Thursday 28 August 2014

Heavenly mother



As a new member of our church it was ideal for me to be at the FairMormon Conference in Utah.

I am a thinking person and if somebody say ”this is true” then I am always trying to see the other side of the coin.

So I really liked when Sharon Eubank, whose lecture was called ”This is a womens church”, started out by talking about the doctrine of intelligences. She stated that this is unique to Mormonism and how the doctrine talks about how we always have existed as intelligences. But then we chose to ally ourselves with our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

Sharon Eubank is the Director of LDS Charities


This was intresting. I have a Lutheran friend here in Finland and she introduced, at hbt-services, the tradition to pray both to our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly mother.

I know in our church that LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley has said that Mormons should not pray to the Heavenly Mother because Christ instructed his disciples to address the Heavenly Father in their prayers And I am not talking about prayers here. I am saying that it was intresting because this was the first time I have heard anybody in our churc talking about our Heavenly Mother (besides the missionaries once, briefly)

Sister Eubank said that we define ourselves in different roles and for her the first role is that she is a woman and she believes womanhood has roles related to binding, connecting and bridging. From her own experience, being in an image of the divine feminine, this is what she feels responsible for.

And one role for women is to establish the house described in D&C.

”Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God; ” (D&C 88:119)

For her that is not a literal house or even necessarily the temple. It is a generation of life, of community

One way of bulding is going on a mission an sister Eubank was asked if she was excited about young women going serving missions. Sister Eubank herself served as a missonary here in Finland
and said that her mission taught her how to articulate before people.- If we can deepen people’s understanding of doctrine and help them learn to be articulate, it is fantastic, she said.
She was also asked about women and the priesthood and said she belives that anyone who is endowed holds certain aspects of the priesthood and the church is just on the verge of understanding what that means.

I have heard a lot of criticism from non members about womens role in the church and sometimes I, as a man, haven`t been able to answer. For sister Eubank our doctrine is the most moderate and enlightening and empowering doctrine that exists for women.

For me it is a church for all children to our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother.


To sister Eubank I replied: Kiitos valaisit minua (Thank You You enlighted me)

2 comments:

  1. Sharon Eubank och Sherry L Dew är två starka kvinnor i kyrkan som också gjort karriär i kyrkan. Dew är CEO för Deseretbooks. Båda kvinnorna är singlar, vilket kan förklara att de kunnat göra en sådan karriär i kyrkan. Tänker på feministrörelsen allmänt runt 1900-talet. Då var det också vanligtvis ogifta kvinnor som genom att vara ogifta fick en bättre och mer självständig position i samhället. Visste inte att Eubank varit på mission i Finland- coolt! :-)

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  2. Jag tror inte det endast har att göra med att det är singlar. Sharon berättade en underbar historia om då hon var här som missionär. Sharon was on a train here in Finland and met a woman who said she was a dancer. The woman started to ask questions and she started with disdain as Sharon brought up the Law of Chastity. After a while the woman said that if you were dating men who feel the same way as you,(about not having sex before marrige) that would be possible. - When I left her, she was wistful. In the ways we are different from the world, it will attract women, because it is good and what they want, Sharon said

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