Truly, the first feminists were Mormon women:
Eliza R. Snow
Eve, then, came down to be the Mother of a world.
Glorious Mother, capable of dying at the very beginning to give life to her offspring, that through mortality the eternal life of the Gods might be given to her sons and daughters.
Motherhood the same from beginning even to the end! The love of motherhood passing all the understanding! Thus read our Mormon sisters the fall of their Mother.
And the serpent tempted the woman with the forbidden fruit.
Did woman hesitate a moment then? Did motherhood refuse the cup for hew own sake, or did she, with infinite love, take it and drink for her children's sake? The Mother had plunged down, from the pinnacle of her celestial throne, to earth, to taste of death that her children might have everlasting life.
What! Should Eve ask Adam to partake of the elements of death first, in such a sacrament! 'Twould have outraged motherhood!
Eve partook of that supper of the Lord's death first. She ate of the body and drank of that blood.
Be it to Adam's eternal credit that he stood by and let our Mother - our ever blessed Mother Eve - partake of the sacrifice before himself. Adam followed the Mother's example, fr he was great and grand - a Father worthy indeed of a world. He was wise, too; for the blood of life is the stream of mortality.
What a psalm of everlasting praise to woman, that Eve fell first!
A Goddess came down from her mansions of glory to bring the spirits of her children down after her, in their myriads of branches and their hundreds of generations!
She was again a mortal Mother now. The first person in the trinity of Mothers.
The Mormon sisterhood take up their themes of religion with their Mother Eve, and consent with her, at the very threshold of the temple, to bear the cross. Eve is ever with her daughters in the temple of the Lord their God.
The Mormon daughters of Eve have also in this eleventh hour come down to earth, like her, to magnify the divine office of motherhood. She came down from her resurrected, they from their spirit, estate. Here, with her, in the divine providence of maternity, they begin to ascend the ladder to heaven, and to their exaltation in the courts of their Father and Mother God.
Who shall number the blasphemies of the sectarian churches against our first grand parents? Ten thousand priest of the serpent have thundered anathemas upon the head of "accursed Adam." Appalling, oftentimes, their pious rage. And Eve - the holiest, grandest of Mothers - has been made a very by-word to offset the frailties of the most wicked and abandoned.
Very different is Mormon theology! The Mormons exalt the grand parents of our race. Not even is the name of Christ more sacred to them than the names of Adam and Eve. It was to them the poetess and high priestess addressed her hymn of invocations; and Brigham's proclamation that Adam is our Father and God is like a hallelujah chorus to their everlasting names. The very earth shall yet take it up; all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve shall yet shout it for joy, to the end of the earth, in every tongue! (Women of Mormondom, p.198-200)
33 For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;
ReplyDelete(Doctrine and Covenants 93:33)
If Celestial beings can die, their spirit and body are not inseparably connected, and they cannot have a fulness of joy.
Is descending to a lower order considered dying? What constitutes being inseparably connected? A husband and wife are sealed to be an eternal unit yet they can move about independently of one another - even, if worthy, to the greatest of exalted stations. Just rambling thoughts.
DeletePerhaps "inseparably connected" refers to the power over death - the power to lay down one's life and take it up again. Jesus said "the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do" - referencing Adam's voluntarily laying down his life for mankind. Except a kernel wheat falls to the ground and dies it remained a single seed. Eliza R Snow believed both her husbands in what they taught about Adam, the Ancient of Days being our Father and our God. Who says you cannot have a fulness of joy and choose to lay down your life for your children and take it up again, only to enjoy a greater glory than previously? I think you're confusing this with the condition of the post-mortal spirits awaiting resurrection - whose lack of flesh is a sort of captivity. Even the ancient Egyptians seem to know more about Adam than some Latter-day Saints. Read up on Osiris.
DeleteThe Adam God theory had long since died for most of us after Joseph brought forth the Pearl of Great Price. I don't see how it is possible for a non God, Adam to have commanded the elements and created the earth and all that is on it without first being a God. Joseph was in the process of learning and I am sure speculation is irresistible.
DeleteDid she really say this?
ReplyDeleteThe Lord's prophet made the truth clear:
ReplyDelete"Another matter. We hope that you who teach in the various organizations, whether on the campuses or in our chapels, will always teach the orthodox truth. We warn you against the dissemination of doctrines which are not according to the scriptures and which are alleged to have been taught by some of the General Authorities of past generations. Such, for instance, is the Adam-God theory. We denounce that theory and hope that everyone will be cautioned against this and other kinds of false doctrine."
Spencer W. Kimball
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/11/our-own-liahona?lang=eng