I’d rather be cheated on.
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