Why We Don't Worship a Mother in Heaven

[Carborendum]

While it is understood that we do believe that the Divine Feminine (which we have referred to as "Heavenly Mother") exists, it is also well known that we do not pray to Her.  We don't worship Her.  We don't really talk about Her all that much (i.e. She's not talked about in Sunday School very often).  But most people don't really understand why.  The subject is almost anathema.  Yet, we know it is a correct belief, nonetheless.

If it is true, why do we stay away from it so much?  Well, for starters, we don't know a whole lot about Her.  She exists.  That's about all we know.

We've also been taught to pray to the Father, not the Mother.  Why?  Consider for a moment who prays to our Heavenly mother today despite prophetic counsel to the contrary?  I'll let you answer that yourselves.

Consider also the History of the feminine deity in the Old Testament.  While it isn't clear from the text, historically, apostates went to worship Baal just as they were worshipping Ashera.  The unholy trinity was Baal, Ashera, and Moloch.  While the worship of Baal is mixed, the worship of Ashera is not.  And Ashera always led to the worship of Moloch.

The very idea of polytheism was so forbidden that the Old Testament tries to ignore the fact that there is a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  I believe this was an effort to rid ourselves of the worship of the BAM Trinity (I'll use that for brevity).

And when Christ came and declared Himself as the Messiah and the Son of God, they wanted so much to get away from polytheism that they had to construct this incomprehensible concept of the Trinity just to avoid being polytheists.  It was never taught by any prophets.  But the scribes of Christianity had to insist upon it.

But in the CoJCoLDS, we teach the Godhead.  Yes, there are three Gods that we include in our prayers and worship.  And it doesn't seem that we're in danger of falling into the worship of nature and physical properties (both tangible and intangible) that polytheistic cultures gravitate to.  We still consider ourselves essentially monotheistic.  Yes, we make qualifications.  But we basically identify as monotheists.

Yet we don't worship the Feminine.  We don't pray to her.  We don't include her in our worship services or mention her in any ordinances.

We may not be able to articulate it.  But history has shown that there is something about worshiping the Feminine that just causes us to go off the deep end.  We can worship the Trinity just fine.  And we can worship the Godhead just fine.  While our Trinitarian friends don't really have all the correct doctrine, I'd say they've been pretty stable for the past 300 years.  We still essentially worship the Father.  And we're still staying away from worshiping nature and offering human sacrifices.  It is the less-religious and non-religious who encourage those activities.  And such worship will always lead to BAM worship.

That is why we don't worship Heavenly Mother.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Carborendum

[Vort]

In my opinion, and nothing more, I think we can draw a lesson from looking at babies and young children growing up.

An infant knows his mother, and almost no one else. From his mother he draws the nourishment of life. From her arms, at least primarily, he is protected and cared for. He learns love from his mother's touch. Mother is, in a sense, everything to an infant.

But as the child grows, he discovers his father. And he discovers that his father, though like his mother in power and authority, differs from her in some striking and even unnerving ways. For most children, he's louder, more active, and though protective, protective in a different way from mother. Father's protection is perhaps less intimate but more aggressive than mother's. Children learn to appreciate father, first at a distance, then, as they mature, in a more intimate manner. The lessons of mother are not set aside, but they are added to as father becomes as big a part of the child's life as mother.

My personal opinion/belief is that Mother is the Being we knew at our spiritual birth. When we know Her again, we will remember both Her and the lessons She taught us. But today is our day to know God, meaning the Father. This life is the time to prepare to meet the Father. Our hearts must turn to Him. Our minds and focus and desires must be on Him. We must pray to Him, not to the Mother or to the Son or Brother. We worship the Father, and Him in truth. We pray to the Father. We come to know the Father, and in that knowing, we gain wisdom that can be gotten in no other way.

Mother worship is an evil practice, misguided at best and soul-destroying at worst. If Mother stands before me, then surely I will kneel before Her and worship as I would do at the feet of the Son. But otherwise, my prayer is to Father. In this life, at least, we do not worship the Mother. We worship the Father, and Him only.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Vort

[CV75]

I think it is a matter of division of labor. When the veil is removed we will resume our former relationships in their proper order, suited for that kingdom of glory and exaltation we are willing tor receive.

[Just_A_Guy]

. . . And if humans make such a shambles of the idea of one Heavenly Mother, what might they do if it turns out that God is a polygamist and that we don’t all necessarily share the same Heavenly Mother?

