Books and Edited Volumes by Taylor G Petrey
Queering Kinship in the Mormon Cosmos, 2024
Exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality, and kinship within the context of Latter-day Sa... more Exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality, and kinship within the context of Latter-day Saint theology and history, this book contains elements that can be reinterpreted through a queer lens. Taylor Petrey reexamines and resignifies Mormon cosmology in the context of queer theory, offering a fresh perspective on divine relationships, gender fluidity, and the concept of kinship itself.
Petrey's work draws together queer studies and the academic study of religion in new ways, providing a nuanced understanding of how religious narratives and doctrines can be reimagined to include more diverse interpretations of identity and community.
University of Utah Press, 2023
Like other Christian denominations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has... more Like other Christian denominations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has been engaged in the battle for the Bible since challenges to biblical authority began to exert significant influence in America toward the end of the nineteenth century. Other believing communities have responded with various reevaluations of biblical text. Latter-day Saints have experimented with similar approaches, often taking liberal positions on biblical authority and conservative positions on history and authorship. However, Latter-day Saints accept additional scripture and embrace a theology notably distinct from traditional Christianity. Hence, they relate to the Bible differently from other Christians, creating gaps with mainstream biblical studies. This volume bridges that gap. From comparing the Book of Mormon to the Bible or the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Mormon feminists' biblical studies views on the Gospels, this volume takes a comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding Bible scholarship's role in Mormon history, exploring these differences for both scholars and students. A diverse group of contributors presents an accessible resource to mediate between Latter-day Saint traditions and the broader context of biblical history, literature, and scholarship. Each essay provides a synopsis of relevant major scholarly views and delivers new insights into varied crosscurrents of biblical studies. "One of the great strengths of this collection is how it often offers different perspectives, offered by different scholars, to similar concerns or texts. In so doing, it adds a nice breadth of approach and depth of competing analyses. "-PAUL C. GUTJAHR,
University of North Carolina Press, 2020
*Best Book Award* (2020) Mormon History Association
*Starred Review* at Publisher's Weekly: "c... more *Best Book Award* (2020) Mormon History Association
*Starred Review* at Publisher's Weekly: "combines meticulous research with illuminating insight in this landmark work on gender and sexuality in Mormon thought.... Information-packed, with a forceful thesis and jargon-free prose, this is an important contribution to Mormon studies as well as a convincing consideration of the ways religions construct and maintain frameworks. Any academic studying the intersection of religious practice and progressive social change will want to pick this up."
*Starred review* at Library Journal: “ Petrey’s work...is a brilliant exception to studies of sexuality, gender, and religion that too often focus on a narrow subject and don’t speak to broader concerns of larger issues in history and society....Petrey writes beautifully, offering readers across a wide variety of academic fields, including religious studies and the history of sexuality, an elegant intellectual text that will please casual readers as well. Highly recommended.”
Taylor G. Petrey’s trenchant history takes a landmark step forward in documenting and theorizing about Latter-day Saints (LDS) teachings on gender, sexual difference, and marriage. Drawing on deep archival research, Petrey situates LDS doctrines in gender theory and American religious history since World War II. His challenging conclusion is that Mormonism is conflicted between ontologies of gender essentialism and gender fluidity, illustrating a broader tension in the history of sexuality in modernity itself.
As Petrey details, LDS leaders have embraced the idea of fixed identities representing a natural and divine order, but their teachings also acknowledge that sexual difference is persistently contingent and unstable. While queer theorists have built an ethics and politics based on celebrating such sexual fluidity, LDS leaders view it as a source of anxiety and a tool for the shaping of a heterosexual social order. Through public preaching and teaching, the deployment of psychological approaches to “cure” homosexuality, and political activism against equal rights for women and same-sex marriage, Mormon leaders hoped to manage sexuality and faith for those who have strayed from heteronormativity.
"Indeed, Tabernacles of Clay is a model for how scholars can use a singular tradition to tell a much larger lesson. Petrey convincingly argues that Mormonism demonstrates “the queer contours of modern notions of gender and sexuality as persistently marked by ambiguity, fluidity, contradiction, and paradox” (223). Despite how rigid contemporary debates are, and despite how cemented modern Mormonism’s gender rhetoric appears to be, history is always more flexible and complicated than typically allowed." Ben Park https://benjaminepark.com/2020/05/20/the-circuitous-history-of-mormonisms-gender-essentialism/
"A path-breaking work of religion and gender and sexuality, Tabernacles of Clay sets the agenda for a new generation of scholars interested in the recent Latter-day Saint past." Chris Babbits https://newbooksnetwork.com/taylor-petrey-tabernacles-of-clay-sexuality-and-gender-in-modern-mormonism-unc-press-2020/
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is an outstanding reference source to this controv... more The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is an outstanding reference source to this controversial subject area. Since its founding in 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has engaged gender in surprising ways. LDS practice of polygamy in the nineteenth century both fueled rhetoric of patriarchal rule as well as gave polygamous wives greater autonomy than their monogamous peers. The tensions over women’s autonomy continued after polygamy was abandoned and defined much of the twentieth century. In the 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s, Mormon feminists came into direct confrontation with the male Mormon hierarchy. These public clashes produced some reforms, but fell short of accomplishing full equality. LGBT Mormons have a similar history. These movements are part of the larger story of how Mormonism has managed changing gender norms in a global context. Comprising over forty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into four parts:
• Methodological issues
• Historical approaches
• Social scientific approaches
• Theological approaches.
These sections examine central issues, debates, and problems, including: agency, feminism, sexuality and sexual ethics, masculinity, queer studies, plural marriage, homosexuality, race, scripture, gender and the priesthood, the family, sexual violence, and identity.
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, gender studies, and women’s studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, anthropology, and sociology.
Essays in Honor of Karen L. King
Articles and Chapters by Taylor G Petrey
The Next Quest for the History Jesus, 2024
[Full paper not included here]
The Next Quest for the historical Jesus has to account for the ... more [Full paper not included here]
The Next Quest for the historical Jesus has to account for the body and embodiment. Such a statement may seem surprising. Indeed, from one perspective it is possible to conclude that the tradition has been obsessed with Jesus's body. From questions about the sort of substance Jesus's body was made of, to how it was conceived, to its race, gender, and abilities, to the kinds of pains and pleasures it was capable of and participated in, to its other practices that have been scrutinized for theological and normative guidance, Jesus's body may be one of the most important and enduring theological topics up to the present day. The interest suggests that within this theological framework the truth of Jesus's body reveals something important about the truth of his identity. The Chalcedonian doctrine of the "two natures," the human and the divine, with all its limitations, proclaimed a serious commitment to the embodiment and flesh of Jesus. While this investment in Jesus's body is primarily a theological project, such ideas have even served as the basis for some confessional defense of the "historical" study of Jesus.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 2021
Ten years ago, my article “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” was published in Dialogue.... more Ten years ago, my article “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” was published in Dialogue.1 I did not know what to expect when it made its way into the world, but it ended up being a widely discussed piece and has been accessed tens of thousands of times.2 The public discussion about my ideas was both critical and appreciative. In the wake of the article, my own research and thinking have also developed. When I first approached this topic, I expected that my interest would be limited to a single contribution. However, in the ensuing decade I now count several articles, a book, and a substantial edited volume on Mormonism, sexuality, gender in my research portfolio. My fascination with this question has endured.
Routledge Handbook on Mormonism and Gender, 2020
Latter-day Saint theologies of sexuality both reflect and reject broader cultural contexts and so... more Latter-day Saint theologies of sexuality both reflect and reject broader cultural contexts and social values. In the nineteenth century, polygamy reflected a theory of sexuality as exceeding the limits that monogamy placed on it. Over the course of the twentieth century, Latter-day Saint theology adopted rigorous sexual norms, but eventually relaxed many of them in the wake of the sexual revolution in the 1960s. This shift caused Latter-day Saints to think of sexuality beyond reproduction, and to begin to discuss sexuality in terms of pleasure and spousal bonding. Commitment, not mere consent, was still the foundation of permissible sexual exchange. At the same time, reproduction remains a defining feature of the discourse of sexuality so as to delegitimize non-reproductive sex, such as masturbation and same-sex intimacy. The various overlapping and disjointed aspects of the tradition of LDS theology about sex leave open several places for ambiguity and disagreement.
