Heavenly Mother (Mormonism) - Origin of The Theology

Origin of The Theology

The theological underpinnings of a belief in Heavenly Mother is attributed to Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, who shortly before his death in 1844 outlined a controversial view of God that differed dramatically from traditional Christian consensus. Smith's theology included the belief that God would share his glory with his children and that humans might become exalted beings, or gods and goddesses, in the afterlife (see Exaltation).

Although there is no clear record of Joseph Smith teaching of Heavenly Mother publicly, several of Smith's contemporaries attributed the theology to him either directly, or as a consequence of his theological stance. 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 secondhand account states that in 1839, Joseph Smith had told Zina Diantha Huntington, 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'."

In addition, members of the Anointed Quorum, a highly select leadership group in the early church that was privy to Smith's teachings, also acknowledged the existence of a Heavenly Mother. Also, the Times and Seasons published a letter to the editor from a person named "Joseph's Specked Bird" in which the author stated that in the pre-Earth life, the spirit "was a child with his father and mother in heaven".

In 1845, after the murder of Joseph Smith, the poet Eliza Roxcy Snow, published a poem entitled My Father in Heaven, (later titled Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother, now used as the lyrics in the popular Latter-day Saint hymn O My Father), acknowledging the existence of a Heavenly Mother. This hymn contained the following language:

In the heavens are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare.
Truth is reason: truth eternal
tells me I've a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
in your royal courts on high?

Some early Mormons considered Eliza Snow to be a "prophetess". Later, however, Church President Joseph F. Smith (a nephew of Mormon founder 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."

The doctrine is also attributed to several other early church leaders. According to one sermon by Brigham Young, Joseph Smith once said he "would not worship a God who had not a father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other" (Journal of Discourses, vol.9, p. 286).