Recently, I was listening to an episode of the podcast “At Last She Said It” where the hosts were talking about the New Testament story of the woman with an issue of blood (for 12 years!) who was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’s robe. They made the point that the woman would have been considered ritually unclean because of her issue of blood, so it seems unlikely that she would have been able to meet with Jesus by going through any kind of official channel. So that may be why she just wedged herself through the crowd to get to him rather than trying to meet with his disciples first or something.
(Incidentally, if you enjoy podcasts and Mormon feminism, I think you should give “At Last She Said It” a try. The hosts are really interesting and insightful, and I appreciate hearing their commentary. I often hear them frame things in ways or make points that I hadn’t considered, even on topics I’ve been reading women’s commentary about online for years and years.)
Their point got me to thinking about more of the stories in the New Testament in the framework of gatekeeping or people going to great lengths to get to Jesus. For example, there was Zacchaeus, who was at first deterred by a crowd, but then climbed a tree to get Jesus’s attention, and was able to have him come to his house. The crowd was an incidental rather than an intentional obstacle, although then of course when Jesus said he was going to Zacchaeus’s house, they complained that he was hanging out with a sinning publican. Or there was the man who was let down through a roof into a house to get access to Jesus and was promptly forgiven of his sins and healed. In both of these examples, there wasn’t anyone intentionally gatekeeping access to Jesus. But in the case where people brought their children to Jesus, his disciples turned them away before Jesus famously told them to “Suffer little children . . . to come unto me.” And then there was the time a bunch of people followed Jesus into the desert to hear him preach, and his apostles wanted to send them back to their towns after a while to get food, but Jesus miraculously fed them so they could stay. Or there was the blind man who heard Jesus and his entourage were passing by and cried out for Jesus to heal him, and wasn’t deterred even when others in Jesus’s party shushed him. Jesus healed him.
What these stories have in common is that someone wants to get to Jesus for healing or blessing and someone (or something) is standing in their way, and nevertheless they persist and get to him. The person trying to get to him always appear in a good light, and the people standing in the way don’t come off so well. It’s more often that Jesus implicitly scolds the gatekeepers, like with the clamoring blind man where Jesus ignored his shushing companions and called for the man to be brought to him, but in the story with the children, he actually rebukes the gatekeepers.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Now we have lots of Church members who want to acknowledge or talk about or pray to Heavenly Mother, and the GAs are acting as gatekeepers. Dale G. Renlund last conference followed in the footsteps of Gordon B. Hinckley a few decades ago, in maybe saying things as softly as he could, but still telling members that they shouldn’t be praying to Heavenly Mother. The GAs are clearly uncomfortable with any groundswell of interest in her.
I think once they acknowledge Heavenly Mother as a god, though, they must accept that their attempt to gatekeep her is no better than Jesus’s disciples attempting to gatekeep him in the New Testament. In fact, I don’t see any reason why all the scriptures we have about prayer don’t apply to her as well. Just to pick an example, Nephi wrote at one point, “For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the devil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.”
Of course, you probably remember Elder Relund quoted Jesus as saying in 3 Nephi, “Always pray unto the Father in my name” as a basis for telling his listeners not to pray to Heavenly Mother. But in the very next chapter after the one he quotes, the members of the assembled congregation “did pray unto Jesus, calling him their Lord and their God [emphasis added].” So clearly the rule isn’t as hard and fast as he is saying it is, as there’s no record of Jesus rebuking the congregation for doing it wrong.
Along similar lines, President Hinckley cited the Lord’s Prayer as giving the pattern for our prayers. And then he turned to the same chapter Elder Renlund did, and quoted Jesus as saying “Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.” And this highlights perfectly how arbitrary the GAs’ choices are for what to follow in patterning our prayers after the Lord’s prayer or following his counsel. That quote sure sounds like it’s only men who should be praying. But they don’t try to enforce this as a norm. (Well, I guess other than pre-2013 in general conference, and those years when women were banned from praying in sacrament meeting, and the Seventies who it seems like still give unwritten-order-of-things guidance on women not giving the benediction in sacrament meeting.) LDS prayers often mention and do lots of things that aren’t in the Lord’s Prayer, from nourishing and strengthening and moisture to not using the proper language of prayer (Aramaic).
I realize the GAs are in a tough spot with Heavenly Mother. On the one hand, they like the idea of her, because they want to be absolutely clear that we’ll remain men and women in the afterlife (and that the best part of it is for straight people only), but on the other, they really want to prevent women now from getting big ideas about how they should maybe have more authority, either in this life or in the next. I just don’t think the GAs have much of a leg to stand on in forbidding people to pray to her. I hope members who find value in doing so continue to ignore them.
Perhaps the reason the Savior rebuked the gatekeepers is because that’s his job. No one gets in or out of the Kingdom but by him: “He employeth no servant there.” And in that light–could it be that he is responsible for the lack of revelation on the subject of the Divine Feminine? That possibility is a tough pill to swallow. But even so, I’m confident that as we continue to move across the broad threshold of the Millennium more revelation on a Divine Mother will be forthcoming.
No thanks, Jack. I’m not a fan of the idea that God is the ultimate source of sexism.
I think that idea also has a bad history, as you don’t have to go very far back to find lots of people using the Bible and God to justify their racism. Heck, Trump and others of his ilk have awakened a whole new group of people who believe this idea still. It seems out of line to me to believe that a perfect God who really loves us all is actually the source of discrimination.
“No thanks, Jack. I’m not a fan of the idea that God is the ultimate source of sexism.”
Nor am I. But sadly, much of the West (IMO) is inclined to go too far in the other direction and chafe at the divine title:
The Mother of All Living.
I am reading a book about the 700 year subjugation of the Irish by the English. This issue is essentially the same.
The English banned the Irish from all aspects of their traditional religion: prayer, song, and worship. This was part of an effort to control what the Irish could do, and even think.
This is really what is happening in the Church with Heavenly Mother. The Q15 (at least the ones allowed to speak on this topic) are cracking down on any action or thought associated with Heavenly Mother. Prayer, talk, song. Everything.
The English did not want the Irish asking to share property or power—thus the attempt at subjugation. It appears that the Q15 doesn’t want women to ask for equal office and influence—thus the attempt at subjugation.
I cannot believe that any leadership that is in touch with the members would think that this control effort will be effective or sustainable. It will only drive members away.
I find it strange that male church leaders want to control our ability to openly talk about Heavenly Mother. As a woman I exists in her image. What church leaders cannot ever control is our Mother in Heaven. She speaks to us without asking for or needing permission from her mortal sons.
Where leaders get jumpy is individuals praying to her, making her part of the Godhead, and giving her roles that are outside the institutional channels of revelation. Quite bluntly, some Latter-day Saints are adopting perspectives on a Heavenly Mother that are beyond heterodox, outside of any conceptualization which arose in Joseph Smith’s thought, and quite outside anything the institutional church wants to tolerate. There is a showdown coming. One only has to research how and why the “September Six” were excommunicated to foresee the results. The results will prove to be harmful to the Church in the short term, but it will survive. It will be disastrous for the excommunicated members and cause considerable pain for their families and friends.