Free Republic

DENVER—Several members of a bizarre spiritual group called “Love Has Won” have been taken into custody after the badly decaying body of the group’s leader was found in its headquarters. Amy Carlson, 45, whose followers call her “Mother God,” was found dead in a mobile home in Casada Park, west of Crestone. Saguache County Sheriff’s deputies and Colorado Bureau of Investigation detectives found the self-proclaimed “divine being” of the group after a tip-off from a member who told them her body had been transported to Colorado from across the country. The death and its connection to Love Has Won—which law...

...Latter-day Saint literature to a Mother in Heaven...Since the 1840s, this cherished doctrine has been an important, although relatively obscure, part of the Latter-day Saint understanding of the premortal origins and divine nature of mankind... As Elder Erastus Snow (Quorum of the Twelve, February 12, 1849–May 27, 1888) avowed: “What,” says one, “do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman?” Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself...I must believe that deity consists of man and woman...There can be no God except he is composed of the man...

The Early Church Fathers had no problem referring to Mary as the Mother of God. They saw it as a natural consequence of the Incarnation.IrenaeusThe Virgin Mary, being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God (Against Heresies, 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]). Hippolytus[T]o all generations they [the prophets] have pictured forth the grandest subjects for contemplation and for action. Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, his advent by the spotless and God-bearing (theotokos) Mary in the way of birth and growth, and the manner...