Church Social Media Controversy Again

The official Church social media account posts another controversial post. Further research brings up more questions. With a drought of positive messaging to men and on masculinity, this is a strange way to fill the void.

 Raw Transcript:

All right. So, yesterday, June 30th, the last day of Pride Month, the official account of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the social media account, put out a post that has gotten a lot of traction. And
it seems to me like they kind of slipped it in there. Somebody slipped it in there at the very end of the last day of
Pride Month. And it's about a young man that grew up uh with Relief Society sisters teaching him how to sew. He was
a ballet dancer. He then went to fashion school and was doing a number of these things that are, you know, typically as we look at them as feminine traits. I
want to get into that in in just a minute. But that goes well beyond this.
And this is not the first time that this story has been told. A year ago, almost exactly LDS Living uh had had
profiled this young man as well. So, it's not something new that they just happened to put out. It's something that they already knew about. Someone already
knew about and they decided to put it out yesterday on June 30th. Before I get into that anymore, this episode is brought to you by Go and Do Travel and
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great great time. Now, on this post, now as you recall, I had put up a video, what was that about a
month or two ago on another controversial post that was put up by this same official church account about
a woman who was kind of married and she was it was the husband that was speaking, but that he had said that he
had not figured out what he wanted to do yet in his career and in his life.
They're young couple and she was I believe pursuing I want to say medical school and a medical career and and it
was just kind of a a kind of a reverse gender role type of a scenario. Now that
doesn't mean that the church always has to put out traditional gender roles.
That's not what I'm saying at all. But it it it's there seems to be a trend growing on this. At the same time, there
was a a short, let's call it an ad. It was an advertisement coming out of BYU Idaho
that had a young woman with uh two or three kids showing how after she had had her second
or third kid, she had decided she was going to go to work full-time and not stay home with the kids. Great for her.
She can do whatever she wants. Her and her husband decide their lives. let them make their choices and use their own agency. Great. However, it was full advocacy for this position.
And so, it's odd for a church account to be advocating for something that is the opposite of what is taught in the family
proclamation and uh and and and doing it at its universities as well. And this seems to
be something that's kind of picking up steam. Somebody in that department or several people in that department seem
to be wanting to be inclusive of all types of individuals. I get that, right? You you want to you you want to
be inclusive and invite everyone to the gospel regardless of their position in life, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of gender,
regardless of any of these things. You want to invite them all. But to advocate for certain things is a problem. In in a
world where the philosophies of men and the destruction of gender, the destruction of marriage, the destruction of family, the destruction of
femininity, the destruction of masculinity is is happening all around us. To join in on those types of things
is very concerning to me. I I don't really get why they would do this and turn things upside down. And it it it
seems it smells a little bit like in some of these posts that there is simply we're going to go along with what the
world is teaching here [clears throat] in the name of inclusiveness.
Now with this young man in this post from yesterday, you know, more power to him if this is he's a feminine guy. He
says he feels different. Um he is he wants to pursue a career in fashion. I hope he does really well. I do. I I if
that is what gives him fulfillment uh then then that's fantastic.
um he is claims that he is a disciple of Christ that he has faith and he wants to keep that as his identity and his practice
and his and who he is and and and so that's a great message right but when you look a little bit deeper into this
you can see that other social media from him and you have to wonder if the church or those in charge of this account actually look into who they are
profiling has this young man in in a group of individuals on an account called the
Church of Martin, I believe it is, where you've got men kissing each other, images of men kissing each other and
pride and and you know, gay or Mormon and all these different things going on.
Now, there might be a little nuance in there, but to some degree, it is not nuance. When you've got images on this account of of two men kissing each other
and you've got pride all over it, then you've got to wonder, is this the right person to put up in a profile twice now?
Last year and this year, LDS Living and now the official social media church account.
And what what is the message is that telling people what is that telling young people about uh do we want to confuse them more
as if they're not already completely confused about our messaging? I mean, let's go
back here again to to to the messaging of masculinity in the church. There is none, right? There is none.
We have no church sports. We have no general priesthood conference at conference time. No general priesthood.
We have no young men's organizations in the wards. Additional mentors and male leaders uh for the young men.
We have no men's conferences.
And we have uh now now Sunday school even is going to be how what percentage of Sunday school presidencies is going to be women?
Uh there's a an odd move here all the way through where where where
are the men? Men are actually the ones that are coming back to church and filling the pews. We've got a very even
amount now of men and women sitting in the pews in [snorts] church. And that's across all of Christianity.
But there's no messaging for the church. Go to the church library.
go to the church library and and look up men. Just look up men and and you'll
find a section there for men in church and and I think there's two things you're going to find in there. One is like a priesthood ordinance manual type
of thing and the other one is something on Father's Day and that's it. There's nothing else there. No messaging for men. Go to the women's section, you'll see something very different, right?
It's full of of of of messaging and and information. You have BYU women's conference. You have things dedicated to women's organizations.
Um we have messaging directly to women.
You've got a young You've got a a a general priesthood or excuse me, a general relief society presidency
over the women that are trying to get a message out specifically for women. And thank goodness how great that is.
There is nobody in the church that is specifically over men.
You have young men, right, which is is is reduced in the local areas, but there there's no
and and then at the at the at the highest level in in in Salt Lake, you've got a young men's presidency, but there's no one for men. There's no
messaging for men. And I've said this before, but imagine you're sitting in a in like a communications meeting and you have the auxiliaries and the priesthoods
