President Christofferson and The Church Social Media Post

President Christofferson's words on mixed messaging, masculinity, and our emasculating culture.

 Raw Transcript:

Take the recent church post, social media post about the feminine man and
put it in contrast with a backdrop of President D. Todd Kristofferson's words on masculinity and messaging to boys and
men. He says, and I quote, in regard to boys and men, he says, "A common thread
running through these analysis of boys and men is that in many societies today, men and boys get conflicting
and demeaning signals about their roles and value in society." He has a lot more to say, and we're going to cover that.
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Welcome to Quick Show. My name is Greg Matson and I am your host. I'm excited about going over this, contrasting the
words of a now member of the first presidency with so much of this habaloo or whatever you want to call it
that what is the term for that? What am I thinking of here that that is over this official um church social media
post and and and it I'm sorry it's merited. It is merited to talk about this type of thing there. There is a lot
of different angles on this. You have a a camp that is uh very pro the actual
post. They're pro the post about the masculinity or lack thereof in and in
the uh the story of the young man who uh learned to sew with the Relief Society sisters and was a ballet dancer and then
went to fashion school. Again, that's not the issue. I I it's just not the issue. I mean, good for the young man. I hope that things work out for him.
That's one side of it. And people complaining that, well, why aren't we going to display and show every different type of person,
which isn't true, and you don't believe that. You, those of you that are saying that don't believe that either in some
kind of DEI messaging to the world. The difference is is that a DEI messaging is not about invitation. It's about tolerance and advocacy.
and and and we've got to be very careful about this. I I believe that's just my opinion. There's a difference between
supporting and loving others that might be different from you or have different sexual orientation or gender or race or
background uh anything, right? And and we're experiencing this growth in the church globally with different cultures
and different rules and and different backgrounds and it and really it's a beautiful thing. I think it's beautiful.
It's amazing. And I think it is a real it allows for charity to really be displayed from all of us as we see this
happening. And I bring this example up all the time, but it's kind of like how many of us are just like so happy and amazed and watching, for example, the
4 minutesgrowth of the church in Africa. I it's it's so heartwarming and so wonderful.
This isn't about that, right? This is not about it. So you have that group of people that are why are you criticizing this young man which which for me as as
somebody who has really hit this thing hard. I I don't that's not what I'm doing in the message at least not not in
the message. More power to him. I hope things work out for him. Really will.
And then you have, of course, the follow-up to all of this where we've now discovered going through the social media that
in fact that the young man's social media accounts, especially on Instagram, are a little bit concerning in what he is
advocating and and in some cases possibly, not putting words in his mouth, but you can make judgment on yourself, mocking the church.
And and so this is who they decide to put up there. Again, this story about this young man was put up a year ago
with ldsliving.com, right? They they already had this story on June 30th, the last day of Pride Month, as I pointed out.
This was put in and and I and I it's hard for me to imagine. I'm sorry. I I like to pull the veil back on things and actually say the emperor has no clothes.
It it's hard for me to imagine that this wasn't done on purpose on the last day of Pride Month.
I I don't know that. Yes, I'm I'm guessing. All right, I admit it. I'm guessing, but it's suspicious to me that
this happened in this way. And and so, but you look at the other what he's done either in the meantime or previous to
this. I I don't know. But it's concerning what he has here, right? He's got a a another uh account that he calls
the Church of Martin. This is him in these images here and talking about the
greatest couple in the stake about these two men look apparently him and another
guy and you've got of course the two boy scouts kissing in the gay scouts of
America on here. This is what the church put out. This is they didn't put these images out but they h profofiled this
young man. Above that, you've got a t-shirt on this that says, "I love my Mormon boy." Right? I I love my Mormon
boy. And And you've got a guy here that's uh uh for the first day of school, right? A picture of him that's supposed to be for the first day of
school. And that's what his t-shirt says. Beyond that, I don't have this on here, but you've got another image of two women that are kissing with the word
love in it. And it it's, you know, this is this is what was decided to put up.
And so now you've got a group of people that will say, "Oh, okay. Maybe now I agree with this at this point. I agreed
7 minuteswith it to begin with. I I think it's preposterous and a ridiculous a ridiculous post to put out there. It
is gaslighting men is what it is. And it might not be intentionally gaslighting men, but that's that's what's happening.
But once you put this other information out there about him, then it's like, well, okay, maybe maybe I do agree with this. This
is I was wrong and and this was the wrong thing. And then you have others that I like, people I like quite a bit
that just can't get over the fact that someone is criticizing this social media post. It it's like, you heretic.
You heretic. How could you be doing this? And it's more important to them that someone is criticizing the social
media post and calling it out than actually the story of of this young man
and and his background here and the context that this really falls under.
And that is really bizarre to me. It's like they keep searching for reasoning.
Okay. You found this other stuff, but when you originally started bringing this up, you didn't know about it, and it was all about this this topic of masculinity. Yes, that's right. Yes.
And just as I brought the quote up at the very beginning uh with Elder now, President Kristofferson about conflicting messages to men and boys.
This is a part of that. And I think that if you were to talk to influencers, for example, I'm just bringing up influencers because they might be people
you recognize or know that have samesex attraction or identify as being faithful but gay. And you know, someone like a
Timber Harwood or or a Sky Sorenson, um Jeff Benyan, right, and others that
that are very firmly faithful in the church. I wonder if you ask them, you
9 minutesthose that are mostly women that are criticizing us, that are criticizing the post about masculinity,
ask them about what this type of message sends to young men that are kind of like
wondering, "How do I handle the way I feel with with some of this samesex attraction?" Some men that feel that, some boys that feel that.
I I and I don't know. I'm not putting words in their mouth. I've just heard them speak on this type of subject before. It is confusing.
It's confusing.
And and in the under the umbrella in the in the backdrop of saying we we tolerate
and accept everybody, then then we are confusing others
and and bringing down certain truths.
And there's this idea that gathering Israel means throwing out this wide net to everybody and bringing everybody in.
And I'm not talking about this young man, but but it's just the the concept here. and and bringing everybody in regardless of their behavior, regardless
of what they say about the church, regardless of their willing to keep covenants and say, you know, like like
the slogan goes, there's more than one way to Mormon. That's not gathering Israel.
That's not what it is. It's not let's make the way wider. Let's make the gate broader.
It is there is a narrow way and a straight S t a t gate.
Let's invite everybody. The net goes out not for accepting and and saying
everything can fit into the same definition of Zion.
It's throw the net out for an invitation to walk down that narrow path. And I'm not it's not my interpretation of it.
I'm talking about the scriptures. I'm talking about the commandments. I I don't do that perfectly. It's not interpretation by Greg.
It's exaltation. It's it's simply exaltation.
Do you live in a way that supports exaltation? Do you talk about things and and share information in a way that supports exaltation?
Or is your lifestyle contrary to that?
and to start saying,"Well, we accept this and we accept this and all of this is gathering Zion and isn't this a beautiful world that we're living in where we tolerate and advocate for
everybody is is to me very anti-gosspel and very anti-Christian.
It is I love you no matter what your behavior is. Whatever your lifestyle is, I love you and I put my arms around you,
but I do not affirm or support these different things.
And and in the second part of the young man's information here where we find all of this disturbing stuff that certainly applies with the masculinity part of it.
I I refer back to Elder Kristofferson, President Kristofferson's words about mixed and confusing messages that are
going out to men. There are very, very few messages going out to men. saw somebody reply to one of the posts that I put out there saying that
I've gone through the official church account and there's, you know, in the last 30 days there's all this information about men, men, men. And I went back and looked at it. Just look at
the last week. Go to it right now. Go to the official social media account on Facebook or wherever. Uh don't go to X because this won't be on there. They
purposefully, mindfully, purposefully put that last social media post out with
that young man on Instagram and on Facebook. I don't know about Tik Tok, but they did. Tik Tok would be
different, right? But they did not put her on X. So, think about that. Why didn't they do that?
What was their reasoning behind that?
But the reason that there are a bunch of messages in there for men is because it was Father's Day. And so the days surrounding that, especially leading up to it, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff about men, positive things about men.
And I and I'm not saying that there there there is never anything about men in there, but it's it's it's very rare
to see churchwide messaging that goes to men. And the reason the the the words that you heard from uh President
Christopherson that I quoted at the beginning of the episode are there is because he was talking to men and that's
just different and you have different words and you have more directness
and I it makes me wonder sometimes is I wonder if one of the reasons they don't have general priesthood session anymore
is because Naturally, you're going to have these messages directly to men,
about holding up masculinity, about being trustworthy, about about being uh and everything that goes along with that about being a provider.
And these are these can become very politically incorrect things that can be taken as quotes and say, "Hey, see, the
church is just a big part of the patriarchy." Now, I I'm I'm supposing here, obviously, I I don't know that at
all, but I've gone back and looked at the last several years, including another talk by President Kristofferson in 2016 that was in general priesthood
meeting, and that that thought just comes to mind. They don't talk like this. Now again, there's no audience.
There's no male audience that they are talking to anywhere else.
