This week’s “Equality is not a Feeling” post is an illustration of the number of times the phrase “Heavenly X” or “X in Heaven” has appeared in any conference address since 1851 according to corpus.byu.edu. You’ll notice the difference between X=”Father” and X=”Mother” is 9,847 to 30.
Recently it’s even worse, as you can see in the illustration below, which shows the references to Heavenly Father vs Heavenly Mother over the last 25 years of combined April and October General Conferences. The only 6 references to Heavenly Mother were all in Hinckley’s October 1991 talk, where he denounced people who pray to her, apparently in an attempt to console a 14 year old girl who had written him a letter, worried that women cannot go to heaven because they are not as important as men.
[Anderson, manuscript in preparation.]
For more Equality is not a Feeling posts, see the archive here.
Thank you for posting this. This is one of the things that is so hard for me, even just going to church each week. I am constantly fixating on pronouns, replacing “his” with “their”, and “he” with “they”, etc. for my own sanity. Often I recognize that it’s become an unhealthy obsession, where I can’t see the forrest for the trees, so to speak… but the trees are so distracting to me that I find it mostly impossible to get the perspective I need, to hear any message at church other than an unintentionally sexist one.
Which is less distracting?
“We are daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves us and we love Him.”
or
“We are daughters of Heavenly Parents who love us and we love them.”
One small word change and suddenly millions of girls clearly see themselves relating to the Divine in a deeper, more meaningful, way.
Exactly.
I don’t understand why this can’t be the reality yesterday.
Think this would make them crazy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9fzWq-d8jU
Wow, RachelM. How interesting!
And really, how sad that it jarred me to hear “she” in that. :(
I like to do yoga to this every morning.
This touched me in ways I can’t fully express. Thank you for sharing.
RachelM, I love that one. I bought eight copies of the sheet music and rehearsed it with some sisters and brother-in-laws to sing at my daughter’s recent baptism. So beautiful. But at the very last minute it became clear that it would be too upsetting to too many people, so we substituted a Primary song.
I agree with Holly – this is now something I just can’t seem to ignore at church. It distracts me from many good things at church, but I’m not sure how to ignore it. Did you think to try and include Heavenly Parents in your results? At least that acknowledges Heavenly Mother’s existence, even if it’s pared with Heavenly Father, but I would bet that is usually the case when Heavenly Mother is mentioned at all. Even when we do talk about her, we don’t do it in isolation. People aren’t comfortable with talking about her if you don’t say Heavenly Father in the same sentence.
Oh, right Heavenly Parents is there. How did I miss that?
Hi ldslara,
I’m glad you like my graphs. The references to “Heavenly Parents” have been increasing a lot recently, but a lot of people see this as coming from anti-gay rhetoric, as a way of emphasizing heterosexuality in heaven. Sometimes, you just can’t win.
Here’s a graph:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/89465988@N02/10841648414/
BTW, if people have other ideas for how to extend this sort of analysis, or questions they want answered in this vein, then you can ask me at christiannkanderson AT hotmail DOT com
I would suspect that there would be a significant jump in references to “Heavenly Parents” after October, 1995, and that the jump would primarily reflect quotations from the family proclamation. (I would also suspect the greater context of those talks would be topics emphasizing eternal gender/gender roles.)
You are right! Since 1995 there have been exactly 100 talks that mention the Proclamation on the Family (and 1,354 that don’t) and 38 that mention “Heavenly Parents”. By random chance, you’d expect 2.8 talks to mention both, but in fact 18 of the 38 “Heavenly Parents” talks mention both, an excess that has less than a 1 in a trillion chance of occurring randomly (chisq=93.5, df=1).
Put another way: Of all conference talks, 7.0% mention the Family Proclamation. Of conference talks that mention “Heavenly Parents”, 47.4% mention the Family Proclamation.
Another thought I had: Is there any leader that is notable for using Heavenly Parents or Heavenly Mother more often in talks?
Not really. Orson F. Whitney is the only speaker to mention Her in more than one talk (1888, 1894, 1898 and 1907). Spencer W. Kimball mentions her twice in 1978, and Adney Komatsu quotes those references twice in later years.
I only looked at Heavenly Mother before. There are two interesting and opposite trends with “Heavenly Parents”:
1) In the last 40 years, the top two users of the phrase are notably conservative and anti-gay Oaks (7) and Packer (6). Nelson and Ballard (4 each) are the only others with more than two uses of the phrase. Oaks is the only apostle to use the phrase in 12 years before the Proclamation.
