MIND OVER MATTER, SPIRIT VERSUS FLESH: THE PROBLEM OF EMBODIMENT, THE DIVINE FEMININE, AND THE POSITION OF LDS WOMEN When I have argued over the years for the importance of the Heavenly Mother in LDS theology, I am often met with the response, “Why think of God as gendered at all? Isn’t that somewhat literalistic and naive? How can something as large as Divinity be limited to something so grossly earthy as a body with genitals?” This presentation explores the ramifications of these questions: Why is an embodied God usually seen as inferior to a God beyond categories? And why has the transcendent God usually been pictured as male? Is it necessary to redeem the idea of embodiment to redeem women?

Margaret M. Toscano