Year: 2008

Latter-day Saint Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Spirituality

Richley H. Crapo, Utah State University

c. 2002

Abstract

Religions differ in the degree to which they accept diversity of belief or practice among their own adherents. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (whose followers commonly are known as Mormons) is among those denominations for whom unanimity of belief and practice is highly valued. Its central theological concepts and liturgical practices presuppose a heterosexual identity. This results in particular dilemmas for adherents whose personal identity is not heterosexual. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons experience various pressures to remain closeted within the church and doctrines that are not easily reconciled with their own personal identities. This results in considerable social isolation and personal cognitive dissonance. Although some gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members adapt to these problems and remain engaged in the LDS church, the most common outcome for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons is eventually either disaffiliation with the church without maintaining a personal spirituality or, less commonly, finding a new, friendlier denomination.

Introduction

The ideologies of different religious traditions differ in their acknowledgment and acceptance of diversity of practice and belief. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are widely known as Mormons, exemplifies a religion in which unanimity of belief and practice is idealized. Yet, there is diversity within every religion, including those that do not formally recognize or accept it, and the LDS religion is no exception. The fact of diversity within the LDS church is well illustrated by the existence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) members within the denomination.

The LDS idealization of uniformity results in the experience of pressure on members to suppress any characteristic that sets them apart, religiously or socially, from their fellow Mormons. This pressure is particularly acute for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members who desire to continue their participation in Mormon religious life.

Doctrinal challenges for GLBT members

Particular LDS beliefs and practices pose special challenges for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members of the LDS religion. For instance, heterosexual marriage occupies a central place in the LDS community and its theology: “The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan” (The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, 1995). Among the most sacred LDS “ordinances” is that which is commonly referred to as “temple marriage,” a marital “sealing” between a man and a woman that is believed to make the marital bond valid for eternity. The afterlife is conceptualized in terms of the relationships between such “sealed” (heterosexual) couples and their descendants through an unbroken chain of children and ancestors who have been similarly “sealed” to their spouses. Being “sealed” in a heterosexual marriage is considered to be a prerequisite to a person’s attaining the “highest level of exaltation”in the next life.

Given the centrality of the heterosexual family to LDS social life, theology, and religious rites, it is unsurprising that LDS sexual values not only preclude premarital sex but that specific teachings would exist that impinge directly on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members. For instance, homosexual behavior is regarded as “serious sin” and even the thoughts and feelings associated with homosexual attraction “should be resisted and redirected” (Oaks, 1995:9). According to the Church Handbook of Instructions, the official policy manual provided to ecclesiastical leaders, homosexual behavior by either males or females, particularly by adults and especially by males who hold ecclesiastical office, is grounds for excommunication:

“Homosexual behavior violates the commandments of God, is contrary to the purposes of human sexuality, distorts loving relationships, and deprives people of the blessings that can be found in family life and in the saving ordinances of the gospel. Those who persist in such behavior or who influence others to do so are subject to Church discipline. Homosexual behavior can be forgiven through sincere repentance.

“If members have homosexual thoughts or feelings or engage in homosexual behavior, Church leaders should help them have a clear understanding of faith in Jesus Christ, the process of repentance, and the purpose of life on earth. Leaders also should help them accept responsibility for their thoughts and actions and apply gospel principles in their lives. In addition to the inspired assistance of Church leaders, members may need professional counseling. When appropriate, bishops [pastors of local congregations] should contact LDS Social Services to identify resources to provide such counseling in harmony with gospel principles” (Intellectual Reserve, 1998:158).

Homosexuality is of such concern to LDS leadership that the Church has actively lobbied against same-sex marriage in Hawaii and in several U.S. states in favor of so-called DOMA (i.e., “Defense of Marriage”) laws that restrict the recognition of marriage to heterosexual marriages (Crapo, 1997a, 1997b).

Although transsexual surgery does not violate the LDS expectation of chastity before marriage, it is apparently perceived as an implicit challenge to the LDS belief that “gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose” (The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, 1995). Thus it is specifically listed as among those “transgressions” for which official action against an individual’s church membership “may be necessary” (Intellectual Reserve, 1998, p. 95). The instructions regarding surgery are that “Church leaders counsel against elective transsexual operations. If a member is contemplating such an operation, a presiding officer should inform him of this counsel and advise him that the operation may be cause for formal Church discipline” (Intellectual Reserve, 1998, p. 95).

Similarly, the intent to undergo transsexual surgery can be a hindrance to joining the LDS religion: “Persons who are considering an elective transsexual operation should not be baptized. Persons who have already undergone an elective transsexual operation may be baptized if they are otherwise found worthy in an interview with the mission president or a priesthood leader he assigns. Such persons may not receive the priesthood or a temple recommend” (Intellectual Reserve, 1998, p. 26).

The very existence of bisexual Mormons is unacknowledged in church publications or sermons by top ecclesiastical leaders. Since, like heterosexual members, they experience attraction to members of the other sex, they are simply expected to conform to the church’s norms of chastity before marriage and to find a compatible spouse who is not of their own sex. Thus, bisexual members are not treated as having any particular pastoral needs. Bisexual members have similar difficulty finding a support network outside the church itself. There are, at this time, no bisexual-support organizations for bisexual Mormons, although such persons are typically welcomed by similar support groups whose members are primarily LDS gay or lesbian individuals.

In principle, the LDS doctrine does not distinguish among persons based on their personal, subjectively perceived sexual identities. For instance, rather than recognizing kinds of persons based on differences in “sexual orientation,” the church regards differences in erotic or affective attraction simply as matters of the kinds of “temptations” different individuals may experience. Thus, the spontaneous experience of a “same-sex attraction” to another person is not regarded as sin any more than an unbidden heterosexual “temptation” would be. It is only behavior–acting on “homosexual feelings” that is held to be sin. In practice, the LDS world view does not allow for the existence of “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual” persons. For instance, church leaders carefully avoid the very use of the term “sexual orientation” or terms such as “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual” as kinds of human identities. Instead, they speak only of individuals being “troubled” by “experiencing same-sex temptations.” By replacing the noun phrase, “sexual orientation,” with various verb phrases, such as “being same-sex attracted,” LDS theological discourse delegitimizes sexual orientation as the basis for a person’s social identity within the religious setting. One may be an LDS lawyer or an LDS Democrat or Republican, but one may not, in the accepted language of Mormonism, be a “gay, lesbian, or bisexual Mormon.” From the viewpoint of church leaders, persons who designate themselves by one of these terms are, by the very act of self-labeling, placing themselves outside the LDS system of thought that acknowledges only “persons who experience same-sex attraction.” Thus, there is no form of pastoral counseling which is aimed at dealing with the cognitive dissonance of experiencing oneself as being both “LDS” and “gay,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual.” Instead, such individuals are simply counseled not to act on their temptations and may be referred to LDS Family Services where therapists are expected to help such persons conform their behavior to the LDS ideal of chastity outside heterosexual marriage and to alter their self-perception as “being” gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons.

The primary document concerning homosexuality that has been issued by the church for therapists employed by LDS Family Services (LDS Social Services, 1995) discusses homosexuality and lesbianism within a gender-identity learning model in which homosexual and lesbian relationships are portrayed as by-products of inadequate identification with the same-sex parent, poor peer relations, unhealthy sexual attitudes, and early homosexual experiences or sexual abuse. It recommends a form of “reparative” therapy intended to facilitate patients’ acquisition of those gender roles that the church views as appropriate for relationships between men and women. Gay, lesbian, or bisexual members report that their own acceptance of this viewpoint can be a source of tremendous inner turmoil. For instance, several male interviewees said that as adolescents they had prayed repeatedly and to no avail for God to take away their sexual attraction to other males and that, finally, they had chosen to serve as missionaries for the church in the hope that by so demonstrating their dedication to their religion, God would surely change them so that they would no longer feel a sexual attraction to other men. When, after a year or more of missionary service, they found themselves unchanged, they were devastated to the point of becoming suicidal.