But it's it's interesting because I don't know that they would be saying these same type of things. And we're going to go over this talk from
President Kristofferson talking about about about men and culture and and the effects on masculinity. And I think as
you put that as a backdrop to this official social media post, you're going to see the contrast that is there because this is the way they used to
talk when they were talking directly to men. Now, what I've also seen is uh for
example, I saw some some and they're female and I'm not it's just it it's again it goes it's kind of gaslighting.
I'm sorry. It's kind of gaslighting, but you know, questioning, you know, something on social media that says something like, uh, is there a male crisis in the church?
And it it's I it's so dismissive of things to to not put that out there as a
rhetorical question and then to come back and say, "Yeah, but now the church, they've we've we've lost the the young
men's presidencies in the ward. We've lost sports. We've lost Boy Scouts. Uh mostly fathers and sons is dead. uh the
uh um general you know general priesthood session is gone. So you see all of those things, but then to come back and say, but yeah, but now there's
YS, you know, F, EFY, what is EFY Y, especially for youth, EFY,
um, for the strength of youth, FSY, uh, events, which are fantastic, but it's not directly to men. It's not directly to young men.
So, it's it's it's a misunderstanding from some
that this has been a huge change for men and that they are drifting to some degree and that they're looking for
inspirational words that specifically speak to them and you say you come back with a rebuttal like I've seen some people do
on online with with some of the posting that's I put out there and it's or any others put out there and it's basically well well isn't it all about Christ.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a generic statement that does means honestly it means nothing. It's all about Christ.
And and and if you just have the message of Christ, that's all we need. Both men and women need to follow Christ and and and build a relationship with him. It's
becoming this bumper sticker. A lot of Christian churches follow Christ, right?
But why, if that's the case, why do we have BYU women's conference every year? Why why was there timeout for women?
Why is there so much messaging to women?
Why do we have a young women's presidency in the wards?
Why why why do we have a general relief society presidency?
It it it it's it's gaslighting. And I know it's not intentional, but in the culture more broadly in the
West, in the United States, men's suicide rates are higher than they've ever been. Men are lonier than they've ever been. They have fewer friends than
they've ever had before. They are losing jobs to other women and and to others.
They are at higher risk for for several health risks.
They die more at job in their jobs. And there are, you know, I could I I've written about this and talked about this before. There are many many different
areas where inside or outside of the church, men are being affected in our culture today. And to come back with, as
one woman said on one of my videos, this sounds like a bunch of whiny men because it's simply bringing up awareness about
something is preposterous and it shows you the position that men are in because men don't want to be victims. A woman
19 minutescan run to victimhood and people are going to rush to help her. And I think she knows that,
right? A man can't do that. Number one, he shouldn't. You can't ever go there. You can't ever go there.
And number two, you're going to be seen as weak.
Whether whether you even if you're a woman that is supporting and you know a a more overall
feminized masculinity, when it comes down to it, if you see men as weak, you're you're you're going to have a lot less respect for them.
And so, where does a man go with that?
and and and these are some of the things that I talk about sometimes. You you have to you have to stand uh you have to
stand up for yourself in terms of you can't let culture dictate your identity.
Now let's go into this talk a little bit. This is actually going back of course to 2012.
And uh you know, President Kristofferson is going to talk about uh a theme here
which is basically rise above the cultural confusion like we get in some messaging,
personal drift, spiritual passivity, become the kind of men God, women, children, families, church and society
can trust. That is a fantastic message strengthening men in that way. That is we we don't get that message.
I'm sorry. We don't get that message to men enough. Become the trustworthy person to all of those that are around you.
That might be a general type of a message to the whole church to some degree. Have integrity. Live the gospel.
But you're not getting these types of direct words to the men of the church.
Now, this is going back to October of 2012, and I want to highlight just a couple of
things in here that I think are interesting, and I just I'm just wondering from you, do you think that how how would some of these things fall
today on on our ears if we heard some of these things? This wasn't that long ago,
you know, this is 14 years ago. But this is how it starts out. And I want to cover a bit of this here because I I think it's really important to see. He
starts off with this, brethren. Or you remember, he's a general priesthood actually talking to men. Imagine much
has been said and written in recent years about the challenges of men and boys 14 years ago. A sampling of book
titles, for example, includes Why There are no good men left, The Demise of Guys, The End of Men, Why
22 minutesBoys Fail, and Manning Up. Another one would be uh one that an influencer actually didn't quote, but said the same thing. The Boy Crisis.
A boy crisis, right, by Frell. And uh I think it's uh Gray, right? Gray is the one who wrote that book. Wow. I'd love
to see how that would go today. Go over today, which is uh Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, which my wife and I read. We loved it. We had it on a book
on tape. And it helped us both understand each other a little bit more. But hey, it's very different, right?