Sophia, 2020
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) affirms the existence of a divine wom... more The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) affirms the existence of a divine woman, a Heavenly Mother as a companion to a Heavenly Father. Feminist philosophers of religion have argued for the importance of a divine feminine as a challenge to patriarchal religion, yet the Heavenly Mother tradition has not created an egalitarian religion in Mormonism. Mormon feminists have charged that relative silence about this teaching is a primary cause of this discrepancy. This paper explores the performative dynamics of speech and silence and their relationship to presence and absence in a feminist analysis of power.
Remaking the World: Christianity and Categories (Mohr Siebeck), 2019
Valentinian texts reveal an early Christian debate over the ontology of sexual difference. Was th... more Valentinian texts reveal an early Christian debate over the ontology of sexual difference. Was the universe always divided between male and female pairs in a complementarian hierarchy, or was there only one essence of being that was subsequently divided between male and female? The competing accounts of pleromatic unity answer this question differently; in so doing, they reveal ways in which questions about the nature of sexual difference cut across emerging schools of thought about the fabric of existence. This essay examines these questions: 1) What are the gendered images in the Valentinian pleromatic realm? 2) How do we make sense of the significant differences in the representation of gender in the Valentinian school?
Oxford Handbook of New Testament, Gender, and Sexuality, 2019
This chapter surveys the relevant ancient Christian and Jewish texts on the resurrection that dis... more This chapter surveys the relevant ancient Christian and Jewish texts on the resurrection that discuss gender and sexuality and the scholarship about these topics. It provides particular emphasis on the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, Paul, and the early Christian reception of their ideas in the second through fourth centuries. The saying of Jesus that those who are resurrected shall be “as angels” is central to early Christian theologies of the body and sexuality. Paul’s discussion of the nature of the resurrected body and the importance of the parts also informs how early Christians developed these ideas. The tension in early Christian writing about the resurrection was between those who emphasized continuity between the mortal and resurrected self, and those who emphasized a radical change between the two. Further, the chapter provides an overview to major scholarly methods and approaches to studying the resurrection, including feminist scholarship.
Element: The Journal for the Society of Mormon Philosophy and Theology, 2019
This paper describes different schools in contemporary Mormon biblical studies and offers an alte... more This paper describes different schools in contemporary Mormon biblical studies and offers an alternative in cultural and ideological critique. Scholarly responses included.
Early Christianity, 2018
Die Forschung hat Clemens von Alexandria als wichtigen Zeugen für das Verständnis frühchristliche... more Die Forschung hat Clemens von Alexandria als wichtigen Zeugen für das Verständnis frühchristlichen Denkens über das Begehren betrachtet, das in einer Übergangs- phase der Sexualitätsgeschichte aufkam. Clemens bietet Auszüge aus einem Traktat des Epiphanes, eines konkurrierenden Christen und Vertreters des christlichen Kommunalismus. Dieser Artikel überprüft die verschiedenen Positionen der beiden christlichen Denker, um zu zeigen, inwiefern Fragen der christlichen Identität und des Geschlechts die Geschichte der Sexualität geprägt haben. In der Vergangenheit hat die Verwendung essentialisierender Identitätskategorien in der Analyse beider Fi- guren sowohl den Blick auf ihre Gemeinsamkeiten als auch auf den Kern ihrer christlichen Lehren verstellt. Ihr Streit betraf nicht allein die Sexualethik, sondern bezog sich auch auf den sozialen Wert der Ehe, die Definition von Maskulinität und die utopische Aufhebung sexueller Differenz.
Harvard Theological Review, 2016
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) is distinctive among Christian tradit... more The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) is distinctive among Christian traditions for its belief in a divine female figure in addition to God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Known as "Heavenly Mother," she is considered to be the spouse of Heavenly Father and mother to all human souls.
Mormon feminist theologians have invoked the idea of Heavenly Mother as a challenge to patriarchal aspects of Mormon teaching. They argue that Heavenly Mother raises the status of woman and mother and that her position in the divine realm challenges the exclusive male leadership of the Church.