Pressure to remain closeted: loss of the usual social support network

As with many Americans, it is common for LDS members to confound any distinction between an individual’s sexual or gender orientation with behavior that violates the accepted sexual norms of the church, so that simply identifying oneself as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered person is perceived as tantamount to challenging the legitimacy of the church. Thus, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members are commonly counseled by their religious leaders not to discuss their sexual or gender identities with other members except on a “need to know” basis. This mandate to remain “closeted” functions to isolate gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members from the social support network that other members take for granted as a norm of Mormon life.

A theology in which heterosexual-family ideals are as central as they are to the LDS church poses clear challenges to persons who were reared in a Mormon family and then find that their sexual identity is that of a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered person. First, such individuals are very likely to be concerned about the potential for rejection by both their families and their ecclesiastical leaders should they “come out.” The pressure not to communicate about issues of personal identity are strong. For instance, R. D. Phillips (1993) interviewed 71 homosexual Mormon males and found that most had not told their parents about their sexual orientation. Similarly, B. Benson (2001), who interviewed homosexual Mormon males about the coming-out process, found that “[t]he most common reason [for not coming out to parents] was fear of parent’s reaction. Another obstacle to disclosure for these individuals was guilt about adding to parents’ emotional distress or wanting to protect their parents from painful emotions” (p. 26). Benson further found that LDS homosexual males who did come out to their families did so at a later age than is typical of non-LDS gays.

Lack of a tradition of pastoral ministry

Coming out to ecclesiastical leaders is complicated by the fact that the LDS ecclesiastical organization is built on a lay ministry rather than a professional one. Thus, bishops and stake presidents have no formal theological or pastoral training. Each lay minister is given a copy of the Church Handbook of Instructions (Intellectual Reserve, 1998) which is concerned with matters of policy that are relevant to carrying out the organizational work each minister has been requested to perform, but this publication does not attempt to outline LDS theology or the skills of pastoral ministering to congregants. Thus, bishops and stake presidents must often rely simply on their personal intuitions about how to respond to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals and on their personal interpretations of the limited policy material that touches on such things as church discipline for nonconformist individuals. For this reason, the response of LDS bishops and stake presidents who are approached by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members can vary tremendously from one “ward” or stake to another.

Awareness that the response of their ecclesiastical leaders is highly unpredictable and often unsupportive is a frequently-mentioned concern of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Mormons, one that they experience as pressure not to seek pastoral counseling at all because of their fear of possible loss of membership. As one interviewee, who now describes himself as a “personally spiritual but organizationally unaffiliated” gay man, described his own previous “discord” about his relationship with the church, “I was afraid about how the church would react and afraid about the loss of social structure and terribly depressed about marriage problems I was having, like my infidelity, because I was trying to follow the church’s teachings by being a father and husband, but I kept getting involved with men.” This individual eventually resolved his cognitive dissonance by no longer participating in either Mormon or non-Mormon worship services and leaving his heterosexual marriage relationship.

Nevertheless, remaining closeted does not eliminate the dissonance gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Mormons experience between their religious and sexual identities. One gay man described how on one Sunday, he was sitting in the choir at the front of his ward’s chapel when “this guy I had slept with the previous night came in and sat down in the congregation!” Experiences such as this, he explained, were personally embarrassing because they challenged his previous compartmentalization of his spiritual and sexual lives and forced him to deal with a sense of hypocrisy in his participation in the religious life of his congregation. The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Mormons I interviewed described the dissonance they have experienced as primarily internal and psychological rather than as a matter of social awkwardness. More commonly than discussing embarrassing or otherwise difficult social situations, interviewees spoke about the depression and sense of loneliness they had to cope with as closeted participants in LDS life.

Resolving the Conflicts

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members attempt to resolve the social and doctrinal conflicts they experience as members of the LDS church in one of two ways: by carving out niches within the fold and by disengaging from the church.

Carving out niches within the fold

Despite the powerful cognitive dissonance experienced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons whose religious identity is LDS, some individuals remain active participants in the LDS religion. The religious identification can be powerful, and one gay male whose ancestors were pioneer Mormon settlers of Utah territory told me, “I can no more choose not to be Mormon than I can choose not to be male or homosexual.” A. D. Lach, a spokesman for Affirmation, a support group for LDS gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, quotes one gay Mormon man as having said, “I am a Mormon, from a long line of Mormons, yet, I am also a homosexual. I have come to realize that I cannot cease being either. Thus, happiness depends upon my ability to reconcile these two facets of my nature” (Lach, 1989). In his study of LDS gays, Phillips (1993) noted that his sample included persons who “choose to live celibate lives, attempt to change their sexual orientation, or marry heterosexually in order to maintain favor with the Mormon church” (p. vi). One gay man I spoke to viewed his future in these terms, “I am 25, LDS with a rock solid testimony and planning on a life of celibacy to honor my Temple covenants. But to be realistic being alone is very hard if not impossible, but it is worth a try, and it is what I feel Heavenly Father wants me to do” (Crapo, 1998).

Those who remain sexually inactive and who approach their bishops are usually counseled to remain quiet about their sexual orientation, sharing it on a “need to know” basis only. This perpetuates the social isolation of such members within their religious community. According to Phillips (1993), the result “. . . for most celibate gay Mormons is that they live solitary, lonely lives with few social outings” (p. 94). According to at least half of my own interviewees, this isolation exacerbates the problems of depression, fear of rejection, and even suicidal concerns

Most LDS gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons who remain active in the church elect to remain closeted. Some few may speak to their bishops, but doing so can be problematic, since the personal attitude of individual bishops may result in harsher treatment than is actually justified by the standard policy guidelines that are issued to each local leader. For instance, one transgendered woman reported that her bishop insisted on holding a “Disciplinary Council” because she had undergone surgery for her condition. He insisted that this was mandatory, but when she showed him that the relevant policy statement of the church was merely that church discipline “may” be required in such cases, his response was simply, “It doesn’t matter. I decide.” The eventual outcome was excommunication. A transsexual man explained that his bishop required him to undergo karyotype testing and took the position that he would support him only if there was evidence of chromosomal abnormality to support his choice to transition from female to male, even though the church’s policy manual mentions nothing about chromosomes being determinative of one’s true sex. Nevertheless, even should this prove to be the case, current church policy precludes his being ordained to the LDS lay “Priesthood” which is required for full participation in various church activities, including marriage and which is an otherwise universal expectation for male members.

Finding support outside the church

The most common resolution to the conflict between the religious and sexual identities of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Mormons appears to be varying degrees of eventual disengagement from the church. Sometimes their disengagement has been the result of their having been either “disfellowshipped” or excommunicated by their ecclesiastical leaders. (Disfellowshipped persons retain their membership in the church but are restricted in terms of the level of their participation in the religious practices of the church.)

Others have voluntarily disengaged in ways that vary from retaining their membership but no longer attending services regularly to severing their ties with the church by requesting that their names be removed from its roles. As one gay man explained, the lack of anyone to turn to within the church for support led him to depression and the contemplation of suicide, but he “opted to survive” and found a support network in the gay community and a spiritual home in the local Metropolitan Community Church instead of continuing a closeted life among other Mormons. A lesbian interviewee who now participates in the Episcopal church explained her own feelings of lacking a support network in a Mormon setting this way: “The LDS church is extremely patriarchal, and our mission in life is to get married, have babies, and give up having a career, but we’re not just brainless baby machines.”

The transition out of Mormonism is not an easy one, since many experience their LDS background not simply in denominational terms but as a matter of cultural identity. As one disaffiliated gay male put it, “It’s more than a church, it’s a culture.” Another, who is currently unaffiliated with any denomination, put it this way: “You can take me out of the church, but you can’t take the culture out of me.” Disaffiliation is sometimes associated with unresolved anger. One disaffiliated gay male, a young man of about twenty-five years of age, told me, “I am . . . angry at and deeply disturbed by the Church for the untold suffering and destruction it has precipitated in the lives of so many of my gay brothers and sisters. I don’t apologize for those feelings. I believe in my heart that the Church is deeply mistaken concerning its attitude and policies toward homosexuality. I still have a testimony of the gospel and resent having to attempt to find another outlet for my spiritual feelings” (Crapo, 1998).

