Patriarchy's Goddess
Ex-Mormon Thoughts on Satisfaction, Courage, and Heavenly Mother
In recent weeks, there’s been a flutter of fear and stubborn resistance in a corner of the Mormon internet. Members of the LDS Church who cherish the doctrine of Heavenly Mother have reason to believe a crackdown is on the way, a wave of formal discipline and institutional discouragement around the subject of this shadowy deity.
Last weekend, one of the faith’s foremost authorities, Dale Renlund, delivered a public address in a worldwide meeting called General Conference. He focused largely on Heavenly Mother. Rumors of a talk like this had been circulating for weeks, but to my mind, the real thing was quite a bit worse than predicted.
This all feels like an echo of events from the early 90s. In 1991, another prophet, Gordon Hinckley, stood at the General Conference pulpit to declare that praying to Heavenly Mother was inappropriate and generally dismiss any speculation about her place in our lives or the eternal plan.
What will come next? In the 90s, Hinckley’s talk was followed by rounds of formal discipline for people including Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, Maxine Hanks, Margaret Toscano, Janice Allred, and Lavina Fielding Anderson—all of them Mormon feminists who had spoken publicly about, among other controversial subjects, their testimony of Heavenly Mother and her rightful place in Mormon theology and discourse. Who will be the sacrificial lambs in this decade, the example heretics meant to scare everyone else into obedience?
I’m watching the kerfuffle from a strange place. I’m invested in what’s happening, I care, and yet, it’s not personal to me. In short: this debate doesn’t hit like it used to.
The church isn’t my home anymore, but for a long time, it was. I don’t believe in Heavenly Mother anymore, but during a formative period of my life, I did. I’m an ex-Mormon woman with a history in Mormon feminist communities and activism. I know the concept of Heavenly Mother by heart—know the origins, the debates, the landmark moments, the artistic contributions, the frustrations, the revelations—but I do experience it as a concept, not as a cherished relationship. I know this turn of events can’t affect me the way it affects true believers.
It’s from this particular location that I wish to share some observations. I’m standing a few blocks away from the epicenter of this discussion, not quite in the thick of it, but maybe some of the things I see from this vantage point will be useful.
The Riddle of Heavenly Mother
To understand the doctrine of Heavenly Mother within Mormonism, I think it helps to understand the doctrine of marriage within Mormonism. This is a church that views marriage as essential, eternal, and divinely ordained. Marriage is a required step in the journey to become like God. In particular, marriage in the form of a uniquely Mormon temple ceremony called a sealing is considered a non-negotiable prerequisite to achieve the highest level of heaven. According to Mormon teachings, this is the only place we can live with our Heavenly Father again.
But in the heavens, are parents single? Not according to Mormon doctrine.
An infamous Mormon couplet teaches, “As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.” The conclusion many believing Mormons reach, and the conclusion I was taught while growing up in the church, is that our Heavenly Father once lived a mortal life on a planet not so different from this one, in a body not so different from the body of any human man, and that during his life, he was married. And he’s still married. To our Heavenly Mother.
In 2011, researchers David Paulsen and Martin Pulido compiled what’s still the most comprehensive survey of statements from church leaders and publications on the subject of Heavenly Mother. Additional statements have been made in the decade since. For someone who cares to see the church through a feminist lens, there’s room to argue any number of things about Heavenly Mother—
that she’s an honored part of Mormon doctrine;
that we as Mormons are taught to revere her;
that she was an equal partner with Heavenly Father in the creation of this earth and continues to share equal power with him in her role as divine parent.
But we have to acknowledge the obvious: the doctrine of Heavenly Mother is not emphasized by the church as something that’s important to understand or care about. In fact, believing in Heavenly Mother too strongly or publicly can be a liability.
A testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is required for baptism and admission to the temple. A testimony of Heavenly Mother is required for … nothing.
While some members of the church believe Heavenly Mother is equal to Heavenly Father in the royal courts on high, that’s not an argument the church makes, and it’s certainly not demonstrated in the way the church speaks about each Heavenly Parent individually.
