Guest Post: Cracking Down on Heavenly Mother
Guest Post by Jennifer Crow. Jennifer Crow studied gendered religious experiences through a Mormon feminist lens while in graduate school. Her studies were cut short when she was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease for which she has spent the past three years recovering. She writes from her home in the Everlasting Mountains of east Tennessee where she lives with her husband, two adult sons, and a rambunctious puppy named Finn.
The LDS Church is on another rampage and this time Heavenly Mother is on the chopping block. Maybe not Heavenly Mother herself, per se, but those who actually talk and write about Her and Her role within Mormon theology – those are the people who might be singled out for this latter-day inquisition.
One of the most comforting and unique theologies, in my opinion, is the Mormon belief in a Heavenly Mother. One of the earliest and most oft known references to Heavenly Mother is an early Mormon hymn ironically titled, “O My Father”, in which the third verse best explicates a belief in Heavenly Mother, as shown in the following:
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.
-Eliza R. Snow, 1804-1887
I have always loved this hymn for that very reason. It speaks of our Heavenly Mother. It is the only public place within the practice of Mormon culture that it was acceptable to talk about, to think about, or to sing about, a heavenly mother. It doesn’t even explicitly mention her there either. In Mormon theological lore, Heavenly Mother, we had long been told that She is too sacred to talk about, too sacred to discuss, and in some circles, too sacred to even think about. Heavenly Mother had been relegated to the back circles of feminist and intellectual discussions – a place only presumed heretics feared to tread.
However, in May 2021, Peggy Fletcher Stack, senior journalist at the Salt Lake Tribune wrote, “Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother has gone mainstream.” Stack continued by listing the ways in which Heavenly Mother has been getting more air-time, so to speak. Essays and academic debates, art shows depicting Her image, poetry, hymns, and one-woman plays have all emerged to celebrate, depict, and attempt to understand the ethereal female godhead. Stack reminds us that even the LDS Church, updated its Young Womens theme in 2019, that is repeated every week during church services, to include the phrase, “I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents, with a divine nature and eternal destiny”. Previously, when I was a young woman and was reciting it in my weekly church meetings, the theme started, “We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him.” There was no mention of a Heavenly Mother, no mention of Heavenly Parents– just a singular figure, God the Father. Single parenthood FTW, or not.
Trends have tended toward the not, therefore we’ve seen a movement away from a single father-god-parent figure, to a duality of a father-mother-god parentage. This influence came in part from the Church essay on Heavenly Mother, and also from the research documents requested by the Church on Her.
With the change in the Young Women’s theme and the selling of art and books depicting Heavenly Mother in the Church owned bookstore, it would follow then that discussions of this previously obscured second figure, God the Mother, would emerge. The strict emphasis of the Family Proclamation, a document clarifying Mormon theology about the herteronormative nuclear family and the gendered expectations of father and mother, those heteronormative points of the Proclamation continued driving the concept home– if a Father, by necessity also a Mother. And yet, a lot has been written of God the Father, though very little of God the Mother.
“Family, isn’t it about time?” That used to be an advertising slogan that the LDS Church spread across the airwaves through short vignettes called the Homefront series. Its first and very popular spot was called, “Your Children Need More of You”.
Ouch. Isn’t that the clarion call of this “Heavenly Mother has gone mainstream” movement?
Latter-day Saints are all but shouting, “Mother, we need more of you,” yet the Church has refused to listen. Why then would the Church shy away from discussions of a Heavenly Family? If Elder Renlund’s recent fireside is to be expounded upon, we are being told not to speak of, to, or about Her, Her role, or even to capitalize Her pronouns. Why withhold further light and knowledge of our Heavenly Parentage? Why not a Father and a Mother? Why not more understanding of Mother?
We have entire libraries, theologies and religions dedicated to knowing and understanding God the Father. Isn’t it about time we equal the playing field and include theologies of God the Mother? Is that so scary or controversial? In the absence of top-down direction, scholars, poets, and artists have attempted to fill the gap to understand the Mormon divine feminine, adding to comprehension of the Mormon Mother in Heaven. Books and works of art that are dedicated to understanding the nature of Heavenly Mother are sold at the Church owned bookstore, Deseret Book, implying implicit permission that discussions to understand and explicate the nature of Heavenly Mother are acceptable only if they are profitable.
If permissions aren’t granted for explicit discussion of Heavenly Mother in church settings, such as during prayers or sermons, explicit permission is given to purchase works celebrating the divine mother. The Church is a corporation, and what business would allow a stream of income to go untapped? That is, until the membership became too comfortable with connecting to the divine feminine, too comfortable with questioning, too comfortable with projecting Heavenly Mother’s possible connection to the Godhead; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Is She the Holy Ghost? Perhaps! It’s a beautiful thought for some and blasphemous to others. The ambiguity remains because Church leaders refuse to address head-on who exactly Mother in Heaven is and what Her role, if any, is beyond eternal pregnancy and wife to Heavenly Father.
Mostly, women in the church are asking,“there has to be more to heaven than that, right?” If Mormon women are to look for glimmers of what their eternal roles, their eternal destinies are to become, what greater example could they have than a mother in heaven? And who is more obscured in Mormon theology than Mother in Heaven? Herein lies the conundrum.
Mormon women are taught very little about what Godhood would look like for them, what their role might be. This offers little hope or comfort for an LDS women for a heaven where she already has to grapple with the specter of eternal polygamy. And this speaks nothing to trans and gender nonconforming people, what might their roles be in the eternities? Who represents them in Mormonism’s Heavenly Godhead?