2) On the other hand, 22% of the references to “Heavenly Parents” are by female speakers, 3x more than expected given they are responsible for only 7.6% of the text in the study period (p=0.0003), and are generally more cautious than male speakers about voicing unpopular theological ideas. There may be a very quiet bit of defiance happening there.
I’ve thought for a while now that our place as women in the church is intrinsically tied to our treatment of Heavenly Mother. If we believe there is a Heavenly Mother, but choose to ignore her, how can we expect that women in the church won’t also be overlooked? How can the church give any power or authority to women in the church when we can’t even acknowledge that our Heavenly Mother has any?
This male-female war is disheartening — the presumption that Heavenly Mother is overlooked is simply blindness. Looking at this as a battle between male and female, or female and male, is such a poor distraction. If we take as a pattern the very best of those on earth — say Pres Eyring’s folks in his “Message to my Grandchildren”, it is two people achieving a oneness.
If asked, wouldn’t her response most likely be: are you listening to my Son?
ldslara, YES.
I can’t write a lot about it right now, but yesterday I went to the temple with a MoFem. We did initiatories then and endowment session. I went fasting and praying and with an open heart – but nothing has changed – the words are the same. I left my temple bag there with this letter
“12 November 2013
Today I attended the Denver temple for the last time. I did initiatories and an endowment session. I’ve attended the temple since June 1974, almost forty years ago. During that time, I’ve been to numerous temples and I’ve seen changes in wording, in policy and in practices. When I’ve asked, no one had been able to tell me why these changes happened or what their significance is.
As I’ve grown older, I have been more desirous of finding my Heavenly Mother in the temple and have been sorely disappointed that She is not here. Where there is a Father and a Son, there is also a Mother. Today I came hoping, with the new film, that I might see or feel Her . I did not. When we diminish our Mother, we diminish all women.
Several years ago, I spoke with the Temple President at the time and expressed my concerns that the temple ceremonies are injurious to women and that I long for the time when strong and holy and powerful women will be shown in the temple. I was polite and sincere. The conversation did not go well, because he chastised me for having these thoughts and beliefs.
I had a lengthy temple marriage to a man who took the words of the temple sealing – where I “gave” myself to him, to mean that I was his, in stewardship and to control. For decades he raped me, claiming it was his right, since I “gave” myself to him. He also heaped much other abuse on me and I kept silent, not knowing such things were wrong as we don’t talk about that in the church. I have never liked sealings since.
He also interpreted the way the Endowment portrays Eve, mostly silent, meek and later cursed, as the way I should behave as a Mormon woman. I hate when I am told to veil in the endowment ceremony as I always wondered why my face was so abhorrent to God, even though I was worthy to attend the temple.
For decades I believed I was inferior to men as that is the way women are taught and treated in the church. I believed my only value was to have children (I have nine) unto my husband. I did not look forward to a celestial life with such a man as I produced millions of spirit children for his glory. Nor did I want to be one wife out of many, as is taught in Doctrine and Covenants 132 and which is bolstered by men being sealed to more than one wife. I have since cancelled my sealing to this man, who has since remarried in the temple and is active and looked up to in his ward. I have married a kind and respectful non-member.
Yes, I finally spoke the truth, yes he was disciplined (a slap on the hand) and no, he did not change. I divorced him, much to the dismay of priesthood leaders, who little understood the deep damage abuse does to a woman in the church who was abused by her “righteous” husband. We were active faithful members and others were shocked when we divorced.
So here I am, today, coming to the temple one last time, hoping to see and feel my Mother. I wrote this letter ahead of time, for I know in my heart She will not be here. I came fasting and with the Spirit, wanting to see changes.
Women in the church have no real power and authority, always being under a man in leadership.I believe I am not the only Mormon woman who longs for a more equitable place in the church. I believe women are capable of so much more than what the church allows them. I long for the day when my granddaughters prepare and pass the sacrament together with the young men, when women sit on disciplinary councils and when women are also apostles. I believe these changes will come.
Please do what you want with my temple clothing as I have no longer have need of it
From a sincere and saddened sister. . .. . ..”
I’ll add that the sister’s name, whom I did the endowment for, was SOPHIE. That was close as I came to finding my Mother in the temple.
Wow. This is a powerful and heartbreaking letter. Thank you for posting it here. I hear you. God bless you.
I was recently at a an interfaith panel. A Rabbi, Reverend and a Muslim scholar (all women) spoke about their respective traditions approach to the creation and specifically the role of Eve.