The Paulsen and Pulido article I mentioned earlier states, “We have compiled over six hundred sources of all types referencing a Heavenly Mother in Mormon and academic discourse since 1844.” 600+ sources between 1844 and 2011 is nothing to sneeze at, and the number is higher now, maybe in the 700+ range. But how does it compare to the number of references in the same time period to, say, Heavenly Father? Or Jesus?
Trying to come up with a number of references for either of them would be an overwhelming task, and furthermore, it would be pointless. No one keeps track of how frequently Mormon leaders mention Heavenly Father or Jesus as a way of proving that Heavenly Father and Jesus are sufficiently revered. They don’t have to. We all know already.
The very fact that the number of references to Heavenly Mother *could* be counted, and that researchers saw it as necessary, is evidence of her secondary-at-best status. Heavenly Father was referenced and mentioned hundreds of times during this past weekend’s General Conference alone. Same with Jesus. Hell, Satan gets more airtime and respect than Heavenly Mother.
Mormon feminists, and some others who don’t necessarily identify as feminist, have been lifting up the name of Heavenly Mother and insisting on her place in Mormonism for generations. They’ve written plays, conducted research, developed impressive theologies, and shared the process of forming intensely personal relationships with the goddess of their understanding.
Some have done this while staying relatively secure in their church membership and belonging, but others have been excommunicated. The spell of formal church discipline targeting Mormon feminists and scholars in the 1990s had a chilling effect on others who might have wanted to follow in their footsteps.
Any ushering of Heavenly Mother discourse into the shadows is bound to expire. As long as patriarchy exists, so will feminism. Patriarchy most definitely exists in the church—it’s baked in. And therefore, so does feminism. Mormons have written and spoken about Heavenly Mother through every decade. Her presence has been felt in quarterly magazines and newsletters, private listservs, annual retreats, blogs, books, Instagram posts, and podcasts.
It’s not enough to silence one person, or one discussion group, or even an entire generation. There will always be another to take the empty place. There will always be another who realizes, “Wait, I have a Mother in Heaven … but I’m not allowed to speak to her? I’m supposed to become like her … but I shouldn’t ask questions about her? I don’t like this. It doesn’t make sense.”
A Constricting Experience
There’s a lot to quibble with in the very concept of Heavenly Mother. This teaching consecrates a rigid gender binary and gender essentialist notions. It idolizes marriage. It promotes undue veneration of Mormon leaders. Though some of these shortcomings can be found in divine feminine/divine masculine frameworks more generally, some are unique to Mormonism’s version.
(I want to note here that, of course, not every person who believes in Heavenly Mother subscribes to the more problematic elements of the doctrine; there are ways to innovate. I’m just remarking on what I’ve seen generally.)
The Mormon framework of which Heavenly Mother is a part is not inclusive of non-binary people. It gives some window of acceptance for trans men and trans women who, after all, are only saying that their physical shapes aren’t quite compatible with their innate gender, but Mormon leaders have been quick to shut that window.
A belief in God as an eternally-married, heterosexual couple is ammunition for homophobic doctrines, policies, and political action.
In our hunger for a divine entity who reflects our own faces back to us, Mormon women can pedestalize teachings that further marginalize or ignore those who are gay, trans, nonbinary, and asexual. If our justification for believing in Heavenly Mother is that every child needs both a mother and father, what families are we invalidating? What are we subtly indicating about who deserves to be like God?
Lynne Kanavel Whitesides said in 1993,
“I believe there is a danger in insisting on any one way of seeing God. It will always be a constricting experience.”
This is just as true if the “one way of seeing God” is as a cisgender, embodied man and a cisgender, embodied woman, both of them most likely white, each expressing their divinity in rigidly gendered ways.
If something like Heaven exists, and if something like gender is present there, what are the odds it matches our current arrangement? If there is some kind of higher power, and if it does have gender, who’s to say it would look anything like the genders we recognize? Who’s to say the gender of the divine wouldn’t change, shift, expand, contract, explode, and reassemble? Who’s to say the divine would have one gender as opposed to several?