Because men are over here with from Mars and women are over here from Venus and you're very different. And the world today does not want that. They do not want to hear that.
So he goes over these things and he says, "Interestingly, most of these seem to have been written by women.
In any case, a common thread running through these analysis is that in many societies today, men and boys get conflicting
and demeaning signals about their roles and value in society. A bunch of whining
men when when when things are going not great." And then he quotes the author of
Manning Up. I'll highlight this whole quote here. It says, "It's been an almost universal rule of civilization
that whereas girls become women simply by reaching physical maturity." You've probably heard this before. And here you
have then elder now President Kristofferson saying the same thing. And there's a lot of truth to this,
right? Girls become women through m physical maturity. Period.
Boys on the other hand have to pass a test.
They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. Competence. Jacob Hansen and I were talking about this.
The goal was to prove their competence as protectors of women and children.
Okay, think about that. That is not acceptable today. It wasn't acceptable in 2014 or 12, but he's going against the grain here.
This was always their primary social role. Today, however, with women moving ahead in an advanced economy,
provider husbands and fathers are now optional. I don't need a man. Who needs a man?
And the character qualities men had needed to play their role, fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity, are obsolete and even a little embarrassing.
Embarrassing. I think I'm going to guess what he means there is that they're out of style for a man.
The patriarchy, toxic masculinity, uh these are ridiculous things. No, we don't need those anymore.
We've got women that can provide that stuff, too. So, he says here, this is President uh um then Elder
Kristofferson, in their zeal to promote opportunity for women.
This is really important. In their zeal to promote opportunity for women, something we applaud. Absolutely. And
this is where the pe the this is where when when you have a this massive void of messaging for men in society and I will say in the church.
Unfortunately you have a certain percentage of men that are looking for anything any kind of messaging
that is directly to them to a man to a boy. And unfortunately, a number of them fall over into that manosphere of an
Andrew Tate Tate and Nick Fuentes that is poisonous and it is toxic because
it's like, oh, this is how I'm supposed to use how I feel and and these emotions I have and this this view of the world.
Uh, this is how I'm supposed to play it out because I don't see it being played out anywhere else. And in media and everywhere else, it all says that this
is all bad over here. Well, I can be all the way to the limit on the spectrum on this side over here and I can let all of
this loose and instead of it being curbed, instead of it being spiritually guided, it's simply aggression. It is
demeaning of women because they get demeaned by women and others.
and and it is look at the women that I have. Look at the materialism that that I participate in. Look at the
accomplishments and how great I am. And and that's a problem, right? That that is a problem.
And and a big part of that, the major part of that is a void to begin with of messaging to men.
Another thing I hear a lot is why do they need messaging? And men will say this too. Why why do why does anyone need messaging? Just just tell your
family. Just be who you're supposed to be with your wife and your kids and and you're done. No one needs messaging.
Well, you're getting few and fewer of those individuals out there that even have a wife or have kids
because they're losing their masculinity. And and of course on the other side, women are losing their femininity.
And that is the demise of Western civilization.
That is the calamities talked about at the last couple paragraphs there of the family proclamation because they're not following these
things. And of course, the law of chastity has something to do with that.
And of course, you're going to be more promiscuous and the world is going to be more promiscuous. Society is going to be more promiscuous when there's less marriage.
So certainly law of chastity falls within that. And aggression and abuse and all the things that bring are brought up in in the family proclamation. Of course, they play a
part in that, but ultimately it's it's it's breaking away from man and masculinity and women and femininity.
And that's become mo, you know, even the influencers in the church, right? You hear this now, right? They're mocking that. That's just being mocked.
And and and men are getting gaslit over this whole thing.
But he says in their zeal to promote opportunity for women are those who denigrate men and their contributions. A bunch of whining men.
They seem to think of life as a competition between male and female. And you get this from both sides that one must dominate the other. This is feminism and the manosphere.
And now it's the women's turn, right?
The women's turn or it's the women's turn. This is 12 years ago. It's the or 14 years ago this is the way now it's the women's turn he's saying back then to be the ones to denigrate men.
Some argue that a career is everything and marriage and children should be entirely optional. Therefore, why do we need men?
Can you imagine him saying that today?
In too many Hollywood films, TV and cable shows and even commercials, men are pro portray portrayed as incompetent, immature or self-absorbed.
This cultural emasculation of males is having a damaging effect. Listen to the
words of a prophet seer in revelator and imagine how where we've come from 2012
to to 2026 where the official account of the church is now pushing a narrative exactly what he's talking about.