The modal pattern among those gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons who have fully disaffiliated themselves from the LDS religion appears to be one of shifting towards agnosticism or atheism rather than of seeking out another denomination with a GLBT-friendly theology. Those gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons with whom I have spoken in the course of my research on various gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered issues are more likely to describe their current religious status to be agnostic or atheist rather than even “personally spiritual but not organizationally religious.” Nevertheless, some do maintain a private spirituality or migrate to other denominations. For instance, among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered student members of Pride Alliance, a student organization at my own university, several of the lesbian members have become affiliated with the local Episcopal church, which they perceive as both accepting of gay and lesbian members and of their own feminist values. Several of the gay male membership has found a community of spiritual support in the local Metropolitan Community Church, and a few currently participate in meetings of the Unitarian Universalists.

A number of support organizations exist that welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Mormons or their families as members. These include some that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered affirmative in their views and others that have the goal of helping gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Mormons who wish to adhere to the strict sexual norms of their church. There are currently six primary organizations: Affirmation, Q-Saints, Family Fellowship, Gamophites, Evergreen International, and Disciples2.

Conclusion

The centrality of doctrines and practices concerning heterosexual marriage and families makes it unlikely that the LDS church will undergo significant theological changes in respect to its expectation that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons must conform their behavior to the gender and sexual norms of the church. Although the possibility exists that the church might reassess its understanding of sexual identity in ways that would be more accepting of transgendered person’s self perception without directly challenging doctrines or practices concerning the eternal nature of the heterosexual family, the existence of transgendered persons appears to be even less acknowledged or addressed in LDS literature than are homosexual and lesbian members. The church remains similarly silent on issues concerning bisexual members. However according to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons I have interviewed, church policy and practice regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members does appear to be undergoing some change currently, as church leaders become increasingly aware of the existence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered members whose pastoral needs have not been previously addressed.

References

Benson, Brad. 2001. Perceived Family Relationships Associated with Coming Out of Mormon Male Homosexuals. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Utah State University, Logan, Utah.

Crapo, Richley H. 1997a. “LDS doctrinal rhetoric and the politics of same-sex marriage.” Invited paper presented at the annual meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, San Diego, CA.

Crapo, Richley H. 1997b. “The LDS church and the politics of same-sex marriage.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Sunstone Theological Symposium, Salt Lake City, UT

Crapo, Richley H. 1998. “Ministering Angels and Eunuchs for Christ: Being Mormon in the Sexual Margins,” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Montreal.

Dach, A. D. 1989. Homosexuality and Scripture. Los Angeles: Affirmation.

Intellectual Reserve. 1998. Church Handbook of Instructions. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

LDS Social Services. 1995. Understanding and Helping Those Who Have Homosexual Problems: Suggestions for Ecclesiastical Leaders. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Oaks, Dallin H. 1995. “Same-Gender Attraction,” Ensign (October), pp. 6-14.

Phillips, R. D. 1993. Prophets and Preference: Constructing and Maintaining a Homosexual Identity in the Mormon Church. Unpublished Masters thesis, Logan, Utah: Utah State University.

The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve. 1995. Proclamation on the Family. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Crapo-R2002-Latter-day Saint Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Spirituality

Free Will and Obedience: The Role of Paradox in Mormon Myth and Ritual

Richley H. Crapo, Utah State University

(undated)

Abstract
In Mormon theology both the freedom of the individual to choose their course of action and the duty of obedience to authority are stressed as sacred values. The tensions created by these contrasting values are symbolically expressed in Mormon myth and sacred ritual. This article traces the paradoxical expression of symbols of obedience and free agency in the Mormon Preexistence myth, which is found both in Latter-day Saint scripture and Temple rituals. It is argued that the paradoxical emphasis on freedom and obedience is reconciled through rituals of choice in which Mormons act out their willing deference to the decisions of authority figures.

Myth as Projection of Distress
Myth and ritual have long been recognized as outlets for tensions experienced in social life. The parallels between ritual and myth as expressions of social needs and conflict were noted earlier in this century by Kluchohn (1942:78-9) :

For myth and ritual have common psychological basis. Ritual is an obsessive, repetitive activity–often a symbolic dramatization of the fundamental ‘needs’ of a society, whether ‘economic,’ ‘geological,’ ‘social,’ or ‘sexual.’ Mythology is the rationalization of the same needs, whether they are all expressed on overt ceremonial or not. Someone has said ‘every culture has a type conflict and a type solution.’ Ceremonials found to portray a symbolic resolvement of the conflicts which extant environment, historical experience, and selective distribution of personality types have caused to be characteristic in society.

The symbolic parallels between either myth or ritual and stress can be examined in the context of the innovator who contributes myth or ritual to a religious tradition or in the context of the social following that perpetuates the tradition. Wallace (1966:13) noted that there is an intimate connection between both rituals and beliefs and personal distress: “. . .for at least some individuals, various aspects of belief or ritual can serve as prime generators, apt expressions, or more or less expedient symptomatic solutions of emotional problems.” Gluckman (1970:2397-2398) aptly characterized the same relationship with an emphasis on the social context when he asserted that “. . .ritual, occult beliefs, and practices will tend to occur in crisis situations in which the discrepant principles out of which social organization is formed, principles which are in conflict, produce actual or potential disputes which cannot be settled by judicial and other purely intellectual procedures.”

Contemporary Mormonism maintains a seeming contradiction in combining an authoritarian and dogmatic ecclesiastical structure with an active theological emphasis on free agency as central to the very concept of human nature. White and White (1981:47) rightly noted that “. . .few organizations so closely resemble the classical pyramidal bureaucracy. All power to allocate and mobilize institutional resources resides at the apex.” Yet Leone (1976:722) is also able to argue that “Mormonism is neither authoritarian, hierarchical, nor literalistic but, in matters of doctrinal interpretation at least, is diffuse, egalitarian and loose-constructionist” that in this and in its this-worldly ability “to sacralis day-to-day activities” (p. 730 it meets Bellah’s (1964) criteria for a Modern Religion. The expression of this tension of opposites in Mormon myth and its manifestation and potential resolution in ritual will be explored in the remainder of this article.

The roles of myth and ritual as alternate expressions of the same underlying value conflicts can be illustrated in Mormon theology and rite with examples that demonstrate how the same tensions engendered by conflicting values may receive their symbolic expression through the creative acts of an individual or through social evolutionary processes within a group. In this paper, Mormon creation beliefs will be shown to express a tension between the values of freedom and coercion, a tension that is present in Mormon concepts of church governance and that is given release in Mormon ritual life.

Free Agency and Obedience: Mormon’s Polar Values
When O’Dea (1957:165) described Mormonism as a “democracy of participation and an oligarchy of decision-making and command,” he touched on a central paradox in Mormonism that has a variety of manifestations. One is its simultaneous emphasis on obedience to the authority of its ecclesiastical leaders and on respect for the sacred quality of the freedom of choice of its members. The conflict between these contrasting values is symbolically portrayed in the Mormon creation myth in which some pre-born human spirits lose the possibility of salvation by paradoxically exercising their divinely given freedom of choice to relinquish their agency in return for the promise of salvation made certain. This myth reflects a tension between the competing values of obedience to ecclesiastical authority figures and the freedom of individual choice, a tension that finds symbolic expression in Mormon myth and ritual.

The Mormon Preexistence Doctrine
Unlike traditional Christian theology, Mormonism asserts that human existence, like that of God, is an absolute condition rather than a contingent one (McMurrin, 1979:12). Humans are as inherently eternal as is God, and each individual existed prior to mortal life, first as unorganized intelligences that embodied the unique eternal essence of each human individual in immature form and then as spirit children of Divine Parents (Heeren, Lindsey & Mason, 1984). Though they are subordinate to God, human beings differ from Him merely in degree of persona; development; they are not of a different order. This view of human nature as including individual autonomy that is coeternal with, but subordinate to God is embodied in a well-known Mormon aphorism: “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become” (Romney, 1955:34).