In a parallel vein:  God the Father is a real person; we learn of His existence through the testimony of others who have experienced Him and eventually, at some level, experience Him ourselves.  Whereas—outside the Church—a divine feminine is entirely a man-made construct.  People don’t presume to worship a goddess because a female divine being has revealed herself to them.  They worship a goddess because it’s a means of rejecting/ rebelling against/ proclaiming the insufficiency of the male divine being who has revealed Himself to them.

Edited October 22, 2024 by Just_A_Guy

[Still_Small_Voice]

Whenever the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been revealed in its pure form, the manner of worship has been revealed.  The worship of Heavenly Father has been from the beginning and it will very likely continue to be the same way in mortality.

On another subject, I wonder how many prophets in ancient times knew about the plan of salvation as we understand it with the pre-existence, spirit world, resurrection and the degrees of glory.  It seems to me, studying the writings of the Bible and Book of Mormon and the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, that we have more knowledge revealed on these subjects than many of the ancient followers of Jehovah had.

[laronius]

16 hours ago, Vort said:

In my opinion, and nothing more, I think we can draw a lesson from looking at babies and young children growing up.

An infant knows his mother, and almost no one else. From his mother he draws the nourishment of life. From her arms, at least primarily, he is protected and cared for. He learns love from his mother's touch. Mother is, in a sense, everything to an infant.

But as the child grows, he discovers his father. And he discovers that his father, though like his mother in power and authority, differs from her in some striking and even unnerving ways. For most children, he's louder, more active, and though protective, protective in a different way from mother. Father's protection is perhaps less intimate but more aggressive than mother's. Children learn to appreciate father, first at a distance, then, as they mature, in a more intimate manner. The lessons of mother are not set aside, but they are added to as father becomes as big a part of the child's life as mother.

My personal opinion/belief is that Mother is the Being we knew at our spiritual birth. When we know Her again, we will remember both Her and the lessons She taught us. But today is our day to know God, meaning the Father. This life is the time to prepare to meet the Father. Our hearts must turn to Him. Our minds and focus and desires must be on Him. We must pray to Him, not to the Mother or to the Son or Brother. We worship the Father, and Him in truth. We pray to the Father. We come to know the Father, and in that knowing, we gain wisdom that can be gotten in no other way.

Mother worship is an evil practice, misguided at best and soul-destroying at worst. If Mother stands before me, then surely I will kneel before Her and worship as I would do at the feet of the Son. But otherwise, my prayer is to Father. In this life, at least, we do not worship the Mother. We worship the Father, and Him only.

Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

If we view this teaching as having eternal implications, beyond this life, then this mortal life very well may be the patriarchal responsibility of our Father in Heaven to carry out. Christ only ever did that which He saw his Father do. And we men are commanded to do as the Savior did and act in a similar, though obviously lesser, capacity. It is part of the divine order of things, though in this life we largely only witness one half of that parental responsibility being carried out. 

[JohnsonJones]

In some ancient societies, the wife would be the master of the home, the queen of the abode, while the husband was the king for everything else.  In essence, a child would grow up in their home under the guidance and leadership of their mother.  Their father would be out and about with his work in society beyond the home.  When the child became an adult and dealt with things beyond the home, then they would be in their father's world. 

The Father would always lead the home, and be the one in charge, but as he had responsibilities outside the home, the mother would be the one who took care of the home itself and directed the things within.  She would ultimately report to her husband and he was over her, but generally in the home it was her word that was law. 

I feel this was fashioned after a more eternal way of how things work.  As @laronius points out above, Christ is the head of the Church.  Husbands would look to Christ for guidance and instruction.  Wives would look to their husbands.  In such a way there was order within the church and the home.  This used to be taught explicitly in LDS teachings and in various places, some of which this has been done away with.  However, the scriptures still talk of it. 

I relate this because it is possible that when we were spirit children, we lived in our Father's house and in that house we were under the care and guidance of a Heavenly Mother. 

We have grown into being responsible now, or at least in part, as we grow to our spiritual adulthood.  We are no longer stuck in the house, we are in the world our Father works in, and as such, he is the one we turn to. 

In addition, as the Father is the leader of the family, it is ultimately he who we need to turn to .  Luckily, as in many large families, we also have a very caring older brother who pledged to look after us and try to take care of us. 

If we follow our older Brother and heed his teachings in regards to our Father we eventually can also have eternal families with our own homes and households which will probably follow a similar process.