This article puts Mormon feminist treatments of Heavenly Mother into conversation with Luce Irigaray's philosophical turn to religion. Irigaray emphasizes a "Divine Woman" as a necessary aspect of a full female subjectivity. From a philosophical perspective, Irigaray's arguments have much similarity to those of Mormon feminists. However, feminist critics of Irigaray have noted the ways in which Irigaray's framework is based on a rigid gender binary and a heterosexual normativity.
I argue that these critiques have important bearing on Mormon feminist theologies of Heavenly Mother, and ask how might Mormon feminist theology retain the idea of Heavenly Mother without relying on sexual binaries and heterosexuality. As a solution, I point to elements of instability in Mormon thought that exceed such constraints and may be resignified as representative of gender plurality and non-heterosexual intimacy.
Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2014
Tertullian is among the earliest Christians to argue that the sinful condition of human ... more Tertullian is among the earliest Christians to argue that the sinful condition of human beings is transmitted from Adam’s semen to all his descendants. He makes this argument to explain the necessity of the virgin birth, insisting that Christ has not been contaminated with Adam’s semen, but has still inherited Adam’s flesh through Mary. Tertullian’s materialism holds that as Christians are reborn in Christ, Christ’s semen cleanses the stain of Adam’s semen. This essay situates Tertullian in ancient embryological discussions about inheritance and descent and argues that he deploys patrilineal kinship language, rejecting maternal alternatives.
Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy, 2014
This chapter reconsiders LDS apostasy narratives by examining the ideological and rhetorical stra... more This chapter reconsiders LDS apostasy narratives by examining the ideological and rhetorical strategies they rely on, including the quest for a pure original and a comparative method to find parallels between ancient and modern.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 2011
Whatsoever you seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my n... more Whatsoever you seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my name and by my word, saith the Lord, it shall be eternally bound in the heavens. (D&C 132:46)
Encyclopedia Entries by Taylor G Petrey
these terms or the scope of sexual transgression. Celibate marriages, marriage to non-Christians,... more these terms or the scope of sexual transgression. Celibate marriages, marriage to non-Christians, and second marriages were particularly controversial practices.
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Books and Edited Volumes by Taylor G Petrey
Petrey's work draws together queer studies and the academic study of religion in new ways, providing a nuanced understanding of how religious narratives and doctrines can be reimagined to include more diverse interpretations of identity and community.
*Starred Review* at Publisher's Weekly: "combines meticulous research with illuminating insight in this landmark work on gender and sexuality in Mormon thought.... Information-packed, with a forceful thesis and jargon-free prose, this is an important contribution to Mormon studies as well as a convincing consideration of the ways religions construct and maintain frameworks. Any academic studying the intersection of religious practice and progressive social change will want to pick this up."
*Starred review* at Library Journal: “ Petrey’s work...is a brilliant exception to studies of sexuality, gender, and religion that too often focus on a narrow subject and don’t speak to broader concerns of larger issues in history and society....Petrey writes beautifully, offering readers across a wide variety of academic fields, including religious studies and the history of sexuality, an elegant intellectual text that will please casual readers as well. Highly recommended.”
Taylor G. Petrey’s trenchant history takes a landmark step forward in documenting and theorizing about Latter-day Saints (LDS) teachings on gender, sexual difference, and marriage. Drawing on deep archival research, Petrey situates LDS doctrines in gender theory and American religious history since World War II. His challenging conclusion is that Mormonism is conflicted between ontologies of gender essentialism and gender fluidity, illustrating a broader tension in the history of sexuality in modernity itself.
As Petrey details, LDS leaders have embraced the idea of fixed identities representing a natural and divine order, but their teachings also acknowledge that sexual difference is persistently contingent and unstable. While queer theorists have built an ethics and politics based on celebrating such sexual fluidity, LDS leaders view it as a source of anxiety and a tool for the shaping of a heterosexual social order. Through public preaching and teaching, the deployment of psychological approaches to “cure” homosexuality, and political activism against equal rights for women and same-sex marriage, Mormon leaders hoped to manage sexuality and faith for those who have strayed from heteronormativity.