In Mormonism, though, we know “who’s to say.” It’s the prophets, seers, and revelators at the head of the church. These are not imaginative men. These are not curious men. I ask my fellow Mormons of any stripe: what response do you think any of those men would give to the questions in the previous paragraph? Do you think they have the vocabulary to understand the questions? Do you think they’d even be capable of taking such questions seriously? Because I don’t.
I could go into more detail on these concerns, and maybe I will in another essay; I’ve probably got half of it written already just from things I’ve edited out of this one. But the point I’m driving at today is simply that when we try to connect with a goddess that fits within Mormonism, we’re bound by Mormonism’s limitations. We have to contort ourselves and hem in our imaginations to concoct a deity who’s compatible with a religion that’s damaging, not only in its details or its implementation, but in its very theology and core worldview.
The Patriarchal Goddess
Once upon a time, I clung to the doctrine of Heavenly Mother like it was a life raft. Her existence in Mormon doctrine allowed me to feel some microscopic hope that I could belong in the church. A religion with a goddess must be a welcoming place for my baby feminist soul, right? There must be room for me? And yet, there wasn’t. It’s taken me years to articulate that disconnect.
Heavenly Mother, according to the church, is nothing like the cunning Macha of Irish lore, the lustful Aphrodite from Greece, the ever-changing Butterfly Maiden from Pueblo mythology, the fearsome Kali of Hinduism. As presented by the institution and the culture, there’s no complexity in her, no ferocity or wildness or individuality. Instead, she’s silent. She’s distant. She’s irrelevant. She’s a homogenized, blank slate of regressive femininity.
She is perhaps one of many interchangeable Heavenly Wives; Mormonism’s polygamist roots have never been clarified enough for members to know whether we have one Heavenly Mother or several. Somehow, this question seems unimportant to Mormon leadership. (It’s hard to imagine such indifference if members were confused as to whether we have one Heavenly Father or several.)
Mormonism may be a religion with something approximating a goddess, but the goddess we get in Mormonism is utterly uninspiring to me. Heavenly Mother is a goddess only patriarchy could create.
I have a mental image of a dozen Mormon men sitting around a table in a stake center. They take a wax figurine of a dynamic, explosive, and compelling goddess or folk hero—maybe Hecate, maybe Baba Yaga, maybe Ishtar—and put her through a shredder. They take the shavings and mold them together in a misshapen lump. They put the lump on the table and pound it flat, then one reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a cookie cutter in the shape of an angel. He punches out a half-dozen. Heavenly Mother takes form in this faceless, uniform flock.
I’ve come to see Heavenly Mother as a symbol. She is a vessel for whatever Mormons think of women.
If the church’s leaders have no curiosity about Heavenly Mother, don’t think she’s worth understanding, turn up their noses at any sign of reverence for her, and respond with anger or disappointment to those who put her on the same level as Heavenly Father … is it really any surprise? This is a patriarchal institution. Of course their version of the feminine divine will be this shriveled, pushed-aside thing. They don’t have the imagination for anything else.
But this is not what all Mormons think of women.
Making Theology
“As woman is, Heavenly Mother once was. As Heavenly Mother is, woman may become.” If you’re a Mormon woman, the doctrine of Heavenly Mother is fundamentally a doctrine about you. Telling Mormon women not to think about Heavenly Mother is telling them not to think about themselves. Telling them not to have a relationship with her is telling them not to have a relationship with themselves.
Heavenly Mother represents the best case scenario. If you work hard enough, follow the commandments, endure to the end, you too can become a subservient plural wife who’s not allowed to talk to her children. This is what makes the doctrine of Heavenly Mother so depressing. Mormon women have to either ignore her or innovate her if they want to stay spiritually engaged.
