Apologists in a Feeding Frenzy

[_Runtu]

There's a meme of sorts called Rule 34. Rule 34 is that if a thing exists, there is porn of it.

I do not doubt it.

[_consiglieri]

I remember hearing Religious Studies scholar Jeffrey Kripal argue that Christianity is fundamentally homoerotic. Mormonism is just an extension of that. The fetishization of the suffering man-God and the martyrdom of his handsome young prophet.

That observation takes me back to a lecture I heard at the MTC regarding the Savior.

The speaker emphasized that Jesus was not one of those namby-pamby skinny guys like in some old paintings.

He was a carpenter! He worked with his hands! He wielded a hammer!

He had big, strong, rippling muscles!

He was a man's man!

(Or maybe it was a God's God!)

But seriously, except for the part in parentheses, that is most definitely what I heard at the MTC.

[_Kishkumen]

That observation takes me back to a lecture I heard at the MTC regarding the Savior.

The speaker emphasized that Jesus was not one of those namby-pamby skinny guys like in some old paintings.

He was a carpenter! He worked with his hands! He wielded a hammer!

He had big, strong, rippling muscles!

He was a man's man!

(Or maybe it was a God's God!)

But seriously, except for the part in parentheses, that is most definitely what I heard at the MTC.

Jeffrey Kripal's ideas are worth checking out. Mind you, Kripal was in no way condemning Christianity on these grounds. Rather, he sought to understand it. His intuition was informed by the years he spent as a Catholic monk. He entered the monastery to find holiness at the expense of embracing his heterosexual sexuality and found that the monks enjoyed a very powerful homoerotic bond with each other. He realized that this was not his world, but his insight was not condemnatory or moralizing. He just came to see Christianity as deeply homoerotic and then marveled at the absence of the feminine divine in the West. Thus he went out on a quest to find the divine feminine and ended up writing a book on the cult of Kali in India.

Now, Mormonism offers the sop of Heavenly Mother, but She is so hemmed in on every side that her very quasi-presence only reaffirms the actual absence of the divine feminine. An overwhelming patriolatry squelches the divine feminine, and, one might argue, that there is no true divine feminine in Mormonism that is not contingent upon patriolatry.

[_consiglieri]

Now, Mormonism offers the sop of Heavenly Mother, but She is so hemmed in on every side that her very quasi-presence only reaffirms the actual absence of the divine feminine. An overwhelming patriolatry squelches the divine feminine, and, one might argue, that there is no true divine feminine in Mormonism that is not contingent upon patriolatry.

I think this is an important insight.

It seems that the LDS attitude toward Heavenly Mother has developed along similar lines as its attitude toward women in general.

[_Philo Sofee]

Now, Mormonism offers the sop of Heavenly Mother, but She is so hemmed in on every side that her very quasi-presence only reaffirms the actual absence of the divine feminine. An overwhelming patriolatry squelches the divine feminine, and, one might argue, that there is no true divine feminine in Mormonism that is not contingent upon patriolatry.

I think this is an important insight.

It seems that the LDS attitude toward Heavenly Mother has developed along similar lines as its attitude toward women in general.

True.... no respect for the Mother, they will hardly respect her daughters...

[_Maksutov]

True.... no respect for the Mother, they will hardly respect her daughters...

Don't forget all of the important female characters in the Book of Mormon.

[_Johannes]

That observation takes me back to a lecture I heard at the MTC regarding the Savior.

The speaker emphasized that Jesus was not one of those namby-pamby skinny guys like in some old paintings.

He was a carpenter! He worked with his hands! He wielded a hammer!

He had big, strong, rippling muscles!

He was a man's man!

(Or maybe it was a God's God!)

But seriously, except for the part in parentheses, that is most definitely what I heard at the MTC.

Sadly, that kind of rhetoric is not unusual in the conservative wings of mainstream churches too. The reinvention of Jesus as an alpha male - it's part of a broader agenda to return to supposedly traditional gender roles.

In my experience, the clerics who push this "manliness" agenda tend to be the type who are most likely to conduct their services dressed in silk, satin and lace like ecclesiastical Liberaces. There are several quite well known examples in the non-LDS world. As Trump would say, Sad!

[_Johannes]

Now, Mormonism offers the sop of Heavenly Mother, but She is so hemmed in on every side that her very quasi-presence only reaffirms the actual absence of the divine feminine. An overwhelming patriolatry squelches the divine feminine, and, one might argue, that there is no true divine feminine in Mormonism that is not contingent upon patriolatry.

I fear that re-emphasising Heavenly Mother would not help much. The non-LDS churches that are most resolutely patriarchal are those that most strongly emphasise the Virgin Mary and female saints. There isn't a straightforward relationship between conceptions of the feminine in the divine realm and the status of a community's women members in this world.

[_Kishkumen]

I fear that re-emphasising Heavenly Mother would not help much. The non-LDS churches that are most resolutely patriarchal are those that most strongly emphasise the Virgin Mary and female saints. There isn't a straightforward relationship between conceptions of the feminine in the divine realm and the status of a community's women members in this world.

Would it not depend on the nature of the emphasis? Obviously if you make the women subordinate in the theology, then the greater emphasis on them only reinforces the subordination, but it does not, after all, have to be that way, does it?