IF YOU’RE A PART of the Mormon feminist community, there’s a high probability you’ve seen the recent footage of President Dallin Oaks admitting in an unscripted moment at a podium in Belgium that “[W]e know we have a heavenly mother or mothers.” (Watch it here.) His statement has piqued irritation among women who’ve long complained that the highest authorities of the church have been endorsing lesson materials that March young LDS women toward temple marriage without disclosing that, according to D&C 132, the temple’s “new and everlasting covenant” includes a commitment to live eternal polygamy. Mormon feminists viewed this clip of Pres. Oaks and, in something akin to unison, cried out, “He said the hidden part out loud! We told you the Church still says that heaven is polygamous!” However, as validating as the mother/mothers line is, I think it’s more important for Mormon feminists to concentrate on his next [audible] sentence because it, too, is hiding a truth that should be said out loud.
Continue reading “Let’s Say the Other Hidden Thing Out Loud: A Reaction to Pres. Oaks’ “Heavenly Mother/s””Tag: Heavenly Mother
If the Restoration Continues, So Must the Apostasy Within the LDS Church
PRES. RUSSELL M. NELSON HAS CHEERFULLY stated, “The Restoration continues!” It’s a hopeful message that I hold to. But if the Restoration continues–if there are vital aspects of truth still to be revealed–then this must mean the Church remains, in part, in a state of apostasy. Mind blown, right?
To be clear, I’m not suggesting the church is in apostasy, as leaders of certain schismatic groups proclaim, but rather that the church must still be operating under the influence of philosophies prevalent during the apostasy. There’s a vast difference. One suggests that the LDS hierarchy has made a doctrinal U-turn, leaving aspects of restorationist theology behind, while the other acknowledges that “we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor 13:12).
Continue reading “If the Restoration Continues, So Must the Apostasy Within the LDS Church”Share this:
On Being Heavenly Mother’s Daughter in an Era of Retrenchment
IN MY FOUR DECADES as a Latter-day Saint, I’ve not known a man who craved a relationship with Heavenly Mother, even if I’ve know men who’ve acquired the interest. The desire to understand the divine feminine abides largely in the hearts of women. As the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organize their messages for this weekend’s General Conference, many LDS women are bracing against what seems the inevitable, official, widespread retrenchment of our Mother God. But to my sisters in the gospel I say, they may push her into the empty corners of their own faith, but they can’t push her into ours. They may think She won’t hear their prayers, or that saying Her name in prayer will disturb Heavenly Father, but that has no bearing on our lived experiences of connecting with Her. They may belittle our connection by calling it our imagination but we know better. We have claimed and will continue to claim Her as our own, our Mother. We don’t need–and have never needed–their permission to be fully Her daughter.
Continue reading “On Being Heavenly Mother’s Daughter in an Era of Retrenchment”
Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt 