Introduction

Seeking greater gender balance in LDS discourse about the Divine.

Heavenly Parents: An Inclusive Book of Mormon Reading is the work of the Heavenly Parents Project. The purpose of this readers edition of the Book of Mormon is two fold. First, to help all readers see themselves in the text by using inclusive language in relation to humans. Second, to help all readers conceptualize the divine as God-and-Goddess, our Heavenly Parents. In doing so, we offer a reading of the sacred text of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in language that resonates more fully with women.

This readers edition is intended for personal devotional use and is not meant to replace the Book of Mormon as it is. Rather, we engage in Nephi’s devotional practice of likening the scriptures unto ourselves for our own spiritual development and learning (see 1 Nephi 19:23–24).

We have used the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon as the source text. This edition of the Book of Mormon is in public domain and may be published by anyone. We draw several aspects of our approach to this Heavenly Parents readers edition from the Divine Feminine Version of the New Testament published by the Christian Godde Project.

Human Equality

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that all humans are spirit children of Heavenly Parents and that we have the potential to become like Them. The divine nature and potential inherent in every human being underlies the truth that “all are alike unto Godde” (2 Nephi 26:33), regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or other characteristics.

At odds with this truth is the male-dominant language of theology and religion, which witnesses to humanity’s long history of gender inequality and continues to influence uneven gender dynamics.

The casual reader of scripture will recognize that in many cases, historical usage has favored generic masculine words to refer to mixed-gender groups — in King James English, ”men” may refer to all humans, “brethren” may refer to a congregation of both men and women, and “fathers” may refer to ancestors both male and female. However, the generic masculine assumes that man is default and woman is a subset of man. Women must perform the constant work of translating male-dominant language into terms that include both male and female subjects.

For modern readers, gender-neutral terms (“humanity,” “fellow believers,” “ancestors”) or gender-inclusive phrasing (“women and men,” “brothers and sisters,” “mothers and fathers”) help to reduce this mental burden. We strive to make these editorial changes read seamlessly and naturally so as to both remove the distraction of sexist language and enhance the reader’s connection to the text.

Expanding Our Understanding of the Divine

An expansive view of the Latter-day Saint concept of God may include not just God the Father, but the union of God the Father and God the Mother — God-and-Goddess. The BYU Studies article “A Mother There” surveyed over 600 quotes by Church leaders about Mother in Heaven and outlined several characteristics that we can ascribe to Her: She is the wife of Father in Heaven and the mother of our spirits, a divine being, a co-creator and co-framer of the plan of salvation with the Father, and an involved parent both in our mortality and in the life hereafter.

Though views have differed over the exact nature of the role and nature of Heavenly Mother, many apostles, prophets, and other leaders have affirmed a belief that She is co-divine with Heavenly Father — that they together are God.

In 1910, President Rudger Clawson wrote, “It doesn’t take from our worship of the Eternal Father, to adore our Eternal Mother, any more than it diminishes the love we bear our earthly fathers, to include our earthly mothers in our affections. . . . We honor woman when we acknowledge Godhood in her eternal prototype” (“Our Mother in Heaven,” Millennial Star 72, September 29, 1910).

The Book of Mormon does not explicitly acknowledge Heavenly Mother. But, we can more fully embrace the “cherished doctrine” of Heavenly Mother and “acknowledge Godhood in her eternal prototype” in the language we use to talk about God.

It is difficult to divest the term “God” from its long history of use to refer to and reinforce the idea of an exclusively male concept of the divine. However, Christianity has been hesitant to embrace the term “Goddess” in any regard. We have chosen to follow the Divine Feminine Version of the New Testament in using the term “Godde” as a synthesis of God and Goddess — a masculine-sounding word with a feminine-sounding ending. It may be pronounced as either one syllable (“God”) or two syllables (“God-deh”).

In modern Latter-day Saint parlance, we may speak of Godde as the union of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. In this version of the Book of Mormon, we intentionally refer to Godde as both Mother and Father, an eternal pairing of She and He who are One. Following this logic, we use the pronoun “They” to refer to Godde, both as a plural subject and as one unified being that transcends human concepts of gender.

We use the term Godde in place of both God (the Father/Mother) and Lord (the premortal Jehovah) given that the Book of Mormon emphasizes that “Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit . . . is one Eternal God” (Alma 11:44). In his ministry to the Nephites, Jesus further teaches, “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father and I are one” (3 Nephi 11:27).

We have chosen to retain references to Jesus in the flesh as male following the same reasoning as the editors of the Divine Feminine Version of the New Testament. First, Jesus as a historical person was male. Second, portraying Jesus as female risks furthering a theological narrative of violence against women, as Jesus is mocked, beaten, and crucified. Third, as a man, Jesus rejected notions of male dominance and rather used his privilege to draw those on the margins of society into the center of his ministry. He willingly laid down his own life for the ultimate goodness and well-being of others. He exemplifies all the good qualities that might traditionally have been associated with one gender or another.

Scope

Our project is mostly limited to the area of straight male/female gender inclusivity. As in the Bible, there are passages in the Book of Mormon that express the prejudices and mistakes of flawed human beings, particularly in regard to racism. These passages can be difficult to read and interpret. However, we have chosen not to alter these verses in order to allow readers to hold space for the humanity of the writers of the Book of Mormon, who nevertheless may be acknowledged as prophets. We acknowledge that their words have been used for destructive purposes and affirm that they should never be used to justify racism, homophobia, sexism, or practices based on these ideologies.

Scholars offer a variety of different interpretations of problematic verses. For example, some see descriptors such as “dark” and “light” or “white” as referring metaphorically to a spiritual state rather than literal skin color. Others look to these verses of examples of ethnocentrism and prejudice held by Book of Mormon peoples that ultimately contributed to their destruction. Any changes on our part would require interpreting these verses in a particular way, rather than leaving it up to readers to engage in their own wrestle with the text.

We recognize that there are many different ways we could have approached a gender-inclusive version of the Book of Mormon — for instance, gender-swapping characters, using midrash as an interpretive lens for female characters, or exploring different editorial conventions — and we hope others continue to do so.

We also acknowledge that there are trade-offs in the editorial decisions made in this version of the text. However, at the heart of the Restoration and the production of modern scripture is continual inspiration and expansion. Our goal is progression in the work of reinterpreting scripture for a modern audience. Our goal is not about producing a 100% historical or unproblematic or non-contradictory text.

Readers are invited to continue to experiment with expansive readings of the Book of Mormon in their own attempt to liken the scriptures to themselves.