LDS Church releases theological essays on Heavenly Mother/women and priesthood

[Zioneer]

So the LDS Church has previously published 11 essays about various theological/historical issues involving the church, including violence by and against early Mormons, polygamy, the Book of Mormon, the idea of man becoming like God, etc. Well, now the Church has finished and published the last two essays, which detail with the topics of Heavenly Mother and LDS women and the LDS priesthood respectively. I'll give a quick synopsis in case anyone can't access the essays.

1. Women and the priesthood. This one is longer by far than most of the other essays, and of course it deals with the issue of women's ordination (or lack thereof) in the LDS Church. First, the essay details the many things women can do in the church, teach, serve missions, perform temple rites, lead auxiliary organizations, etc.

It goes on to say that when Mormonism was organized, most churches had men-only religious leadership, and that Mormonism was no different. However, in the LDS church, religious authority is theoretically through laymen, that is, not professional or inherited. The essay goes on to detail what the priesthood means, and what it authorizes its holders to do.

It goes on to explain the Relief Society, the women's auxiliary organization in the church and how it was formed. Of note is that the essay clarifies that though Joseph Smith "ordained" women to Relief Society positions and gave them the metaphorical "keys" of authority (usually terms associated with the all-male priesthood), that doesn't mean that he ordained them to any priesthood office.

After explaining that, it goes on to talk about healing blessings and laying on of hands, which is a common priesthood activity in the church. Basically, a priesthood holder (or two or more) will put his hands on your head and pray over you. It's not as weird as it sounds, there's no "BE HEALED" shouting or forcible holding someone down or whatever. Anyway, apparently early LDS women also did this, but didn't utilize the priesthood in doing so, and just used normal faith. Joseph Smith thought this was a-okay, and endorsed it. LDS Women slowly stopped doing healing blessings past Brigham Young, and nowadays don't do it at all. Though it never says that they can't, just that they don't.

2. Heavenly Mother. A very short essay, mainly because we don't actually have much doctrine about Heavenly Mother, other than that she's the wife of God the Father (who is separate from Jesus Christ in LDS theology as we are not Trinetarian), and the spiritual mother of all humanity (as opposed to a physical mother). Basically, the idea is that if we have a Father in Heaven, why not a Mother? We don't pray to her, and not much is known about her personality. Church leaders have said that not much is revealed through divine inspiration because God doesn't want humanity to mock and belittle Heavenly Mother like they do to him and Jesus Christ.


My thoughts on all of this is that I'd like to see more about these issues and that I feel that the explanation that women didn't use the priesthood despite doing a modern priesthood activity is a bit mealy-mouthed. I do hope that Heavenly Mother is explained more in detail, however.

Also, these particular essays have gone up after years of pro-LDS women's ordination group Ordain Women have been raising a fuss about these issues. So it's pretty clearly a response.

[Mr. Smith]

Not sure what you by "mealy-mouthed".

1. It is rather amazing all the little pieces here and there that changed between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I had heard rumors of these things, but confirmation is nice to have

2. I admit, the topic of a Heavenly Mother is one that I too, have always been fascinated by. Though at the same time, it leads to a huge amount of head-spins thinking about all the implications. For that reason, I'm sorta glad we don't have that much right now.

The nicest thing when reading these things and thinking about it all, is that revelation never stops coming and the canon always has room to expand.

[Zioneer]

Not sure what you by "mealy-mouthed".

1. It is rather amazing all the little pieces here and there that changed between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I had heard rumors of these things, but confirmation is nice to have

2. I admit, the topic of a Heavenly Mother is one that I too, have always been fascinated by. Though at the same time, it leads to a huge amount of head-spins thinking about all the implications. For that reason, I'm sorta glad we don't have that much right now.

The nicest thing when reading these things and thinking about it all, is that revelation never stops coming and the canon always has room to expand.

Well, I just think that saying "oh, he said ordination and keys but it actually wasn't the priesthood version" isn't as clear as it should be. Though as I said, I did like the implication that the healing blessing isn't specifically priesthood restricted, just that we've had priesthood holders solely do it since the mid 1900s. I'd love to see it come back. That and letting mothers hold their kids during baby blessings (which for the non-Mormons reading the thread, is not a baby baptism type of thing, more like a personal blessing/revelation given by fathers or other authorized LDS priesthood holders).

Also, I'm not opposed to women's ordination in the Church, as long as President Monson or Eyring or Uchtdorf as members of the First Presidency announce that they've had a revelation on it. Authorized revelation is the way to go on this issue, if it happens at all.

1. Yeah, it's interesting how a lot of things took a sudden turn after Joseph's death. Though I could see why the Church needed to look at things differently after the exodus from Nauvoo.

2. Eh, I like the implications, and would love to hear more about Heavenly Mother. For example, if Heavenly Father wept at the sins of humanity (as noted by Enoch or Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, I think), then how did Heavenly Mother respond? And what role did she play in the Creation?

In any case, I'd love to see some more official, General Conference-announced revelation on issues raised on any of the essays (like the 1978 revelation on the priesthood ban was announced). I feel like we have more to add to the regular scriptural canon (after the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price).