The story of human existence as spirit children of God prior to the creation of the world, the Preexistence (or less commonly, the First Estate) as it is called by Mormons, is recounted in a Latter-day Saint (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981) scripture (Abraham 3:23-28):

And God saw these souls that were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou are one of them; thou wast chosen before thou was born.

And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials. And we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;

And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God command them;

And they that keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate [i.e., did not obey God in the pre-mortal spirt world] shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate [i.e., remain faithful during the mortal l life on earth] shall have glory added upon their heads forever and ever.

And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first

And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate: and at that day, many followed after him.

In traditional Christianity, God’s transcendence is manifest in His spiritual nature, while human limits are symbolized by the flesh that constrains the spiritual nature of humankind. Mormonism inverts this symbolism, holding God to be a personage of both spirit and perfected body. The Plan of Salvation, God’s plan to create a world in which His spirit family might receive physical bodies and then return to Him, grows out of this nontraditional concept of perfection embodied in spirit united with the flesh. Humans originated in spirit form as the literal offspring of God, but they are limited by their lack of a perfected body, a body like that of their divine Father (see McConkie, 1958:37; Hardy, 1976). Their birth as spirit children of Heavenly Parents (see Heeren, Lindsey, and Mason, 1984) raised them from their prior status as unorganized Intelligences to spirit heirs of God in their pre-earth First Estate. God’s plan for His children was that they might progress to a third and higher status by receiving perfected bodies and, in so doing, become more like Him.

The advancement from mere spirit status to beings of flesh and bone would allow the children of God to experience more of the physical nature of the universe and thereby to progress in knowledge and experience. To accomplish this, a world was to be created on which they would first receive mortal bodies during a temporary time of testing. During their probationary mortal life outside the presence of God and with their memories of the Preexistence veiled by their mortal bodies, God’s children would be–for the first time–truly free to demonstrate their willingness to choose to live righteously according to their Father’s will or to reject the way of life he had taught them. Those who “kept their second estate” by accepting a vicarious atoning sacrifice in their behalf would have the sins of mortal life forgiven so that they might receive perfected bodies in the resurrection and return to Him. Christ, the first born spirit Son of God, volunteered to be this sacrifice. Lucifer, another high placed son of God, offered another plan: He would be the earthly Son of God and rule on earth in such a way that all would be denied their free agency, their ability to choose to follow or reject obedience to God. Since obedience would be coerced, none would sin, and all would return to the presence of God. These two competing plans for the salvation of humankind are described in another Latter-day Saint scripture (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981) (Moses 4:1-4):

And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses saying: That Satan. . . is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me saying–Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it, wherefore give me thine honor.

But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was from the beginning, said–Father, they will be done, and the glory be thine forever.

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down.

And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as world not harden unto my voice.

Since many of the spirit children of God chose Satan’s coercive plan of salvation, a great War in Heaven ensued that resulted in one-third of the children of God being cast out and being denied the right to enter their “second estate” by receiving a mortal body on earth. Thus, paradoxically, by exercising their divinely given freedom of choice to relinquish their agency in return for the promise of salvation made certain through coerced obedience, these children of God lost the possibility of salvation. Those who remained obedient to God lost the possibility of salvation. Those who remained obedient to God by accepting a plan for mortal life based on the uncoerced right to elect disobedience to God were rewarded with elevation to the next stage in their eternal progress toward Godhood, their probationary mortal life. Mortal life too would be characterized by the same dilemma–humans would possess freedom of choice, but that choice would have to be exercised only in obedience to the authority of God’s will:

Behold these they brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto his agency;

And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father, but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood;

And the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; and in my hot displeasure

will I send in the floods upon them, for my fierce anger is kindled against them (Moses 7:32, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981).

Thus, the Mormon creation myth is built around the tension between the autonomy of personal choice as a God-given attribute of humankind and the divine commandment that all must exercise their agency only to choose obedience to God.

Authority and Obedience
Mormonism is well known for the tightness of its organizational hierarchy and for its emphasis on divinely delegated authority as the basis of its organizational legitimacy. The church is governed by what Quinn (1984:16) has called “an authoritarian oligarchy.” The highest ecclesiastical officials are a body of men known as General Authorities, leaders believed to be called to their offices by direct, modern revelations from God. The chief presiding officers make up two bodies: 1) The Quorum of Twelve Apostles, held to be contemporary equivalents to the original Christian Apostles both in calling and prophetic inspiration, and 2) the First Presidency, consisting of the highest church authority, the president Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the church and his two counselors. Below these General Authorities in a descending hierarchy is a chain of command terminating in the local bishops of the church, Each bishop is usually responsible for a local congregation called a ward, that averages nearly five hundred persons. Since the ministry among Mormons is a lay ministry, a large percentage of the local membership is involved in conducting the business of each ward. Those persons regularly involved in the work if the local ward are formally called to do so on a regular part-time basis, so that at the local level there is also a large hierarchically organized body of personnel, presiding over the bishop.

Within the church organization, the concept that authority is delegated from above is reinforced by the belief that persons are chosen for the positions that they fill–even seemingly “everyone” positions within the ward, such as teacher in nursery or Sunday School librarian–by divine inspiration. This belief is reinforced by means of rituals in which each person is “set apart” and “given authority” to conduct the work of his or her “calling.” Commitment and efficiency in carrying out the work of each position is emphasized, and Mormons themselves point out that the beehive emblem of the state of Utah is rooted in the religious symbolism of their church (Mauss 1983, 1989).

In church activities and assignments, obedience is expected to be unquestioning, since the organization, practices, and beliefs of the church are regarded as based on divine revelation. Obedience is stressed in officially sanctioned publications and teaching manuals. Indeed, in a study of values expressed in the 1982 manuals used for the teaching of all adult males and females in the church, Crapo and Cannon (1982) found that obedience to the church and its leaders was the second most frequently mentioned virtue, accounting for over twelve percent of all value statements. Indeed, over twenty-seven percent of all value statements referred to some form of loyalty to the church as an institution, making institutional loyalty the broadest general theme in these teaching materials. Shepherd (1984) found that obedience was the most consistently stressed value throughout the history of the LDS Church’s semi-annual Conference that were given by Church leaders.

Free Agency
At the same time, free agency, the freedom of each individual to choose voluntarily the course of his or her actions, is a central theological concept in Mormonism. According to Mormon scripture, free agency was given to humankind when they were created: “Behold these brethren, they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency” (Moses 7:32).

The concept of freedom of choice is so important to Mormon theology that Talmage (1901:33), one of Mormonism’s most respected writers declared: “The Church holds and teaches as a strictly scriptural doctrine, that man [sic] has inherited among the inalienable rights conferred upon him by his divine Father, absolute freedom to choose the good or the evil in life as he may elect.” In matters of Church government, Mormon scriptural admonition insists that “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned (Doctrine and Covenants 121:41). This ideal is consistent with reports of my own informants that in spite of the hight value placed on obedience and support for church leaders, refusals of callings or other requests for service or participation in church programs are typically accepted without further pressure. Church leaders are admonished in LDS scripture that if a leader tries to “. . .exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves, the Spirit of the Lord is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:37). Thus Mormon church government, like its mythology, involves two potentially conflicting values, obedience to authority and respect for free agency. This tension between the value of freedom of choice and the demands for obedience is expressed not only in the Mormon “Preexistence” myth but also in Mormon ritual.

Ritual
Many behaviors have been called rituals, from the compulsive behaviors of anxiety disorders or the tics and mannerisms of psychoses to the explicit re-enactments of myth in religious ceremony. Even the simple unselfconscious habits required by social etiquette have been called rituals. Rituals may be the spontaneous creations of an individual grappling with the anxieties of a stressful life, or they may evolve over decades within their anxieties. Customs are passed from one generation to the next. They may be rife with the explicit symbolism of formal ceremony or they may be as devoid of ideological significance as is blase routine. They may be a source of solace and surcease from the cares of life (Malinowski, 1925), or themselves a source of personal distress (Radcliffe-Brown, 1939).

The diverse ways in which rituals manifest themselves have stimulated much speculation about the relationship between the most stigmatized and accepted rituals, those of the mental disorders and those of religious worship. Freud (1913), of course, emphasized the similarities between neurotic and religious ritualism. Others (e.g., James, 1902; Jung, 1938; Fromm, 1950, 1951) claimed that religious rituals have more in common with psychotherapy than psycho-pathology. Most have recognized that ritual, wherever found, has some relationship to less than fully conscious ideation–a relationship in which it functions to facilitate the repression of forbidden impulses. Thus, rituals are repositories of conscious or unconscious meaning; they symbolize preoccupations, the problematic nature of which have not yet adequately been incorporated into thought or ideology in a consciously satisfactory way.

Mormon Rituals of Choice
Dolgin (1974:535) has suggested that Mormon ritual life may be divided into “. . .three primary sub-domains: the Temple rites, weekly worship services (held in local churches) and civil religion.” She has constructed a general outline of LDS temple ritual as a drama in which participants play the symbolic role of humanity in a re-enactment of the Mormon Plan of Salvation myths from the creation of the world through the return of each participant in heaven. For Mormons the Temple is a particularly sacred edifice that is viewed, according to Leone (1977:46) as a sacred place in which members may be particularly close to God. Although Latter-day Saints are encouraged to participate often in Temple ceremonies for special communion and instruction, only those who affirm full support of the church and its doctrines are permitted entry, and the frequency of Temple participation varies from person to person, depending on personal inclination.

The central Temple rite is the endowment, a ceremonial re-enactment of the Mormon theology that recounts the history of the world from the creation through the resurrection. In the drama of this re-enactment, the audience is drawn into the sacred symbolism of Mormon theology by taking the role of humankind while receiving special instruction from heavenly personages portrayed by Temple workers. Visiting a temple to participate in this or one of the other sacred Temple rites is a profoundly sacred experience, a kind of pilgrimage into a realm of living scripture, the otherworldliness of which is enhanced by the non-calendrical nature of individual participation, the geographical isolation of the Temple, the architectural symbolism of the rooms in which various parts of the rites are performed, and even by the ceremonial clothing worn on these occasions.

Dolgin (1974:537) has noted that “If one takes the Temple ritual as a linear whole and divides it into two halves, one finds a striking parallelism between the first and second halves of the rite . . . That is, if one starts at either end of the ritual . . . and moves toward the center, one notes (or undergoes) a similar series of ordered phases before one arrives at the middle.” The central feature of the ritual sequence is the Fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden to the mortal world. Immediately before and after this transition, the dominant ritual symbol is the presence of Lucifer. Before the appearance of the devil is a Council of gods who plan and carry out the creation of Adam and Eve, and following the role of Satan is a Council of humanity. With this pattern in mind, one might briefly outline the entire ritual sequence as follows: Participants are prepared for the mythic drama by rituals which separate them from their secular roles and introduce them to the sacred realm, the creation and the Fall are re-enacted, the two Mormon Priesthoods (the Aaronic Priesthood, generally held by males below eighteen years of age, and the Melchizadek Priesthood, held only by men eighteen years of age or older) are introduced as the means of salvation and sacred knowledge is imparted that is necessary for entry into heaven, and participants are ritually restored to their secular roles.

Although Dolgin’s division of the Temple ritual into two major parts is not a native classification, its appropriateness is supported by the sequence pattern in the linear progression of the rites. It is also supported by symbolic patterns not discussed by Dolgin, by the pivotal role played in both of her divisions by a ritual of choice. To demonstrate this pattern, it is necessary to return to the issue of the conflict embodied in the LDS story of the Preexistence. The essential paradox of Mormon mythology is that God’s children are required to have free agency but must exercise their freedom of choice by electing obedience to God’s Plan of Salvation. The tension between freedom and required obedience is portrayed not only in the Preexistence myth that forms part of the Temple ceremony, but also in the story of the Fall, which Dolgin regards as the turning point in the Temple ceremony.

In LDS theology, the Fall involved a dilemma. Eve had been deceived into eating the forbidden fruit and would have been separated from Adam by being expelled from the Garden of Eden and immorality into the mortal world. Thus, Adam could obey God’s first command, “Be fruitful and multiply,” only by a conscience choice to disobey the second, “Of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat.” Therefore, his first truly independent exercise of Free Agency was of necessity a choice of disobedience, but being a “forced choice” that he could not evade, it was not a willful rejection of God’s will but an attempt to choose the lesser of two evils. By partaking of the forbidden fruit, he would remain with Eve and be able to keep what Mormons call “the first and greater commandment” of God, the command to reproduce. In this story, the apparent conflict between free agency and obedience to God is resolved by demonstrating that neither choice nor obedience is a simple unitary phenomenon. Rather, free agency involves complex and sometimes competing choices, and choices must sometimes be made between one form of obedience and other conflicting obligations. Thus, in a classic Levi-Straussian algebra, the paradox is resolved: Free agency is to obedience as disobedience to a lower law is to obedience to a higher law.

According to Dolgin, the enactment of the Fall is the pivotal ritual of the Temple rite. This interpretation is cogent not only because of its central place between the reverse ordered halves of the entire drama, but also because this interpretation illuminates another aspect of the pattern: the central ritual in each half of the Temple rite is itself a ritual of choice in which participants are “offered the chance to curtail their ritual involvement” (Dolgin, 1974:539). That is, they are ritually given the chance to leave the ceremony, thus reaffirming the free-agency/disobedience paradox of the human quest for salvation. In this regard mortality is both an opportunity to make proper choices thereby returning to God as well as a risk from exercising free agency in a way that leads away from God, as symbolized by the choice to leave the ceremony.

Rituals of choice are also an important element of weekly worship services. In contrast to the drama of Temple rites, the weekly worship services of Mormonism seem relatively this-worldly and un-ceremonial. Leone (1964:733) calls these “the most straightforward” of Mormon ritual gatherings. Dolgin (1974:540) emphasizes the absence of drama in more detail:

Unlike the Temple rites, within which the individual participates only irregularly, the services in the local Mormon churches are enacted on a weekly basis. The colorful and dramatic symbols of the Temple rites are not found in the weekly services: indeed, the traditional Christian sacrament is sensually weakened in the form of white bread and water. The tone of the services I attended in Arizona was one of relaxed, albeit “spiritual” communitas. The sharp dichotomies between good and evil present in the Temple rites are here minimized. The Mormon actor as “individual before God” is replaced by the unsubstantial community of fellow Mormons.

The weekly service that brings ward members together for worship is the Sacrament Meeting. Its usual format consists of an opening hymn sung by the congregation, an opening prayer spoken by a ward member, ward business carried out by the conducting official, the sacramental sharing of bread and water as symbols of the flesh and blood of Christ, short sermons by members of the ward, a final congregational hymn, and a closing prayer. Ward business is the occasion for formalizing changes in the social organization of the ward. Families or individuals who have moved into the ward are introduced and accepted by vote of the congregation as new ward members, and members vote by show of hands to 1) sustain actions of their presiding officials, such as the installation of persons into various offices, or 2) express their willingness to support a recommended plan of action or doctrine. Such rituals of choice occur not just in sacrament meetings but in meetings of any size, up to and including church-wide General Conferences that are held semi-annually. Rituals of choice are especially prominent in these Conferences where the membership is asked to sustain all of the various changes being made in the personnel of the church hierarchy.

Although these rituals of choice are actually merely opportunities to express support or opposition to actions being taken by church officials, they are commonly referred to as “votes” even by the officials conducting the process. Expressions of dissent are rare, and in any case the final decision remains the sole prerogative of the presiding officials. Dissenting “votes” at the level of semi-annual conferences are reacted to with shock by the membership as a whole, and persons likely to express dissent during these televised rituals are, in fact, screened from attendance at such conferences to the best ability of the church organization. Particular attention to such screening occurred following an unexpected vocal expression of rejection by five persons in attendance at the nationally televised semi-annual conference in April of 1981.

Nevertheless, in spite of the purely ceremonial nature of these rituals of choice the grass-roots member, by frequent participation in them, receives a sense of personal involvement in church government. Through these rituals the individual’s sense of personal commitment to the leadership and policy decision’s of the church government are repeatedly reconfirmed, maintaining a high level of conformity between his or her subjective sense of choice and dictates of church authority.

