Heavenly Mother: Encyclopedia II - Heavenly Mother - Origin of the Heavenly Mother doctrine

Heavenly Mother - Origin of the Heavenly Mother doctrine

The doctrine of the Heavenly Mother is attributed to Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, who soon before his death in 1844 outlined a revolutionary and controversial view of God that differed dramatically from the modern Christian consensus. See King Follett Discourse; Smith (1844). Smith's new doctrine included the belief that men and women can become gods and goddesses in the afterlife by following church practices (see Exaltation), an idea that logically implied the existence of a Heavenly Mother.

Although there is no clear record of Joseph Smith teaching the Heavenly Mother doctrine publicly, several of Smith's contemporaries attributed the doctrine to him either directly, or as a consequence of his new theological doctrine. An editorial footnote of History of the Church, 5:254, presumably quotes Joseph 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 second-hand account states that in 1839, Joseph Smith had told Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young, one of Smith's plural wives, 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'." See Wilcox, p. 65 (1987).

In addition, members of the Anointed Quorum, a highly select spiritual organization in the early Church that was privy to Smith's teachings, also acknowledged the existence of a Heavenly Mother. See Wilcox, pp. 65-67 (1987); Orson Pratt, p. 292 (1876); Wilford Woodruff, pp. 31-32 (1875). Also, the Times and Seasons published a letter to the editor from a person named "Joseph's Specked Bird", (possibly a wife of Joseph Smith), in which the author stated that in the pre-Earth life, the spirit "was a child with his father and mother in heaven". See Joseph's Specked Bird, p. 892 (1845).

In 1845, after the murder of Joseph Smith, the poet Eliza Roxcy Snow, one of Smith's plural wives, published a poem entitled "My Father in Heaven", (later titled "Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother", now the popular Latter-day Saint hymn "O My Father"), describing the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother. See Eliza R. Snow (1845); see also Derr (1996-97); Pearson (1992). This hymn contained the following language:

Some early Mormons considered Eliza Snow to be a "prophetess", and Latter-day Saint President Wilford Woodruff (a member of the Anointed Quorum, believed that Snow had obtained this understanding though her own revelation. Later, however, LDS President Joseph F. Smith (a nephew of Joseph Smith, Jr.) 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." (Wilcox at 65.)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Origin of the Heavenly Mother doctrine", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki