I\u2019ve been thinking about the female divine recently, although I can\u2019t remember what prompted these thoughts.<\/p>\n
In Mormonism, we often refer to the female divine as \u201cMother in Heaven\u201d or \u201cHeavenly Mother\u201d. We know little about her, but we know that she is apparently equal to God. Well, except in one important way:<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t pray to Heavenly Mother.<\/strong><\/p>\n This prohibition was most recently defended by Gordon B. Hinckley in October 1991\u2014then a member of the First Presidency\u2014in the women\u2019s session of General Conference, quoting an address he gave earlier that year to regional representatives:<\/p>\n However, in light of the instruction we have received from the Lord Himself, I regard it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While certainly the cultural norm, this proscription makes little sense when one contemplates it.\u00a0Consider your own family.<\/p>\n If you are a woman, imagine your child never addressing you during their entire life, always going through your husband. If you are a man, imagine your child only ever addressing you, never asking your wife anything, never sharing their concerns and struggles with her, never pleading to her for help.<\/p>\n Imagine having never addressed your own mother while you were growing up, not speaking to her now, and never talking to her for as long as she continues to live. Imagine only ever going through your father.<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t that seem odd? Yet that is precisely what we do when we prohibit people from praying to Heavenly Mother.<\/p>\n Rudger Clawson, once president of the Quorum of the Twelve, agrees. Well, perhaps not explicitly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u00a0doesn\u2019t take from our worship of the Eternal Father, to adore our Eternal\u00a0Mother, any more than it diminishes the love we bear our earthly fathers, to\u00a0include our earthly mothers in our affections.\u00a0. . .\u00a0we honor woman\u00a0when we acknowledge Godhood in her eternal prototype.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOur Mother in Heaven,\u201d Millennial Star<\/em> 72 (September Hinckley continues on the topic in his address by reference multiple scriptures where Jesus prayed to God, emphasizing the fact that Jesus used the term \u201cFather\u201d in his prayers. These scriptures act, in his mind, as justification for the exclusion of Heavenly Mother from our prayers.<\/p>\n This is a weak connection, however. Erastus Snow, formerly of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, proposed that \u201cGod\u201d includes both Father and Mother”<\/p>\n \u201cThere can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, or ever will be a God in any other way. We may never hope to attain unto the eternal power and the Godhead upon any other principle . . . this Godhead composing two parts, male and female.\u201d (Journal of Discourses<\/em>, 19:269\u201373, March 3, 1878.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Related to this is a statement from Harold B. Lee, spoken in the October 1963 General Conference and as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles:<\/p>\n We forget that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who\u00a0are even more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother,\u00a0and that influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us\u00a0when we do all we can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Likewise, Chieko N. Okazaki, formerly of the General Relief Society Presidency, in her book\u00a0Sanctuary<\/em> (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997, 59), stated \u201cthat our heavenly parents are cosufferers\u00a0with us in our mortal trials \u201d.<\/p>\n
\n29, 1910): 619\u201320.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n