Historically, as recounted by Quinn (1984:16), Mormon voting in the nineteenth century might actually set aside actions proposed by even the Presidents of the church, and sometimes local priesthood assemblies were even polled by secret ballot before church leaders made proposals for personnel changes to ensure that the proposal’s would be acceptable. The prerogative of members to limit decisions of the church hierarchy by vote received less and less emphasis as church membership expanded. While exhortations for members to exercise thoughtful judgment in voting continued to be heard as late as 1969, the democratic emphasis was replaced thereafter by the portrayal of “sustaining votes” as evidence of members’ faithfulness to the divine inspiration of church leaders. As a result of this new definition of the situation, “voting” functions in practice more as an opportunity for members to assent ritually to decisions made by church officials than as a polling of their agreement or disagreement. As such, the votes are almost always unanimous.

In the act of ritual voting, Mormons reaffirm their allegiance to the legitimacy of their leaders’ authority to make decisions that members are expected to uphold. By repeatedly affirming support for decisions that flow from above, the individual member short-circuits any likelihood of experiencing cognitive dissonance between private preferences and leadership policies. It is here then, that the potential tensions between the personal choice of the individual and the authority of the church are reconciled, so that authority-based decisions are experienced as expressions of the grass-roots will, rather than as obligations that conflict with personal choice.

References
Bellah, Robert 1964 “Religious evolution,” American Sociological Review 29 (June): 358-74.
Crapo, Richley H., and Cannon, Sharon D. 1982 “LDS values as revealed by a content analysis of official teaching materials.” Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Western Social Science Association, Denver, Colorado.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The 1981 The Pearl of Great Price. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Dolgin, Janet 1974 “Latter-day Sense and Substance.” In Religious Movements in America, edited by Irving I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 519-546.
Freud, Sigmund 1907 “Obsessive Acts and Religious Practices.” In Collected Papers, edited by Ernest Jones. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-analysis (5 vols., 1924)
Fromm, Erich 1950 Psycho-analysis and Religion. New Have: Yale University Press. 1951 The Forgotten Language. New York: Reinhart.
Gluckman, Max 1970 “Ritual.” In Man, Myth and Magic, edited by Richard Cavendish. London: BPCC/Phebus Publishing. Volume 17, pp. 2392-2398.
Hardy, B. Carmon 1976 “The Schoolboy God: A Mormon-American Mode., “Journal of Religious History 9:172-188.
Heeren, Lindsey, and Mason 1984 “The Mormon Concept of Mother in Heaven: A Sociological Account of Its Origins and Development, “Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23 (4) :395-411.
James, William 1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Longmans Green.
Jung, Carl G. 1938 Psychology and Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kluckhohn, Clyde 1942 “Myths and Rituals: A General Theory,” Harvard Theological Review 34 (Jan.) :45-79.
Leone, Mark P. 1976 “The economic basis for the evolution of the Mormon religion.” In Religious Movements in Contemporary America, edited by Irving I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 722-766.
Malinowski, Bronislaw 1925 “Magic, Science, and Religion,” in J. Needham (ed.), Science Religion, and Reality, New York: McMillan.
Mauss, Armond L. 1983 “The Angel and the Beehive” BYU Today.
_____.1989 “Assimilation and Ambivalence: The Mormon Reaction to Americanization, “Dialogue (22): forthcoming.
McConkie, Bruce R. 1958 Mormon Doctrine. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft.
O’Dea, Thomas 1957 The Mormons. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Quinn, D. Michael 1984 “From Sacred Grove to Sacral Power Structure, “Dialogue 17 (2) :9-34.
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald 1939 “Taboo,” The Frazer Lecture.” Cambridge: At the University Press
Romney, Thomas C. 1955 The Life of Lorenzo Snow, Salt Lake City: The Sugarhouse Press.
Shepherd, Gary, and Shepherd Gordon 1984 A Kingdom Transformed: Themes in the Development of Mormonism. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Talmage, James E. 1901 Articles of Faith. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1966 Religion: An Anthropological View. New York: Random House.
White, O. Kendell, Jr., and Daryll White 1981 “A critique of Leone’s and Dolgin’s application of Bellah’s evolutionary model to Mormonism,” Review of Religious Research 23 (1) : 39-53.

Crapo-R-Free Will and Obedience-The Role of Paradox in Mormon Myth and Ritual

Gender Differences in Mormon “Mother in Heaven” Folklore

Richley Crapo, Utah State University

(undated)

As has been noted by Peggy Sanday (1981), creation myth symbolism is closely related to gender roles in society. The role of the feminine in divine symbolism is found in many of the world’s cultures, especially in those whose gender roles are among the more egalitarian. Where men’s and women’s roles are equal in everyday life, female deities are prominent in creation stories, and female symbolism predominates: The female creators usually originate from within something such as water or earth, and working alone or in conjunction with male deities, they bring forth humans from the earth, mold them from clay, transform them from plants or animals, or carve them from wood-images that symbolize birth, creativity, and progress. In contrast, where women’s roles are markedly subordinate to those of men, the religious symbolism of creation typically emphasizes male gods who come down from the sky, and themes of warfare, aggression, and sexuality. In these societies, humans are often created out of the god’s body, by acts of sexual intercourse or through self-fertilization by the god, or by being born.

In male-supremacist societies, characteristics that are associated in the local cultural symbolism with feminine characteristics are used as explanations for the origins of various forms of evil, such as sin, illness, and death. For instance, in the Judeo-Christian origins story, it is Eve who succumbs to the temptation of the serpent and commits the first sin, the cause of death and the curse of pain in childbirth. In Greek mythology, illness, greed, and death were released into the world through Pandora’s impulsiveness and uncontrolled curiosity. This use of feminine symbolism is particularly common in male-dominant societies. In these societies, symbols derived from women frequently have negative connotations. For instance, menstrual blood may be regarded as supernaturally dangerous, especially to men.

In societies that lack significant gender stratification, feminine symbolism often has a much more positive connotation. For instance, origin stories may rely on metaphors of childbirth, and women’s ability to bear children may be a source of symbolism in which feminine essence is the source of life and fertility. In these circumstances female deities or divine couples are typically the central actors in creation. Thus, among the matrilineal, matrilocal Iroquois the central characters of the creation myth are two females, the Ancient Bodied One and her daughter who gives birth to the first humans, and among the egalitarian Ituri Forest Pygmies the forest which provides food and the resources for all other needs is personified androgynously as a divine Parent.

The archaic civilizations also had a place for goddesses as well. The most prominent of these were, of course, the compassionate Mother Goddess Asherah, wife of An, and her daughter Ninlil, the Virgin and wife of the wargod Enlil, who under a variety of names were worshiped throughout the Middle East.

But, although it is most common in less patriarchal societies, a feminine manifestation of the Divine is not totally alien within the western tradition. In the Jewish tradition, the feminine attributes of God were sometimes personified as the Shehkinah, the manifestation of the presence of God on earth. In Catholicism, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was elevated to the status of the Queen of Heaven, a divine mediator for all the human family. Among the Shakers of early nineteenth century America, the Messiah took on the form of a woman, Mother Ann Lee, and today Christian Scientists may pray using the androgynous mode of address, “Father-Mother God”.

Mormonism, which was founded in 1824 in the eastern United States has its own distinctive manifestation of the divine Feminine: a heavenly companion of God the Father, known generally as “Mother in Heaven”. Appropriately, references to this divine Consort of God were first penned by a woman, Eliza R. Snow–a polygamous wife of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., in a poem she titled “Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother” in 1845. Put to music, this poem remains a favorite Mormon hymn, now titled “Oh, My Father”. The last two versus read in part (1):

In the heav’ns 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?

Then, at length, when I’ve completed

All you sent me forth to do,

With your mutual approbation

Let me come and dwell with you.