This ambiguity and questioning of Mother in Heaven’s role logically leads to questioning women’s roles. Now, of course, we’re entering dangerous territory. Once a challenge to their authority to define prescriptive gender roles and norms came into question, Church leaders decided it was time to squash the emerging movement. Men have decided it’s time to curtail emerging theological discussions of Heavenly Mother.
Where have I seen this before? The Church has a pattern of ousting members who ask tough theological questions for which they have no intention of answering. Women are prevented from adding in any meaningful way to the exegesis, let alone theology, of their church, lest they be seen as somehow dangerous.
Who is Heavenly Mother? What is Her role? Questions are dangerous. The Church either attempts to destroy the person or they try to destroy the idea – frequently it’s both. In 1993, Boyd K. Packer, stated in a speech delivered to regional leaders that feminists, intellecutals, and gays, posed the greatest danger to the Church. In September of that year, six feminists and intellectuals were excommunicated for challenging Church authority largely because of their public discussions of Heavenly Mother; they later became known as the September Six. Twenty-years after they were publicly expelled from the faith, feminists were on the chopping block again. Enter Ordain Women. Founder, Kate Kelly, and some prominent participants of the movement, were either disciplined or excommunicated for their feminist activisim, advocating women’s ordination to the all-male priesthood.
Now it looks as though a new crop of crackdowns may be on the horizon. Prominent intellectuals within progressive Mormon circles have publicly expressed fears that their membership may be on the line. Included are those who were previously requested as students to research all prior aspects of, and mentions in doctrine regarding, Heavenly Mother, in research which eventually contributed to the gospel essay about Her on the LDS Church website. These same academics who had been requested to research on behalf of the Church now must be apprehensive that they might be the next ones to be forcefully jettisoned from their faith communities. The September Six, Ordain Women, Heavenly Mother – feminists, intellectuals, and gays are enemies to the Church? Indeed, who is the enemy?
Recently, regional leadership training has begun to counsel Bishops how to steer their congregations away from discussions of Heavenly Mother. This includes instructing them to squash speculations about Her, to reply to these discussions with such vague responses as, “We don’t know very much about Heavenly Mother,” or “Don’t create Heavenly Mother in your own image.” And this suggestion, “Don’t talk about Heavenly Mother by Herself, only with the Father as ‘heavenly parents’ – lowercase.” To paraphrase a popular song from Disney’s Encanto, like Bruno, “We don’t talk about Heavenly Mother, no, no, no!” And, lastly, “Don’t pray to Heavenly Mother.” This is particularly odd, considering the original title to that beloved hymn, “O My Father”, which I quoted above was originally called “Invocation, or Eternal Father and Mother.” As theologian, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, recently reminded us in her Instagram and Twitter posts:
“We recognize “Invocation” as a prayer word-as a prayer. She addressed both Parents directly in the 4th stanza/verse: “Father, Mother may I meet thee?” It is clear to me that Eliza viewed this as a prayer.”
The inclusion of Eliza Snow’s poem in the official hymnal of the Church is an explicit declaration that this is doctrine.
Therefore, praying to the Mother must be fine.
Rachel Hunt Steenblik, arguably the preeminent contemporary scholar on the Mormon theology of Heavenly Mother, was one of those tasked with researching Heavenly Mother in a paid position at Brigham Young University; her research and writings have become some of the most downloaded scholarship from its database. Days after discussions of the emerging witch-hunt were discovered on Twitter, sales of Rachel’s books rose to the number one and two positions on Amazon’s best seller list in Gender & Sexuality in Religious Studies– an impressive feat that can only be accomplished because a group of committed Latter-day Saints want to know more of their Heavenly Mother. Not only is Rachel a scholar, she is a poet. Her poetry collection “Mother’s Milk: Poems in search of Heavenly Mother” published in 2017 is arguably the most stunning collection of Mormon theological thought on Heavenly Mother. Case in point, this poem:
Genesis
And God said, Let us
make woman in
our image, after
our likeness. So
God created women in
Her own image, in
the image of God
Created She her;
Female and male
Created She them.
Imagine! Imagine if this is what was taught to teenage girls in their weekly meetings. A weekly recitation of, “We are daughters of a Heavenly Mother, who loves us, and we love Her.” If we had a female theology of Heavenly Mother, imagine how that would change the ways in which teenage girls understood their gendered connection to God! She! Her! God! “O My Mother”, sung instead of, in place of, in addition to, “O My Father.”
Imagine if Latter-day Saints included a theology of Mother God in their religious practices how that would change young women’s perspective on their own divinity, their own roles, their own power. She was created in Her image. That’s powerful imagery.
Imagine if the Church allowed women, men, and gender nonconforming people to understand—to know—the power held by a female God? Therein lies the danger. The danger is held by defining our divine relationship to a woman. Patriarchy demands that our relationships, specifically our religious relationships, are defined by our connections to men. Wife of…, mother of…, sister to…, etc. Women in church culture only hold power by their connections to male power or authority. It is the currency foot soldiers to the patriarchy trade in, their relationships to powerful men. This currency is so valuable that it keeps women adherent to not only the doctrines but to the patriarchal practices of a male dominated culture. Women use their connections to powerful men to advance themselves, to maintain their social positions, or to squash others. Women with less power, therefore fewer connections to esteemed men, have less currency to trade on.
This might all disappear if the tables were turned and women could claim their connection to power through a Woman. A powerful woman, God the Mother, creator of She, Them, He, They, Their, male, female, non-binary, them – ALL. Heavenly Mother, the Creator of all. The all-encompassing beauty of this theology turns previous patriarchal thought on its head. Family, isn’t it about time…we started including all of us. Families can be together forever, if… NO. Families can be together forever because She made it so.
Yes, female theology is dangerous and someone must pay. Unfortunately, that payment could end up being the heads of some of our most intelligent and capable scholars, as it always has been.
This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.