A quick browse through the #HeavenlyMother hashtag on Instagram reveals the creative, heartfelt, confident body of knowledge being developed by a vocal minority of Mormons. They are curious. They think Heavenly Mother deserves their attention. They see no reason why the doctrine of Heavenly Mother should be exempt from a lifetime of church encouragement to search, ponder, and pray. They imagine her in many forms. They see her in scripture and in history and in their own lives.
Damn if I’m not inspired by this theology. And yet, as I watch the innovation and persistence of Mormon women, my feelings are a battlefield.
It’s really not about Heavenly Mother for me. I don’t believe in Heavenly Mother; I believe in Mormon women. When they attribute compassion, rage, playfulness, and wisdom to their Mother in Heaven, I believe it’s because they see those qualities in themselves and recognize them as points of pride. Mormon women are standing up for themselves—and for each other—when they stand up for Heavenly Mother. And I love them for that.
And also …
I wish they would leave the church. I really do feel that way, and I want to express that position clearly so anyone reading this knows where I’m coming from and can evaluate my words accordingly. The premise I see in so much of the recent Heavenly Mother discourse, even from those who are hurting most acutely, is that the church deserves loyalty, that the church is worth fighting for, worth improving. I question that premise. I’m frustrated when these tremendous people insist on remaining in a church that pushes them into self-negation as a matter of course.
And also …
I’m impressed by the moves these activists are making. This is something they care about, and they’re resisting efforts to make them care less. They are rejecting rhetoric and counsel that conflicts with their understanding of God. They're doing all this publicly and communally.
My opinions ping-pong all day. I’m struggling to work out this contradiction.
What Satisfies
I hate to watch Mormon women celebrating the very tools of their oppression.
In the last week I’ve seen dozens of people praising the church's official essay on Heavenly Mother. This is a document that reinforces
gender essentialism;
compulsory heterosexuality;
compulsory monogamy;
the superior legitimacy of men’s words over women’s;
the idea that it’s not okay to talk to your own actual mom.
And yet, because it’s the document the church produced, because it acknowledges Heavenly Mother in the most straightforward way to date, it’s treated as glorious. Renlund’s talk has received a similar silver-lining treatment in many instances.
None of this is new, of course. No matter the exact circumstance, trying to stay respectable in an environment that considers you lesser is an experiment in constant compromise, finding the bright spot in piles of shit, learning to be grateful for the bare minimum.
Mormon feminists play this game too. I know I did, in the 2000s and 2010s. And the shocking, sad thing is how quickly this sort of thinking becomes second nature. Before you know it, the first thing you notice in the pile of shit is the bright spot. Before you know it, the bare minimum seems miraculous.
I’m constantly inspired by an idea I heard from the writer and pleasure activist adrienne maree brown. She speaks often about the idea of being satisfiable, but these exact words came from an episode of the Finding Our Way podcast she did with Prentiss Hemphill in 2020.
“When we seek justice, I want us to know when we have it. I have to know what it feels like.
“I know when I’m satisfied. It’s very liberating to have that technology in me, because then when it’s not happening, you can’t fool me.
“I wonder sometimes about how far we move without knowing what satisfaction looks like.
“This is how we end up with policies that don’t do anything for us. It looked good on paper. It sounded good to our oppressors. They got to feel good that they had given us something, but it didn’t actually meet our needs. And I think that happens when we don’t have a sense of satisfiability and what we actually need. We settle for less.”
I want to ask the church-attending, Heavenly-Mother-believing souls in 2022: Does the church’s Heavenly Mother essay satisfy you? Did Dale Renlund’s talk satisfy you?
Does Heavenly Mother satisfy you?
Do you know what it feels like to be satisfied?
If someone had asked me similar questions about all the things I justified ten years ago, I don’t know what I would have said. But I know what I’d say now. I know when I am satisfied. The church has no way of providing what satisfies me.
The church asks us to receive table scraps and mistake them for a feast … or at least to act like we do. And sometimes acting is the best we’ve got. I know that was the case for me on several occasions during my most vocal Mormon feminist years. I didn’t like whatever the church was doing that week, but I didn’t want to say anything too critical, so I’d spin it. I used flowery words to make it all seem okay (or at least marginally better).