At one point someone asked if the fact that the gendered language used to describe God was male had some role in the way that women are treated and viewed in each of these traditions. Each of these women replied that although God was almost always referred to as he, their respective beliefs about God were that God was not a he, but genderless. In each of these traditions, female pronouns could be used in reference to God without changing their view of deity. Consequently, this was explained as a limitation in language that has no overarching affect on the place of women in the respective traditions.
This is not true of Mormonism. We believe in a male God. We also believe in a female God(dess). So long we talk about our Father to the exclusion of our Mother, we are sending a clear message that men are more like God than women are.
Curious — I thought it had been made extremely clear in the LDS belief system that God is a pair of people, a perfected man and a perfected woman. True, we address God as the Father. It’s highly unlikely that that choice of that language was made for sexist reasons, but more likely with an understanding of our natures and our biochemical brains. Why? Good question, but something for the back burner, along with wave-particle duality and the like.
I love my Heavenly Mother and i constantly pray to her now. I would like to invite all women to feel no compunction praying to her. I never share my prayers with anyone but my younger siblings. My family is divorced and inactive so this is easy. But to all others I keep my relationship with her a jealous secret.
I feel it’s important that you know I prayed for guidance in how to approach my divine mother, for some place with female spiritual leaders with true power and connection to The Queen of Heaven. My prayer was answered swiftly through a random podcast download from The Ananda Church of Self-Realization. They are associated with Paramhansa Yogananda and practice meditation, chanting, and darhma yoga (living one’s right action through union with God).
Their talks and prayers embrace the truth behind all religions. I encourage any who wish to heal their hearts without leaving the church to seek a little help from their balm and salve-like talks. Any who seek a stronger relationship with Divine Mother (as Yogananda often and lovingly referred to her) listen to the songs and chants about her. It may be strange to you, but there’s no doubt about how much it blessed me.
I think this is the most glaring problem I have at church as well. I have had to completely deconstruct my concept of deity to get around it. The Mormon God, the God I was raised to worship, is male. Yet, the Church teaches that we are to become like God. I could never wrap my head around that idea. How was I to become like a male god? I could not identify. I had a wonderful earthly father, but I also had a wonderful earthly mother, and I cannot imagine one without the other. When I sit in Sacrament Meeting, every male pronoun jumps out at me, every reference to Father is startling in its incompleteness, in its marginalization of over half the congregation. Yet, I look around, and no one else seems to be bothered, and when I have dared to question it, I have been met by only blank stares of no understanding.
It’s surprising that you haven’t realized that when the Father is mentioned, a mother is implied. God is a pair, a perfected pair. This pattern is evident in all priesthood leadership from bishop to prophet. A bishop (from Timothy) is a man of one wife. Once I realized this, my worries and concerns diminished, then ceased. The pattern is there to see.
There certainly is a pattern here to see. But I don’t think it’s the “implied” one you are talking about.
The one I was talking about is not “implied”, but pretty plain.
.Observer, the prophet’s wife died. He is still prophet. If the reverse had occurred, she would no longer have been the prophet’s wife – we would have had a new prophet.They are not called together, only the priesthood holder is called.
So, is it about ascendancy, and “who’s in charge”? Is this about looking for power, who has it, and who should have it?
For me, it’s about the importance of voice and representation in church governance.
Internally, or externally?
Not sure what you mean, Observer. Internally, externally, at all levels. Whatever adjectives you might attach to it–we need it. Voice and representation in church governance.
I understand CatherineWO and have experienced the same thing. Which is why I finally have given up going to the temple. Of all the places in Mormonism, SHE should be there. Have you read Carol Lynn Pearson’s “A Motherless House?” She articulates how I feel. http://www.amotherhere.com/coll/pearson1.php#sthash.Qis2PySW.dpbs
Women need to break free. Women are great. We need to not only break free but contribute. This is what God would have us do. Sometimes I wonder if being “born” in the church was a test . . . to see if I would discover and discern – inspite of years of rhetoric and indoctrination. I needed to discover I was worthy of better. Better treatment and a right to equality too – not just in the next life, in this one. I felt truly awake and joyous when I left – something I was searching for all my years inside the church.
There are so many smart talented beautiful women in the church – I worry about them now that I’m on the other side. Everywhere in the world women are making progress but the Mormons are stuck in the 1800’s – and blame God for this. Even punish women who notice. I worry about women who believe this because truthfully – the women in the church are the leadership and the strength. This is why there could be one man and 50+ wives. Women are the family.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/i-am-malala
Mormonism isn’t the only religion to question the role and education of women. There is a worldwide movement — that requires good, smart, women to raise their voice.