and the different organizations of the church that are there and they're trying to say, "Okay, well, this is what we need to get out there. This is how we need to get this message out to this
group of people, women, young women, men, uh, of course missionary, and getting
getting the message of the church out to the world. But there's nothing to the men in the church.
And you can go back and I think I would say try 10 years. Go back and look 10 years and try and find a message to men
anywhere specifically to men. Not something generally, not something about being a priesthood ordinance, not a story about
a a priesthood holder or a father. I'm talking about full messaging to men directly to an audience of men.
and and and everything else has changed in that regard. It's in terms of focus.
And yet we're losing more women in the church as we've changed this this as we've made this change. We are losing more women.
And women have fewer and fewer choices for men.
And and you look in at the culture more broadly, you've got 60 to 40 and growing. 60% women going to college, 40%
men going to college, 60% bachelor's degrees is pretty close to 6040 at bachelor's degrees. And it gets worse and worse as you go on into masters and and doctorate degrees.
That's that's our culture. Are we just following the same thing? We're just a little bit behind.
It's in in a world where men so desperately need messaging and identity
and direction, not from a position of victimhood, but in in a in in a in an inspirational way.
The culture around us in the West is disintegrating with masculinity
and and and there's no messaging for those men in the church. It doesn't exist.
And instead, what fills the void is something like we got here in this church post about a young man who is,
you know, uh has feminine attributes and and um creativity and and
you know, which again in a vacuum it doesn't matter. I don't care. Fine. I hope he does really well. But that's the
message that's put out there to men is is is this feminized message.
It's it's very odd to me that this is what is is presented out there. And then
to see that he is tied directly to issues of pride and images of men kissing each other. It's
it's very odd what is happening in that regard. And then you go back and you look at say
uh Charlie Bird, right, who was held up as kind of this icon, this gay icon
uh in the church, faithful icon that was speaking in fire sides. He was invited
to stakes uh stake fire sides for the youth especially.
And and here's the thing is that then you get someone like that that is the the the youth for example follow him
on social media and they go to his social media accounts and they see his interpretation that he
gives of the family proclamation and they see his life with his boyfriend
um now his husband right and and they see him okay he's active he goes to church he believes in
the church but he's married to a man and now they want a child and so they're
going to adopt a child. And you see all of these hearts on social media supporting all of this and you say to yourself, "Well, wait a minute.
This is against everything we believe in. This is against the church." But oh, it's inclusive.
It's inclusive. It doesn't matter that it's not part of the order of God, you know, the the the order of God and the family of God.
It's it's inclusive and that's what really matters. And if we have enough empathy, then the Christlike thing would be to
support things like this, to support inclusiveness regardless of truth, regardless of order.
And and that's a little bit concerning to me. I mean, going back to men and and what's happening there, you you've got
men need a healthy social infrastructure.
We are losing masculinity. We are feminizing men and masculineizing women in our culture.
And we need to fight against this. That doesn't mean that there are not feminine men and more masculine women. Fine.
But you can't advocate for those things.
You can't try to bring everything into one glob without opposition. Just like Lehi talks about,
right? If if if there is not opposition in all things, then everything is just one big mess of chaos.
And and unless we are supporting the idea of a man and a woman, of
masculinity and femininity, of as is described of Christ, full of grace
and truth, well, then then we're going to be in trouble because Western society is going to fall
apart for this exact reason. And why would the church want to follow that?
We need to be teaching our young men how to be providers, how to take responsibility.
We need, and this is older men as well, how to be good husbands and how to be good fathers and how to take on their masculine
traits and channel those things and and say that it's okay to be masculine,
right? It's good to be masculine and it's good to be, as I would call it,
a servant king, right? Like King Benjamin, someone who takes on the responsibility of those around him and
loves those around him and uses his masculine traits to accomplish that goal. When you break that down, you're going to break down society.
So, why are we advocating for the opposite?
Why are we doing this? And how many more times are we going to see this account come out with things that are questionable? I had some comments I had
put on on on in response to the post as I retweeted it. I said something to the effect of I maybe this was on Facebook,
you know, who's in charge of this account? How is this happening?
And and why is there a trend that we seem to be following of turning things upside down when there's such a void of
a strong message to men especially in the church and and in our society more broadly? Why why are we doing this?
And I don't know the answer to that. I I I really don't know the answer to that.
I don't claim to have responsibility for that. I have zero responsibility for that. But I'm sure aware of it and my sons are aware of it and my daughters
and my wife are aware of it and you're probably aware of it.
So it just, you know, it's just something to consider about
the messaging that we get and and how we interpret these things. I had someone say in the comments um well you know
Greg a long time you know what what is the why is this feminine in what he's talking about you have Berishnikov the ballet the great ballet dancer and you
have um you know men used to be the ones that actually were in charge of all fashion and then women started taking
over a lot of fashion later on and that's all true but you know men used to wear tights too in the And I wouldn't do that today.
So it it's not there's some relevancy here or a relativity here that we need to look at with these things. And and I
think that this this whole idea of
it is an idea of DEI. It really is. It's you got to anchor the truth.
And and we there is such a void in our world right now. There's such a void of good strong messaging to men about their
masculinity and women about their femininity. And and it's and it's breaking us apart.
People are less happy than they've ever been. People are getting married at a far lower clip. People are delaying marriage much much more. They're having fewer kids or no kids.
We need to fight against these trends and be the light up on the hill as compared to Babylon down in the valley
and attract those that want these things instead of trying to be like Babylon, instead of trying to be like everyone else.
Tell me what your thoughts are on this in the comments. Thanks for listening.