Mormonism of today is an ecclesiastical religion with a rather patriarchal structure. Its priesthood, which is held only by male members of the church, is organized into a complex hierarchy, presided over by a president. The president of the church is also referred to as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the church. As the presiding official of the church, the Prophet is believed to receive direct guidance from God whenever this is necessary for the work of directing the church. Below the Prophet is the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, which is presided over by its own president and two counselors. Below this level are intermediary officers down to the local congregations, called wards. The presiding official of the ward is the bishop. The bishop is a nonpaid minister, as are all local members of the priesthood. His responsibilities are not to deliver weekly sermons, but to organize and preside over each Sunday’s worship services and all other business of the ward. In this work he is aided by his own counselors and a series of priesthood quorums within the ward. The local priesthood quorums are themselves organized into an age-graded system which is divided into two major components, the lower, or Aaronic Priesthood and the higher, or Melchizedek Priesthood. Boys are typically inducted into the Aaronic Priesthood at the age of 12 as Deacons. Their assignments include passing the Sacrament to members of the ward during the Sacrament meeting each Sunday. At 14 years of age, boys are ordained Teachers and are permitted to prepare the sacramental bread and water used in the service. Sixteen-year-olds become Priests, at which time they receive the authority to bless the Sacrament and to baptize. Eighteen-year-olds receive the full authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood as Elders, including the authority to confirm a baptized person as a member of the church and, by the laying on of hands, to give that person the right to receive direct and personal guidance through the Holy Ghost. At this time, it is expected that worthy males will spend a two-year period as unpaid, full-time missionaries for the church. For most, the next major change occurs at age 45, when men are inducted into a High priest’s quorum.

This recurring theme of Ecclesiastical authority wielded by a presiding male figure and two counselors is, appropriately enough, paralleled by Mormon concepts of a godhead of three distinct personages: a presiding figure, God the Father, and two supporting beings who carry out His work, God the Son, or Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. Thus, the recurring pattern of presidents and two counselors within the church structure mirrors Mormon theology, which includes a divine pantheon of many gods presided over by God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Jesus, the firstborn spirit child of God, and the Holy Ghost, another spirit son of God, are believed to be fully separate individuals from the Father. Their role in the Godhead is much like that of the counselors to the earthly Prophet of the church. Thus, church organizational structure reproduces forms that Mormons think of as divine in origin and that reinforce the value of a presiding role for males.

Within the Church, the women’s organization is an auxiliary program, since all policy-making and governing authority is vested in the priesthood. The men’s and women’s organizations are structurally equivalent, but they differ in authority and responsibility, with the women specializing in supportive service roles. Mormon ecclesiastical values reflect the secular differentiation of male and female roles. According to Shepherd and Shepherd (1984), Mormons are taught to idealize a family pattern in which the husband, as the family’s sole source of income, plays a presiding role and in which the wife, as counselor to her husband, specializes in domestic responsibilities.

In a neat correspondence of symbolic form that would have been greatly appreciated by Emile Durkheim for whom all things in heaven are a symbolic statement of things on earth, Mormonism’s Mother in heaven has taken her appropriate place somewhere in the background of the more outgoing male-dominated Godhead. Her role in Mormon theology is an auxiliary one, like that of the women’s organization within the church or of the wife within the idealized Mormon family. She is never explicitly mentioned in Mormon scriptures, She has no governing authority within the Godhead, and She is not approached in worship in any rituals of the church. Indeed, since the emergence of a feminist consciousness among some Mormon women, beginning in the 1980s, members of the Church have been explicitly warned by male General Authorities that prayer to the Mother in heaven is not approved. Indeed, a number of women have been excommunicated from the Church for their advocacy of a more central and active role for the Mother in Heaven within Mormon theology.

Nevertheless, ideas about the Mother in Heaven figure have found fertile soil within grassroots Mormonism in the 1980s and 90s. And the theme has blossomed forth in a variety of ways that avoid official sanctions. For instance, in 1980 Lisa Bolin Hawkins’s poem, “Another Prayer”, appeared in Exponent II, a Mormon feminist publication. Notice its prayerful supplicatory message (1):

Why are you silent, Mother? How can I

Become a goddess when the patterns here

Are those of gods? I struggle, and I try

To mold my womanself to something near

Their goodness. I nee you, who gave me birth

In your own image, to reveal your ways:

A rich example of thy daughters’ worth;

Pillar of Womanhood to guide our days;

Fire of power and grace to guide my night

When I am lost.

My brothers question me,

And wonder why I seek this added light.

No one can answer all my pain but Thee,

Ordain me to my womanhood, and share

The light that Queens and Priestesses must bear.

Besides prayer transformed into poetry, Mormon folklore of a Mother in Heaven has found other outlets: presentations at gatherings such as the Sunstone Symposia, articles exploring theological implications in liberal Mormon publications, and lately informal discussions on the internet. I will discuss a few examples from this last source, with particular attention to an interesting gendered difference in the ways in which the concepts are discussed.

Many Mormon women who express an interest in ideas about a Mother in Heaven do so in a way that emphasizes the personal importance of the nurturing symbolism that she embodies for them. At the same time, such women are careful to avoid direct conflict with the patriarchal injunction against Her direct worship. In so doing, one cannot help but note a passive-aggressive attempt to flirt with the edges of this injunction. As one woman put it, “Personally, when I am feeling a bit lonely for a female god (sometimes as a woman, it is just plain hard to relate to a male god), when I am saying my prayers, I will say something like, “tell Heavenly Mother that I said hi and that I’m thinking about her. And could you tell her that I’m currently struggling with (fill in the blank),and if she wants to pass on some info thru you or the Holy Ghost, that would be nice.” This example has a typical characteristic of women’s ways of seeking a relationship to the feminine aspects of the divine–a non-direct approach that seems to be a response to the fact that the male leaders of the Church have made it clear that directly addressing the Mother in Heaven is not an acceptable religious practice.

Women have creatively found other indirect approaches–a variety of prayer substitutes–that permit a sense of relating to an important religious image without challenging the taboo on prayer. One woman reported: “I have a friend who does not pray to Heavenly Mother, but will write letters to her (not written prayers).” Notice how careful women who are interested in the Mother in Heaven are to explicitly disavow any actual violation of the official taboo. Another less direct approach to relating to a Heavenly Mother figure is the use of journal entries or poetry writing as a prayer substitute. Consider the following journal entry of one woman (2):

Oh, my Mother are you there?

Can you hear me? Can you help me?

Do you stand beside my Father and wish to hold me again?

Are you busy in Celestial regions with your own sacred work?

Can you hear me? Can you help me?

Will you have compassion for me?

Mercy is your name–Endless, Eternal Woman.

Wrap me in your shining robe of Faith

And sing to me of your love.

Oh, my Mother–can you hear me?

I think I hurt too much for this life.

Will it make me more like you?

Beautiful is your glowing face.

Sometimes, I know you are close.

Oh, my Mother–can you hear me?

Will you help me?

Men, on the other hand, are much more likely to take an orthodox position of a Mother in Heaven who should be left in the divine Kitchen, so to peak. One LDS male reacted to the subject as follows: “I have a testimony that our Heavenly Mother wants us to pray to Father as Jesus has counseled us. She wants us to honor and revere the patriarchal Priesthood. She wants us to love the Twelve because the Son loves them. In fact, she wants everything that Father wants because she is a Good Wife, just as he is a Good Husband. We cannot please Heavenly Mother by offending the Twelve whom the Son has chosen. This is my testimony. I know these things because she is my mother too.”

On the other hand, this does not mean that men don’t speculate about the Mormon Mother in Heaven. But their speculation follows very different paths from that of the women.

The role of the Mother in Heaven as an important symbol for Mormon women of divine nurturance, love, mercy, and other positive qualities that Mormons attribute to their ideals of feminine gender roles is the aspect that has been most explored in various publications by Mormon feminists. Since this area is already being widely discussed, I wish to turn my focus on the ways in which the Mother in Heaven is discussed among men, for whom the emphasized symbolism is rather different–Mother in Heaven as seen through the lenses of male sexuality and aggression.

