Oaks confirms we have heavenly mothers.

[MG 2.0]

The troll trolls.

You are trolling me, Marcus. Not five minutes and you're right behind me.

That's kind of weird, Marcus. Kind of weird. And that's being kind. Stalking might be a better description.

Regards,
MG

[Rivendale]

Those Apostles are prone to recycling talks. I’m reasonably sure they don’t actually write them themselves anymore, but have underlings draft stuff up, trawl through and cut and paste from their old material. Which they then review into a final draft. I believe an old time poster here “runtu” was actually involved in doing that type of thing at one point.

Looking at the condition of Oaks in those videos, it’s hard to see him slogging through careful research and scripting up a whole new talk. He’s about to turn 93. He’s just not able for it. Even if Nelson died tomorrow, Oaks isn’t capable of functioning properly as a Church President, and his tenure would be mercifully short.

In fact all three of the First Presidency are now in their 90’s. Can you think of any other corporation handling hundreds of billions of dollars where the key decision making board consisted of 3 people in their nineties? In terms of succession they’ve not really planned it well, as in a short space of time the Church will have an inexperienced President with two inexperienced counsellors. I suppose Dieter could step in again, but they canned him last time for being too popular.

I'm still unconvinced this is legit.

Regards,
MG

Why?

[MG 2.0]

I'm still unconvinced this is legit.

Regards,
MG

Why?

I think I've already explained why. I haven't seen anything else that would cause me to change my mind.

Also, the quality...visual and audio...of the 'short' is terrible. Flip/dumb phone video quality is a thing of the past.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

I'm still unconvinced this is legit.

Regards,
MG

Why?

He has no reason why, other than his assumption that anything posted here is not true.

[Rivendale]

Why?

I think I've already explained why. I haven't seen anything else that would cause me to change my mind.

Also, the quality...visual and audio...of the 'short' is terrible. Flip/dumb phone video quality is a thing of the past.

Regards,
MG

Do you read the threads that explain this?

[MG 2.0]

I think I've already explained why. I haven't seen anything else that would cause me to change my mind.

Also, the quality...visual and audio...of the 'short' is terrible. Flip/dumb phone video quality is a thing of the past.

Regards,
MG

Do you read the threads that explain this?

Yes

[I Have Questions]

Apparently Oaks made the Heavenly Mothers speech more than once.

in the instagram comments at LDSChangemakers someone shared he spoke to a group of YW last year in Arizona and he made the same mention of Heavenly Mother or MothERS. So it seems like it’s more than just a slip up and he has purposely made a pattern of mentioning it.

This is further confirmation of its legitimacy, if any were needed. I think there’s a case to be made for being able to pray to either of your Heavenly Parents. In the same way that children go to one or the other parent depending on the question, there should be no reason that I can think of, for members to not have the choice of which Heavenly Parent to go to. There are some things I would go to my Mother with, not my Father. There are some questions that a Mother is best suited to answer. Let’s say a female member wants to ask a Heavenly Parent for some guidance about childbirth - is that advice best given by a male who has never gone through it, or a female who has? If there is indeed a Heavenly Mother(s) what possible problem could there be in offering prayers to her? Seeking guidance from her? Giving gratitude to her? It’s as if the men are worried it would undermine their power base in running the Church…

It would be an interesting exercise for a group of female members to start offering prayers to their Heavenly Mother, to see if they get similar promptings and confirmations. I’d wager that a female member would develop a much better relationship with their Heavenly Parents, if they are able to include and worship both equally.

[Physics Guy]

This might become a problem for the church. It’s a fork, a dilemma.

Praying to a Heavenly Mother as well as to a Father must make sense from a Mormon point of view, unless the modern Church is really willing to double down on male superiority so hard as to make it apply to eternally exalted beings. Non-Mormon traditions do tend to use male terms for a monotheistic God, but the excuse (such as it is) is that this is a grammatical convention and God actually transcends gender. Gendered Heavenly Parents make this excuse impossible, so if HF gets all the attention and HM gets none, that’s a huge Mormon statement of male superiority. It may have seemed fine before 1950 but today it is inexcusable.

Yet on the other hand, praying to two or more Heavenly Parents is plain polytheism, with no two ways about it. No outs like claiming that we only have to do with one God. No more claiming to be a Christian or even an Abrahamic denomination.

[I Have Questions]

Yet on the other hand, praying to two or more Heavenly Parents is plain polytheism, with no two ways about it. No outs like claiming that we only have to do with one God. No more claiming to be a Christian or even an Abrahamic denomination.

Hasn’t the Church, by acknowledging belief in the existence of a Heavenly Mother(s), already separated itself from the rest of Christianity?

[Physics Guy]

Yeah, probably. Mormon theology has always been heretical from a mainstream Christian point of view, and the heresies are major ones, not just details. As long as Heavenly Mother(s) aren't discussed, though, you can kind of turn a blind eye to that one. It's not entirely clear what it means; maybe these mothers are really just symbols of some kind, or something like assisting angels.

Rather than we mortals having divine mothers, mainstream Christians have posited that God has a mortal mother, Mary. Hardly anyone, if anyone at all, has ever supposed that sexual intercourse was involved in the Virgin Birth. That sex wasn't involved was the whole point. This does mean that there's Christian precedent for talking about motherhood without it meaning quite everything that motherhood usually means. So as long as Mormon teachings about Heavenly Mother(s) stay quiet and vague, the LDS Church has been able to fly under the radar on this one, I think.

Sometimes vague doctrines get crystalized, and become important, because of some detail in common religious practice. Mary has been called the Mother of God because it was a way of clarifying what it meant for Jesus to be God, to ask whether Mary counted as the Mother of God, or only as the Mother of the Son of God or something like that. Popular devotion wanted to call Mary something impressive, and deciding how far her fans could go crystalized a part of Christian doctrine that came to be seen as central. At least that's my understanding of some early church history.

Similarly here, I think that if many Mormons start debating whether they can pray or sing hymns to their Heavenly Mother(s), and why or why not, then this will blow up into something big, one way or another. Motherhood is a big deal. People are usually attached to their mothers. So you can't just mention, "You all have a divine Heavenly Mother" as an aside and go on talking. If the concept of Heavenly Mother is allowed much publicity at all, it's likely to become the defining feature of Mormonism.