In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Heavenly Mother, also known as the Mother in Heaven, is the mother of human spirits and the wife of God the Father. Collectively Heavenly Mother and Father are called Heavenly Parents. Those who accept the Mother in Heaven doctrine trace its origins to Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. The doctrine became more widely known after Smith's death in 1844.
The Heavenly Mother doctrine is taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, and branches of Mormon fundamentalism, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The doctrine is not generally recognized by other denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement, such as the Community of Christ, where trinitarianism is predominant.
In the LDS Church, the doctrine of "Heavenly Mother" or "heavenly parents" is not frequently discussed; however, the doctrine can be found in some church hymns and has been briefly discussed in church teaching manuals and several sermons.
Origin of the theology
The theological underpinnings of a belief in Heavenly Mother are attributed to Joseph Smith, who shortly before his death in 1844 outlined a controversial view of God that differed dramatically from traditional Christian consensus. Smith's theology included the belief that God would share his glory with his children and that righteous couples might become exalted beings, or gods and goddesses, in the afterlife.
Although there is no known record of Smith explicitly teaching about Heavenly Mother, several of Smith's contemporaries attributed the theology to him either directly, or as a natural consequence of his theological stance. An editorial footnote of History of the Church 5:254, quotes Smith as saying: "Come to me; here's the mysteries man hath not seen, Here's our Father in heaven, and Mother, the Queen." In addition, a secondhand account states that in 1839, Smith had told Zina Diantha Huntington, after the death of her mother, that "not only would she know her mother again on the other side, but 'more than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven.
In addition, members of the Anointed Quorum, a highly select leadership group in the early church that was privy to Smith's teachings, also acknowledged the existence of a Heavenly Mother. The Times and Seasons published a letter to the editor from a pseudonymous person named "Joseph's Speckled Bird", in which the author stated that in the pre-Earth life, the spirit "was a child with his father and mother in heaven". The apostle Parley Pratt even taught in an official church periodical that God may have had multiple wives before Christ's time, and that after the death of Mary (the mother of Jesus) she may have become another eternal wife.
In 1845, after the death of Smith, the poet Eliza Roxcy Snow published a poem entitled "My Father in Heaven", (later titled "Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother", now used as the lyrics in the Latter-day Saint hymn "O My Father"), which acknowledged the existence of a Heavenly Mother. The poem contained the following language:
Some early Mormons considered Snow to be a "prophetess". Later, church president Joseph F. Smith (a nephew of Joseph Smith) explained his own belief that "God revealed that principle that we have a mother as well as a father in heaven to Joseph Smith; Joseph Smith revealed it to Eliza Snow Smith, his wife; and Eliza Snow was inspired, being a poet, to put it into verse." A companion hymn "Our Mother in Heaven" was published in the church's Juvenile Instructor four decades later.
The doctrine is also attributed to several other early church leaders. According to one sermon by Brigham Young, Smith once said he "would not worship a God who had not a father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other."