In the Latter Day Saint movement, Heavenly Mother, also known as Mother in Heaven, is the mother of human spirits and the wife of God the Father. Collectively Heavenly Mother and Father are called Heavenly Parents. Those who accept the Mother in Heaven doctrine trace its origins to Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. The doctrine became more widely known after Smith's death in 1844.
The Heavenly Mother doctrine is taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ,Role of women in the Church of Jesus Christ (On menu on right of website, click on "Core Beliefs" and then click on "The Role of Women") and branches of Mormon fundamentalism, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The doctrine is not generally recognized by other denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement, such as the Community of Christ, where trinitarianism is predominant.
In the LDS Church, the doctrine of "Heavenly Mother" or "heavenly parents" is not frequently discussed; however, the doctrine can be found in some church hymns and has been briefly discussed in church teaching manuals and several sermons.
Origin of the theology
The theological underpinnings of a belief in Heavenly Mother are attributed to Joseph Smith, who shortly before his death in 1844 outlined a controversial view of God that differed dramatically from traditional Christian consensus.Smith Jr., Joseph, King Follett Discourse, April 7, 1844, published in Times and Seasons 5 (August 15, 1844): 612-17, and reprinted in the History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by B. H. Roberts, 2d ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, (1976–1980), 6:302-17; see also "The Christian Godhead--Plurality of Gods", History of the Church, 6: 473-79. Smith's theology included the belief that God would share his glory with his children and that righteous couples might become exalted beings, or gods and goddesses, in the afterlife.
Although there is no known record of Smith explicitly teaching about Heavenly Mother, several of Smith's contemporaries attributed the theology to him either directly, or as a natural consequence of his theological stance. An editorial footnote of History of the Church 5:254, quotes 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, 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.
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.Pratt, Orson, Journal of Discourses 18:292 (Nov. 12, 1876)Woodruff, Wilford, Journal of Discourses 18:31–32 (June 27, 1875) The Times and Seasons published a letter to the editor from a pseudonymous person named "Joseph's Speckled Bird", in which the author stated that in the pre-Earth life, the spirit "was a child with his father and mother in heaven". The apostle Parley Pratt even taught in an official church periodical that God may have had multiple wives before Christ's time, and that after the death of Mary (the mother of Jesus) she may have become another eternal wife.
In 1845, after the death of 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 Latter-day Saint hymn "O My Father"), which acknowledged the existence of a Heavenly Mother.Snow 1845 The poem contained the following language:
Some early Mormons considered Snow to be a prophetess. Later, church president Joseph F. Smith (a nephew of Joseph Smith) explained his own belief that "God revealed that principle that we have a mother as well as a father in heaven to Joseph Smith; Joseph Smith revealed it to Eliza Snow Smith, his wife; and Eliza Snow was inspired, being a poet, to put it into verse." A companion hymn "Our Mother in Heaven" was published in the church's Juvenile Instructor four decades later.
The doctrine is also attributed to several other early church leaders. According to one sermon by Brigham Young, Smith once said he "would not worship a God who had not a father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other."Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 286
Multiple Heavenly Mothers
Polygamy has played an important part in Mormon history and multiple Mormon denominations have teachings on the existence of a polygamous Heavenly Father married to multiple Heavenly Mothers. Brigham Young taught that God the Father was polygamous, although teachings on Heavenly Mothers were never as popular and disappeared from official rhetoric after the end of LDS polygamy in 1904 (although existing polygynous marriages lasted into the 1950s). Top leaders used the examples of the polygamy of God the Father in defense of the practice and this teaching was widely accepted by the late 1850s. Apostle Orson Pratt taught in an official church periodical that "We have now clearly shown that God the Father had a plurality of wives," and that after her death, Mary (the mother of Jesus) may have become another eternal polygamous wife of God. One scholar interpreted a 1976 LDS manual as alluding to this teaching. Author Carol Lynn Pearson stated that a seminary teacher from her youth fervently taught that there were multiple Heavenly Mothers. Another denomination, the Apostolic United Brethren, believes in multiple Mothers in Heaven.
Worship and prayer to Heavenly Mother Orson Pratt, an early apostle of the LDS Church, opposed worshiping a Heavenly Mother, because, he reasoned, like wives and children in any household, Heavenly Mother was required to "yield the most perfect obedience to" her husband.
