The Adam-God Doctrine

            Another significant doctrinal change is what's known as the Adam-God Doctrine.  Brigham Young taught that Adam was Heavenly Father.  According to this doctrine, Elohim and Jehovah were two gods from some other part of the universe, and they taught Michael, our Heavenly Father, how to create an earth.  Creating a new earth always involved coming onto it, eating from a special tree, becoming mortal, having children, and then ascending back up to your heavenly throne.  As recorded in the Journal of Discourses, Brigham states:

“When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. ... When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family” (JD 1:50).

Just in case he left any room for confusion, he states on the next page, “Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our father in Heaven” (JD 1:51).  President Young taught that Adam was Heavenly Father, faithful members of the Church believed him and wrote about it in their journals, and the FLDS uphold the doctrine to this day.