Latter-day Saint Perspectives

Last summer Russell Stevenson sat down with Rachel Steenblik and Caitlin Connolly, two women who have studied the concept of a divine feminine--or Heavenly Mother. Rachel was the primary researcher on a BYU Studies article that identified known references to a Heavenly Mother in the Mormon historical record. Caitlin was commission to paint Heavenly Mother by Deseret Book. Though it is assumed that we have a Heavenly Mother, she is rarely mentionioned in LDS Church discourse, with a preference to referring to Heavenly Father or Heavenly Parents. Steenblick notes that most members are aware of the reference to a Heavenly Mother by Eliza R. Snow in "O My Father." However, her song was not the first reference. W. W. Phelps wrote two pieces--one a few months before the Prophet Joseph Smith's death and one a few months after. And in the nineteenth-century Church, a Heavenly Mother was not unfrequently referenced. Three prophets of the twentieth century, Spencer W. Kimball, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Harold B. L