Although sexuality is rarely addressed in LDS sermons, and then only in strikingly Victorian euphemistic style, speculation about a Mother in Heaven, or even the possibility of Plural Heavenly Wives, can serve as a topic for the vicarious exploration of male sexual concerns. One male discussant, for instance, raised the question: “Has anyone ever considered that our Father in Heaven has more than one wife, and that we may have different spiritual mothers? Or, if we have the same mother, maybe there are other wives of our Father helping with other worlds. Just a thought, What does anyone think?”

Let me emphasize how strongly this contrasts with the relationship and feeling emphasis given to Mother in Heaven talk by Mormon women. For instance, the first woman to respond wasn’t very happy with the very question: “I don’t imagine my Heavenly Mother as one of a herd of cows to be bred for populating this or other worlds. And yes, I interpret ‘helping with other worlds’ in the context of polygamy as breeding. I would be glad to hear why other multiple wives of a god or a man are necessary.” She was not alone. The next woman to respond: “This anyone once walked in on a Gospel Speculation class one Sunday and heard a debate about this, and thought then that it was a pretty inappropriate topic, and still thinks so. Those who have had sacred experiences regarding Heavenly Mother shouldn’t feel compelled to recount them here, any more than many other sacred experiences belong in this public forum. (Pearls before swine, etc.). And those who haven’t had such experiences shouldn’t be speculating with cavalier nonchalance about the nature of deity. Just my personal opinion, but a rather heartfelt one.”

Nevertheless, among men, the question of heavenly reproduction just won’t go away. Another brother speculates that considering the many billions of humans who have been born, which Mormons regard as originally having been spirits born of the divine Parents, “…if a woman had sex, conceived, nurtured the spirit until it was born…and the process only took one day instead of 9 months, she would require 300 million years to have all those children by herself.” To reduce the gargantuan effort involved he bypasses the question of heavenly polygamy without explaining why, but one might speculate that (were it not for the rather Victorian sensibilities of 1990s Mormon morality) he might have argued that although it would reduce the labors of any one Heavenly Mother it would still involve a rather heavy preoccupation with effort of siring those billions by a single divine Father. his solution, does at any rate reduce the reproductive labors among the gods, for he suggests the possibility that we each may have not only different Heavenly Mothers but different Heavenly Fathers as well: “Let us suppose that 200 million people make it through the [earthly] testing process and are resurrected as Gods, then it would only require that each woman have a few children in order to have enough at one time [i.e., in a short time] to begin the earth creation process – under this arrangement it wouldn’t matter if a man had one or many wives (or even the unthinkable that everyone was married or sealed to everyone) – I think we as yet don’t even have a clue bout what love is all about.” Since, in Mormon thought the future estate of the elect is to become like God, this statement can be understood as a possible typification of deity. In direct words, he is suggesting that God the Father is simply the presiding Person among a large number of gods, the last generation to have undergone the process we mortals are now only halfway through. I should note that this idea that there might actually be many divine parents is not as alien to Mormon thought as it is to mainstream Judeo-Christian theology, since Mormonism has, from the days of its founder, espoused a monolatrous form of monotheism that does not reject the existence of many gods, but rather simply defines God the Father as the Supreme God: (Abraham 3:19).

Now I don’t wish to give the impression that Mormons, men or women, are any more homogeneous in their thinking than is any other group united by a common culture or subculture. I wish rather merely to assert that I see evidence in this grassroots theological speculation of a lively use of the Mother in Heaven as a vehicle of important concerns that play themselves out in common gender differences.

This somewhat Durkheimian notion that ideas about the Mormon Mother in Heaven are seen through the lens of gender can be illustrated by an examination of other variant streams of gender-related issues within Mormondom. For instance, gay and lesbian LDS participants on the internet (where the potential anonymity of the medium makes it easier to abandon the closet that mainstream Mormon values otherwise impose) are much less likely to separate the creation of human spirits from the symbolism of sexual intercourse among the Gods. Whereas heterosexual Mormon men assert, as one did, that “The Gods have children the same way we have children”, gay LDS discussants of Heavenly Mother repeatedly raised the possibility that the divine creation of spirit children might be through other means–adoption, surrogacy, or as one gay LDS man reacted to the last assertion: “Why do you think this? The reasons we have children in the way we do are quite clearly tied to our mammalhood. Within the next 100 years, I suspect we will be able to technologically do away with the necessities of the woman carrying the fetus. Why do you suppose the Gods still do it? Sentiment?”

It is not surprising that heterosexual members were not very taken with this view of reproduction. As woman put it: “We may be tied to mammalhood in mortality, and perhaps capable of manipulating mortal procreation, but we were formed in the likeness of God, male and female. They are personages with bodies, parts and passions. By definition, Godhood is eternal increase, meaning the begetting of spirit offspring and requires both male and female Gods. Whatever differences there may be between the processes of procreation for celestial bodies and mortal bodies, we’ve been given the closest simulation possible in this life. . . . I don’t think we’ve been given a ‘bait and switch’ example of procreation in this life. Marriage, children and family ARE the closest thing to our celestial family as we can recreate in mortality. Whatever differences we will find between mortal and celestial procreation on the other side, will be logical and prudent. Myself, after giving birth to seven children, am sort of counting on Eve’s curse pertaining only to this life so we won’t have to bring forth ‘eternal increase’ in pain and sorrow.”

Male aggression is also connected to ideas, at least rhetorical ones, about a Mother in Heaven. To another male, the idea of plural Mothers in Heaven had another appeal, an interesting way of “othering” someone: “A friend of mine . . . said when in conflict with another member: ‘We may have the same Heavenly Father but he (the other person) must have had a different Heavenly Mother'”

The emphasis on the need to relate personally to the Mother in Heaven and the focus on Her as an embodiment of love, mercy, and nurturance that one finds in discussions by Mormon women for whom the concept is important contrasts markedly with Mormon men’s tendencies to regard women’s desire of relating to Her as evidence of unorthodoxy and to shift from issues of relating to her toward thinking about her role. And these thoughts demonstrate a preoccupation with issues of a more male sort–issues such as the nature of procreation and the possibility of multiple consorts both for God the Father and, potentially for themselves in the future.

Now, this is not to say that all men and women differed in this way. One man, for instance, responded to the direct question of whether any men felt a need for a sense of connection with the Heavenly Mother by saying “I feel that need, for that connection. Although I know that it is not orthodox doctrine. Could one not feel that, when one knows She exists?” But even the direct question yielded only this one response, and no men spontaneously discussed such a personal need. Only women spoke of having prayed to Her, even before such acts were forbidden, and only women acknowledged practicing any kinds of indirect ways of relating to Her, such as writing letters, poetry, or journal entries. On the other hand, some women did not express an emotional longing for a sense of the feminine in their concepts of God, but conformed to the masculine pattern of talking about the concept as an issue of theological fact with personal implications. For example, recall the woman already quoted concerning eternal childbirth.

REFERENCES CITED

Sanday, Peggy. (1981). Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

(1) Oh, My Father (Eliza R. Snow)

In the heav’ns 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?

All you sent me forth to do,

With your mutual approbation

Let me come and dwell with you.

(2) Another Prayer (Lisa Bolin Hawkins)

Why are you silent, Mother? How can I

Become a goddess when the patterns here

Are those of gods? I struggle, and I try

To mold my womanself to something near

Their goodness. I nee you, who gave me birth

In your own image, to reveal your ways:

A rich example of thy daughters’ worth;

Pillar of Womanhood to guide our days;

Fire of power and grave to guide my night

When I am lost.

My brothers question me,

And wonder why I seek this added light.

Ordain me to my womanhood, and share

The light that Queens and Priestesses must bear.

(3) Untitled Journal Entry

Oh, my Mother are you there?

Can you hear me? Can you help me?

Do you stand beside my Father and wish to hold me again?

Are you busy in Celestial regions with your own sacred work?

Can you hear me? Can you help me?

Will you have compassion for me?

Mercy is your name–Endless, Eternal Woman.

Wrap me in your shining robe of Faith

And sing to me of your love.

Oh, my Mother–can you hear me?

I think I hurt too much for this life.

Will it make me more like you?

Beautiful is your glowing face.

Sometimes, I know you are close.

Oh, my Mother–can you hear me?

Will you help me?