Early leader George Q. Cannon thought that "there is too much of this inclination to deify 'our mother in heaven, arguing that she is not part of the Godhead and that to worship her would detract from the worship of Heavenly Father. However, early 20th-century church leader Rudger Clawson disagreed, arguing that "it doesn't take away from our worship of the Eternal Father, to adore our Eternal Mother ... [W]e honor woman when we acknowledge Godhood in her eternal prototype."
Some church leaders have interpreted the term "God" to represent the divinely exalted couple with both a masculine and feminine half. Erastus Snow, an early Mormon apostle, wrote do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of a man and woman?' Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself ... I must believe that deity consists of a man and woman." This notion was reaffirmed by later church leaders Hugh B. Brown, James E. Talmage, Melvin J. Ballard, and Bruce R. McConkie.
Some Mormon feminists have adopted the practice of praying to the Heavenly Mother. However, LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley opposed this practice, saying that Mormons should not pray to the Heavenly Mother because Christ instructed his disciples to address the Heavenly Father in their prayers. When a feminist professor was fired from Brigham Young University in the 1990s, it was revealed that one of the reasons was her public advocacy of praying to Heavenly Mother. Other Mormon women have been excommunicated for similar publications such as teaching that Heavenly Mother is the Holy Ghost.
Acknowledgment by the LDS Church One early authoritative statement from the entire First Presidency on the subject is the "origin of man" letter on the 50th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.Smith, Joseph F. et al., "The Origin of Man", Improvement Era (November 1909): 80. The church also later implied the theology in the 1995 statement "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", where the church officially stated that each person is a "spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents". Similarly, the 2019 version of the Young Women Theme reads, "I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents, with a divine nature and eternal destiny." Other references to heavenly parents can be found in Latter-day Saint speeches and literature.M. Russell Ballard stating, "we are part of a divine plan designed by Heavenly Parents who love us" in his book When Thou Art Converted. In 2015, an official essay was published on the church website which surveyed 171 years of statements about a Mother in Heaven and confirmed that it is part of church doctrine.
Statements by church leaders Various LDS Church leaders throughout the history of the church have spoken openly about the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother.
Brigham Young stated about Adam and Eve: "I tell you more, Adam is the father of our spirits ... [O]ur spirits and the spirits of all the heavenly family were begotten by Adam, and born of Eve. ... I tell you, when you see your Father in the Heavens, you will see Adam; when you see your Mother that bore your spirit, you will see Mother Eve." (Since the LDS Church has formally denounced since the 1970s the Adam–God doctrine as taught by Young,Spencer W. Kimball, "Our Own Liahona," Ensign, November 1976, p. 77. today this statement is doctrinal only to certain groups of Mormon fundamentalists.) Young also preached that resurrected "eternal mothers" would "be prepared to frame earths like unto ours".
Susa Young Gates, a daughter of Young and a women's rights activist, stated that the "great Heavenly Mother was the great molder" of Abraham's personality. "Gates speculated that Heavenly Mother has played a significant role in all our lives, looking over us with 'watchful care' and providing 'careful training.
Early 20th-century church leader B. H. Roberts pointed out that the Heavenly Mother doctrine presents a "conception of the nobility of women and of motherhood and of wife-hood—placing her side by side with the Divine Father." Apostle John A. Widtsoe, a contemporary of Roberts, wrote that the afterlife "is given radiant warmth by the thought that ... [we have] a mother who possesses the attributes of Godhood." In 1894, Juvenile Instructor, an official publication of the LDS Church, published a hymn entitled "Our Mother in Heaven".Juvenile Instructor, vol. 29, no. 8 (April 15, 1894): 263. A 1925 First Presidency statement included the lines "All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother. ... [M]an, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents . ... [and] is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God."
Spencer W. Kimball in 1978 described Heavenly Mother as "the ultimate in maternal modesty" with "restrained queenly elegance". In 1991, Gordon B. Hinckley said, "The fact that we do not pray to our Mother in heaven in no way belittles or denigrates her."
There has also been some more recent discussion of Heavenly Mother by LDS Church leaders. In a speech given at BYU in 2010, Glenn L. Pace, a member of the LDS Church's First Quorum of the Seventy, said, "Sisters, I testify that when you stand in front of your heavenly parents in those royal courts on high and look into Her eyes and behold Her countenance, any question you ever had about the role of women in the kingdom will evaporate into the rich celestial air, because at that moment you will see standing directly in front of you, your divine nature and destiny."
Controversy