The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved
spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother.
This understanding is rooted in scriptural and prophetic teachings about the
nature of God, our relationship to Deity, and the godly potential of men and
women. The doctrine of a Heavenly Mother is a cherished and distinctive belief
among Latter-day Saints.
While there is no record of a formal
revelation to Joseph Smith on this doctrine, some early Latter-day Saint women
recalled that he personally taught them about a Mother in Heaven. The earliest
published references to the doctrine appeared shortly after Joseph Smith’s
death in 1844, in documents written by his close associates. The most notable
expression of the idea is found in a poem by Eliza R. Snow, now known as the
hymn “O My Father.” This text declares: “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.”
Subsequent Church leaders have
affirmed the existence of a Mother in Heaven. In 1909, the First Presidency
taught that “all men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father
and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.” Susa Young Gates, a prominent leader in the
Church, wrote in 1920 that Joseph Smith’s visions and teachings revealed the
truth that “the divine Mother, [is] side by side with the divine
Father.” And in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” issued in 1995,
the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles declared, “Each [person]
is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has
a divine nature and destiny.”
Prophets have taught that our
heavenly parents work together for the salvation of the human family. “We are
part of a divine plan designed by Heavenly Parents who love us,” taught Elder
M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Harold B. Lee stated,
“We forget that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who are even
more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother, and that
influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us when we do all
we can.”
Latter-day Saints direct their
worship to Heavenly Father, in the name of Christ, and do not pray to Heavenly
Mother. In this, they follow the pattern set by Jesus Christ, who taught His
disciples to “always pray unto the Father in my name.” Latter-day Saints
are taught to pray to Heavenly Father, but as Gordon B. Hinckley said, “The
fact that we do not pray to our Mother in Heaven in no way belittles or
denigrates her.” Indeed, as Elder Rudger Clawson wrote, “We honor woman when we
acknowledge Godhood in her eternal Prototype.”
As with many other truths of the
gospel, our present knowledge about a Mother in Heaven is limited.
Nevertheless, we have been given sufficient knowledge to appreciate the
sacredness of this doctrine and to comprehend the divine pattern established
for us as children of heavenly parents. Latter-day Saints believe that this
pattern is reflected in Paul’s statement that “neither is the man without the
woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” Men and women cannot be
exalted without each other. Just as we have a Father in Heaven, we have a
Mother in Heaven. As Dallin H. Oaks has said, “Our theology begins with
heavenly parents. Our highest aspiration is to be like them.”
See “Becoming Like God”;
see also Elaine Anderson Cannon, “Mother in Heaven,”
in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 5 vols.
(New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2:961. For an extensive survey of these teachings,
see David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of
Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,”BYU Studies 50, no. 1
(2011): 70–97.