"Indeed, Tabernacles of Clay is a model for how scholars can use a singular tradition to tell a much larger lesson. Petrey convincingly argues that Mormonism demonstrates “the queer contours of modern notions of gender and sexuality as persistently marked by ambiguity, fluidity, contradiction, and paradox” (223). Despite how rigid contemporary debates are, and despite how cemented modern Mormonism’s gender rhetoric appears to be, history is always more flexible and complicated than typically allowed." Ben Park https://benjaminepark.com/2020/05/20/the-circuitous-history-of-mormonisms-gender-essentialism/
"A path-breaking work of religion and gender and sexuality, Tabernacles of Clay sets the agenda for a new generation of scholars interested in the recent Latter-day Saint past." Chris Babbits https://newbooksnetwork.com/taylor-petrey-tabernacles-of-clay-sexuality-and-gender-in-modern-mormonism-unc-press-2020/
• Methodological issues
• Historical approaches
• Social scientific approaches
• Theological approaches.
These sections examine central issues, debates, and problems, including: agency, feminism, sexuality and sexual ethics, masculinity, queer studies, plural marriage, homosexuality, race, scripture, gender and the priesthood, the family, sexual violence, and identity.
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, gender studies, and women’s studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, anthropology, and sociology.
Articles and Chapters by Taylor G Petrey
The Next Quest for the historical Jesus has to account for the body and embodiment. Such a statement may seem surprising. Indeed, from one perspective it is possible to conclude that the tradition has been obsessed with Jesus's body. From questions about the sort of substance Jesus's body was made of, to how it was conceived, to its race, gender, and abilities, to the kinds of pains and pleasures it was capable of and participated in, to its other practices that have been scrutinized for theological and normative guidance, Jesus's body may be one of the most important and enduring theological topics up to the present day. The interest suggests that within this theological framework the truth of Jesus's body reveals something important about the truth of his identity. The Chalcedonian doctrine of the "two natures," the human and the divine, with all its limitations, proclaimed a serious commitment to the embodiment and flesh of Jesus. While this investment in Jesus's body is primarily a theological project, such ideas have even served as the basis for some confessional defense of the "historical" study of Jesus.
Mormon feminist theologians have invoked the idea of Heavenly Mother as a challenge to patriarchal aspects of Mormon teaching. They argue that Heavenly Mother raises the status of woman and mother and that her position in the divine realm challenges the exclusive male leadership of the Church.
This article puts Mormon feminist treatments of Heavenly Mother into conversation with Luce Irigaray's philosophical turn to religion. Irigaray emphasizes a "Divine Woman" as a necessary aspect of a full female subjectivity. From a philosophical perspective, Irigaray's arguments have much similarity to those of Mormon feminists. However, feminist critics of Irigaray have noted the ways in which Irigaray's framework is based on a rigid gender binary and a heterosexual normativity.
I argue that these critiques have important bearing on Mormon feminist theologies of Heavenly Mother, and ask how might Mormon feminist theology retain the idea of Heavenly Mother without relying on sexual binaries and heterosexuality. As a solution, I point to elements of instability in Mormon thought that exceed such constraints and may be resignified as representative of gender plurality and non-heterosexual intimacy.
Encyclopedia Entries by Taylor G Petrey
Petrey's work draws together queer studies and the academic study of religion in new ways, providing a nuanced understanding of how religious narratives and doctrines can be reimagined to include more diverse interpretations of identity and community.
*Starred Review* at Publisher's Weekly: "combines meticulous research with illuminating insight in this landmark work on gender and sexuality in Mormon thought.... Information-packed, with a forceful thesis and jargon-free prose, this is an important contribution to Mormon studies as well as a convincing consideration of the ways religions construct and maintain frameworks. Any academic studying the intersection of religious practice and progressive social change will want to pick this up."
*Starred review* at Library Journal: “ Petrey’s work...is a brilliant exception to studies of sexuality, gender, and religion that too often focus on a narrow subject and don’t speak to broader concerns of larger issues in history and society....Petrey writes beautifully, offering readers across a wide variety of academic fields, including religious studies and the history of sexuality, an elegant intellectual text that will please casual readers as well. Highly recommended.”