I perceive a similar dishonesty now from those who are acting like the church’s official statements on Heavenly Mother are praiseworthy. I don't mean that as a low blow or a cheap shot; as I said, I’ve been dishonest in this way too, and it didn’t make me a horrible person, only a person who didn’t know better yet.
It's dishonest to believe one thing and pretend to believe something different. I worry about the repercussions of that dishonesty on both personal and communal levels.
I’m trying to convey the sincerity with which I hold two positions: a genuine admiration for what these activists are doing, and a genuine objection to the very premise of their activism. One part of me is saying, "Yes! Go! You're doing vital work!" ... and at the exact same time, another part of me is saying, "Please stop. Don't devote your brilliant minds and good hearts to this fundamentally abusive institution. You are only giving yourself and others more and more license to stay in a place that's harming us all."
The Power You Have
This line from Jessica Dore’s book “Tarot for Change” keeps running through my mind:
“There’s too much in this world that we have no control over already for us to be positioning ourselves as powerless over things that we do have a choice in.”
And maybe that’s what it is. Maybe this is the thing that troubles me most as I read dispatches from those who worship Heavenly Mother and are trying to make room for that worship in a hostile church: the sense of assumed powerlessness.
I want to tell them:
You are not obligated to stay. You are not obligated to sustain and support leaders who make you fearful at the approach of every General Conference.
There’s a whole lot in this world that you really don’t have any control over, but this? Your commitment to go along with whatever these cloistered men tell you to do? Your tradition of waiting to hear what they say before you can know whether your own relationship with the divine is approved? You don’t have to do any of this. You have a choice here. You are able to save yourself from this ridiculous pattern of powerlessness, and while it’s not easy, it’s almost embarrassingly simple.
You can go. Whenever you’re ready. And I hope, for your sake, that you’ll be ready soon.
This is what I want to say to you, my spiritual cousins, the ones still fighting the good fight within the church’s parameters. I’ve been there. I wish I could say this and have you really know, on a deep-down level, that I mean it with no judgment or condescension. But all I can do is give my words, the most sincere ones I have, and let them land where they may.
Once the act of clinging to Mormonism isn’t taking up all your surplus mental energy, you’ll have room to examine your earlier beliefs from different perspectives. You might meet Heavenly Mother in a totally new form. You might hear prophetic words from unexpected sources … or from expected ones. Maybe from your very own mouth. Maybe this is what you’ve been preparing for all along.
Fresh Courage Take
Multiple things can be true at the same time.
What these church members are doing takes courage. It takes self-assurance and respect for their own lived experience. Most of the people fighting this fight are women; that’s significant in a religion that subtly but consistently, over a lifetime, teaches women that their authority doesn't matter (and teaches men the same thing, although in different spheres). I applaud that. If you figure out that your authority matters, and you really feel it, and you seize opportunities to demonstrate that you trust your own authority more than the authority of the prophets, that's an enormous triumph.
I am also so pissed off that in the process of trying to raise their voices, there’s some measure of capitulating to the powers that be. Speaking from my own experience, I imagine these women know on some level that they can raise their voices a certain amount, but when they do, they’ll have to compensate in other ways to demonstrate to the people around them (and to themselves), "I promise, I am faithful. Believe me, I still belong here. This is my spiritual home. This is the best place for me." As long as a person feels the need to do this, their victories come at a steep price.
I know what it takes to create enough distance between the church's standards and your own sense of worth that you're willing to say unorthodox or unpopular things. It’s hard work. I honor those who do it.
Equivocation is not a path to liberation.
All acts of courage are revolutionary, but courage doesn't keep.
It’s easy to get stuck doing the thing that took guts five years ago. We’re not liberated by clinging to the choices that felt courageous to some former version of ourselves; we’re liberated when we work with other people in courageous response to the demands of this moment, when we live up to the vision of our current and future selves.
postlude music
written by Sara Hanks, with significant editorial input from Kristi Boyce