A couple years ago, I began assisting as a moderator for the Finding Heavenly Mother Project, a Facebook group devoted to seeking out Heavenly Mother. It was an honor to have this special “calling” extended to me by my friend who founded the group.
Over time, however, I noticed my friend (who will remain anonymous) began distancing herself from the group. We brought on an extra person to assist us, but I felt like I was now unofficially running the group. I just chalked it up to the busyness of being a full-time student, as we are both now back in school trying to further our educations. I guess you could say I have been distancing myself some too over the past year as I have been working steadily on my doctorate. School can be demanding!
Just last week, I found out some sad news, which explained a lot about the situation. My friend had not only distanced herself from the Finding Heavenly Mother Project, but also from the LDS Church. The reason being she had lost her Temple Recommend for starting our Heavenly Mother group. This whole time, I had no idea because she had never told me. For her this was “the last straw,” as she explained to me last week. No wonder!
I had heard of others losing Temple Recommends for supporting Ordain Women, and I myself do not hold a Temple Recommend because of my feminist views. But now?
Yes folks, you heard it here first…. Heavenly Mother has lost Her Temple Recommend.
Or at least that’s how it felt to me when I heard the news.
I guess the rest of us are in good company.
Michelle Wiener
Dr. Michelle Wiener holds a Master of Arts in Theology from Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky and a Master of Ecumenical Studies from the University of Geneva in Switzerland where she studied for a year with the World Council of Churches. A convert from the Bible Belt, she loves genealogy and serves as Temple & Family History Consultant. A devotee of Heavenly Mother, she also runs the Finding Heavenly Mother Project. Michelle just completed her PhD in comparative theology through Euclid University.
All posts by Michelle Wiener
Interesting analogy and sorry to see the pain. I find it hard to see how anybody could lose a recommend over this.
Well that’s doctrinally unsound. What crappy reasoning did her leaders give for explaining how taking about Heavenly Mother breaks one of the recommend questions? Is hoping the brethren seek further revelation somehow not sustaining them again?
My friend’s reply to your question was that her Bishop told her that “agitating” for more information about Heavenly Mother “wasn’t appropriate” and she would need to leave such activities behind if she wanted to go to the Temple again.
When you have men, many who are weak and see themselves as having less and less power and influence and “control” in the outside world..You will usually find they take that “emasculated” feelings out inside the home or in our case within the walls of the church..I am sorry to say I am see more and more and more of it in the thirty yrs of being in the church..And it seems any woman they see as being too powerful, independently wealth, outspoken, or seen as outstepping there bounds are being more and more the “targets” of these men..And those not willing to follow with the “feeling emasculated” are deemed weak and refused further callings..Like my husband being told he could never expect to be a High priest and was not “allowed” in high priest group even though he is of an age, first because he did not have bio children (and therefore unless I am willing to “allow myself to die” by not seeking medical help and not taking medications for his greater good so “he could remarry someone young to get bio children” and if I would not he should “force the issue” then he is assigned with no bio children to alone being a serving angel for eternity and should therefore sell off everything we own and give all the proceeds to his family members and move in with them and hand over all our paychecks to them, cause we better get use to being serving angels now)..this is the kinda of abuse men are inflicting on other men and you think women are not also going to get abused? Sad part is its my husband father (who was viewed as oh so righteous by this same ward, dead now, who made my husband infertile by allowing him to fall asleep in a vand he knew had a hole in the floor and almost killed him from carbon monoixide gas when he was 8..We have people in charge in the church telling us that God does not take fertility from people except for punishment and my husband is being punished for marrying me because I was a divorced person..The sickeness in some part of the church are getting more and more scarey..Tell your friend we feel her pain, suffer with her, and get it that good people are being silenced by those running scared, being overcontrolling and overreaching and even liars, cheats and abusers and we mourn with her over pain inflicted..all I can say is God is watching ALL and none of it is hidden…May he hear our cries for relief!
I mention Heavenly Mother every time that I bear my testimony and frequently when I teach in priesthood. I guess that men can get away with things that women cannot 🙁
Please, who is the subject of the painting and the artist? Thanks.
My goodness me! For so many justifiable reasons I have succumbed to the promptings of my childhood faith and I know that there is only one God, who has declared as follows: “I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no other gods before me”…. And God said : “Let there be light and there was light”. Where in the scriptures is a Heavenly Mother mentioned? God says “Let there be…”