Taylor G. Petrey’s trenchant history takes a landmark step forward in documenting and theorizing about Latter-day Saints (LDS) teachings on gender, sexual difference, and marriage. Drawing on deep archival research, Petrey situates LDS doctrines in gender theory and American religious history since World War II. His challenging conclusion is that Mormonism is conflicted between ontologies of gender essentialism and gender fluidity, illustrating a broader tension in the history of sexuality in modernity itself.
As Petrey details, LDS leaders have embraced the idea of fixed identities representing a natural and divine order, but their teachings also acknowledge that sexual difference is persistently contingent and unstable. While queer theorists have built an ethics and politics based on celebrating such sexual fluidity, LDS leaders view it as a source of anxiety and a tool for the shaping of a heterosexual social order. Through public preaching and teaching, the deployment of psychological approaches to “cure” homosexuality, and political activism against equal rights for women and same-sex marriage, Mormon leaders hoped to manage sexuality and faith for those who have strayed from heteronormativity.
"Indeed, Tabernacles of Clay is a model for how scholars can use a singular tradition to tell a much larger lesson. Petrey convincingly argues that Mormonism demonstrates “the queer contours of modern notions of gender and sexuality as persistently marked by ambiguity, fluidity, contradiction, and paradox” (223). Despite how rigid contemporary debates are, and despite how cemented modern Mormonism’s gender rhetoric appears to be, history is always more flexible and complicated than typically allowed." Ben Park https://benjaminepark.com/2020/05/20/the-circuitous-history-of-mormonisms-gender-essentialism/
"A path-breaking work of religion and gender and sexuality, Tabernacles of Clay sets the agenda for a new generation of scholars interested in the recent Latter-day Saint past." Chris Babbits https://newbooksnetwork.com/taylor-petrey-tabernacles-of-clay-sexuality-and-gender-in-modern-mormonism-unc-press-2020/
• Methodological issues
• Historical approaches
• Social scientific approaches
• Theological approaches.
These sections examine central issues, debates, and problems, including: agency, feminism, sexuality and sexual ethics, masculinity, queer studies, plural marriage, homosexuality, race, scripture, gender and the priesthood, the family, sexual violence, and identity.
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, gender studies, and women’s studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, anthropology, and sociology.
The Next Quest for the historical Jesus has to account for the body and embodiment. Such a statement may seem surprising. Indeed, from one perspective it is possible to conclude that the tradition has been obsessed with Jesus's body. From questions about the sort of substance Jesus's body was made of, to how it was conceived, to its race, gender, and abilities, to the kinds of pains and pleasures it was capable of and participated in, to its other practices that have been scrutinized for theological and normative guidance, Jesus's body may be one of the most important and enduring theological topics up to the present day. The interest suggests that within this theological framework the truth of Jesus's body reveals something important about the truth of his identity. The Chalcedonian doctrine of the "two natures," the human and the divine, with all its limitations, proclaimed a serious commitment to the embodiment and flesh of Jesus. While this investment in Jesus's body is primarily a theological project, such ideas have even served as the basis for some confessional defense of the "historical" study of Jesus.
Mormon feminist theologians have invoked the idea of Heavenly Mother as a challenge to patriarchal aspects of Mormon teaching. They argue that Heavenly Mother raises the status of woman and mother and that her position in the divine realm challenges the exclusive male leadership of the Church.
This article puts Mormon feminist treatments of Heavenly Mother into conversation with Luce Irigaray's philosophical turn to religion. Irigaray emphasizes a "Divine Woman" as a necessary aspect of a full female subjectivity. From a philosophical perspective, Irigaray's arguments have much similarity to those of Mormon feminists. However, feminist critics of Irigaray have noted the ways in which Irigaray's framework is based on a rigid gender binary and a heterosexual normativity.
I argue that these critiques have important bearing on Mormon feminist theologies of Heavenly Mother, and ask how might Mormon feminist theology retain the idea of Heavenly Mother without relying on sexual binaries and heterosexuality. As a solution, I point to elements of instability in Mormon thought that exceed such constraints and may be resignified as representative of gender plurality and non-heterosexual intimacy.