And here's some example of a whining man that some of you talk about of I guess a man of victimhood being
President Kristofferson based on what many commenters have said. He says that in the United States for example it is
reported girls outperform boys now at every level. Now it's not even close.
The gap is huge from elementary school school through graduate school. right now. The numbers are that way more women
go to college than men do. Way more women are are graduate from college. Uh the the the numbers in graduate school
are 6040 and growing. Pretty soon it's going to be two to one. Two women for every man that has a graduate degree.
That's that's where we're going. And I tell the story all the time. I'm going to say it again. And I went to my this is way back in probably 200
uh maybe 17 and 16 17 and 17 and
my daughter is in her junior class awards ceremony in high school
and there's a long line, you know, it's a large it's a really large high school and and there's a long line of of those that are going to be receiving awards.
every class there there's the favorite student, there's the best in science, there's I mean there are a lot of awards
and so there there are probably a hundred maybe 80
uh different individuals that are receiving an award and they form this line coming up to the stage in the theater where all the
parents are sitting in the theater, you know, and and I look over and I noticed you can't see all of them because there just the that are coming in through the
side door that coming up toward the stage. But I started noticing something. It was all women. It was all girls.
And this was this was back, you know, almost 10 years ago.
And I counted and I counted I ended up counting all of them, right? And and it was a it was three out of every four recipients of an award was a girl. Three out of every four.
And that's I I I I don't know if it's gotten even worse than that going forward. And I do say worse because that's a problem. Oh, well, don't you want women to do well, Greg? Stop it.
Stop. Just like Elder uh President Christopherson said here, it's not about holding women back. It's about a culture of thriving for men that doesn't exist.
But the patriarchy, Greg, whatever. He says in the United States, for example, it is reported girls outperform boys now
at every level from elementary school through graduate school. By the eighth grade, for instance, only 20% of boys
are proficient in writing and 24% proficient in reading. This is 12 14 years ago.
Young men's SAT scores, meanwhile, in 2011 were the worst they've been in 40
years. Were they now? Boys are 30% more likely than girls to drop out
of high school and college. It's predicted that women will earn 60% of bachelor's degree. It's already there.
63 3% of masters and 50% of doctoral degrees. Okay, so we're getting closer and closer to that 2:1. Those gaps have widened.
And twothirds of students in special education remedial programs are guys.
You know, all the boys on HDHD medication because they can't sit still in a classroom for seven hours
and because school is built in those K to2 spaces for women more than it is for boys, for girls more than it is for boys.
So he mentions then all of the problems were about the culture, the mixed messaging toward men and the men lacking
as part of this beginning to lack in their competency, in their skill levels, in their uh trustworthiness, in their
responsibilities and and and really being beaten down in the process in our culture.
I mean, the superheroes are almost all women now, aren't they? the the superhero you you know of course you see what happens with Supergirl the movie
Supergirl but all of the 60-year-old women that are out there kicking you know what all over these linebacker
30some old year old men as spies and and superheroes you know they men can't even
keep that spot anymore we we are as a culture
masculinizing women and feminizing men And it's interesting because in in that
attack on masculinity and men, it is they're attacking their masculinity, toxic masculinity, while at the same
time trying to move into that position of masculinity.
So masculinity is great. Masculine traits are great as long as it's women that are displaying them.
President Kristofferson will go on here and and talk about becoming trustworthy and doing what you can individually to
to become someone that others trust. And and I'm going to add this on there because I think it's a really important thing that goes along with that trust is
respect, right? Can are you doing what you need to do to garner the respect not respect
from power and tyranny but respect for character of who you are and and and using those
masculine traits in a way that serves others, lifts others, but is on its own
a a strength willing to bear burdens and focusing that that masculine energy
on being a servant king. Anyway, go back and what's interesting study to do here, a little exercise is to go back, read
this entire talk. It's called Brethren, we have work to do. Would love to hear something like that today. But go back
and look at these and say to yourself a couple of things. Number one, would this fly today?
Number two, learn from it.
Right? and and and and number three, understand it against the backdrop of today's cultural rules. That includes
inside of the church. And I think you're going to gain some wisdom and some insight and some context
because you're actually listening to messages that are given directly to men within the church from inspired leaders.
I don't remember the last year this happened, but I it might be 2016 when there was a general priesthood session.
37 minutesThere's another talk, I can't remember the name of it, but there's another talk by President Kristofferson in 2016
and and I would recommend that you go read that one also and put it against the backdrop of certain social media
posts and the culture and the critics that that seem to have to
take masculinity a and and the position of men today and
toss it away. I If men were to do this with women, with things that are specific to women, it would be called mansplaining.
So, you've got your homework. Go check it out and tell me what you think about this in the comments. Thanks for listening.