From a TC (Trad Christian) veiw point.
The Bible at times gives God characteristics that are feminine and both men and women are created in the image of God. It would not be wholly incorrect to see God as our mother. (She that caused us to be and the aspect of God that the female is the image of.)
However we have been told to speak of Father and Son. One could see this as a cultural hangover from the times the bible is written in. However I think it is interwoven with the imagery of the church as the bride of Christ. We (the body of Christ) are the female (the beloved) to Jesus as the male. (the lover.) It is God who persued us, it is Jesus that sacrified in love for us. It is we who are the objects of his affection and sacrificial love.
(Actually the book "The Shack" has a wonderful analogy about men and women. Woman was initially broght forth from man and after that all men are then brought forth from women. Completing a loop of mutual dependency.)
Too overtly seeing God as feminine may disrupt the image of the relationship with God.
Personally I see this as a strength of TC over the way some LDS think. I see women as fully in the image of the one almighty God, as much as men are. LDS thinking IMHO can leave the feeling that only men are in the image of the ultimate God of our universe. Women are made in the image possible of some other person, who we know almost nothing of and isn't even named in the Godhead. (Of course it is possible to see this as part of reason why women are so mysterious!)
However I would like to ask some questions to the LDS folk about the assumptions made in the LDS posts above...
To speak of heavenly parents, does it necessarily mean Father and Mother. Surely it may just be refering to the multiple persons of the Godhead who were involved in our creation. The bible has both Father God and Jesus involved in creating us, in LDS thinking it was the Father that played a part in out spirit selves and Jesus who brought about the physical world we are physically born into. Both played a part in bringing us into what we are, so it would not be unreasonable (in LDS terms) to see them as our parents.
In the hymn that refers to God our Mother, could the writer have just been refering to the feminine side of the Godhead from which women are created, rather than a seperate person of whom we know nothing? I perceive most LDS believe in a seperate person of Mother God but would it be within LDS orthodoxy to have the other veiw (or acceptable to LDS)?
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