Young Women Presidency Does Podcast On New Names - Are LDS The Youngest Christian Denomination?

SL Trib Article on new Young Women Names New Young Women's Program It's very clear, working women have a lot fewer kids Boomers dominate all Christian denominations, but not the Latter-day Saints

 Raw Transcript:

All right, welcome to Quick Show today. My name is Greg Matson. I'm your host. Today is April 24th, 2026.
We are covering a few different topics.
One is more information on the Young Women's names, where that comes from,
uh, the program that's actually being implemented. a strange interview I think from Peggy Fletcher Stack Fletcher Stack
from the Salt Lake Tribune with uh Emily Bill Freeman a podcast that was put out by the young general young women's
presidency that I went all the way through and and just pulling these things together. It's there's some interesting dynamics that come about
from this. Also also are Latter-day Saints the youngest Christian denomination out there? New
data says it is. This episode is brought to you by the Warriors of Tank Men's Retreat. Very, very pumped about this.
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So, here uh President Emily Bell Freeman is quoted here saying, "It became really important that these were not ornamental
names." That makes sense. But names that defined a purpose. That makes sense. And the purpose needed to be defined not by society or culture but through
scripture. So they analyzed, this is now not quoted, right? They analyze women in scriptures and what qual this is quoted
qualities they represented that could then become defined for the young women of our day and time. Now here's where it gets interesting, right? This again is
not in quotes. So, it'd be interesting to know if this is actually what uh President
Emily Bell Freeman thinks. I mean, where is Peggy getting this from? So, this is not in quotes. It says, "The energetic
leader believes the new monikers will provide teenage Latter-day Saint girls with a sense of their worth as partners in a church with continued gender inequities."
That would be very interesting to know.
Is that what she actually believes, that there are gender inequities? Are we talking about the priesthood? Devout boys at the same age, for instance, hold
priesthood offices and are called deacons, teachers, and priests. Okay, so that is what the implication is that
Peggy Fletcher Stack is giving here that President Emily Bell Freeman is is believes that this is something that
needs to be, you know, give sense give sense of worth to young women because in the church there are gender inequities.
I would like someone to ask Peggy Fletcher Stack if this is actually what she believes or rather if this is
actually what was said by the young women's president. She goes on without quoting she hopes girls will see themselves taking an active rather than
passive role. Again, that's not in quotes. So, is this something that was based on a discussion? There is some of this in the podcast. I watched the
4 minutesentire podcast of the whole young women's presidency. I didn't hear anything about gender inequities, at
least not that phrase. Uh I think that's very much being written in as an implication by the the journalist here,
which I think is extremely inappropriate and is putting words in a way that is
manipulative into her mouth, into the president's mouth. Same thing here with rather than a passive role. In other
words, does Emily Bel Freeman think that women have a passive role in the church, which is preposterous?
But at least Peggy Fletcher stack seems to think so. And that's not a surprise at all. But but here's how she words this. I mean, look at this closely here,
right? Let's highlight this. How does she do this? How does the journalist do this? She she goes in and out of quotes.
She says she hopes girls will see themselves taking an active rather than a passive role in then she goes into
quotes building up the kingdom and then out of quotes says the young women
president said wow that is that is I I my guess is it's extremely dishonest
journalism that's my guess now it could be that that Emily Bel Freeman said something very similar to But I I didn't hear anything about that.
I did hear uh her say things in the podcast that were along the lines of these are not quiet names, right? These
are active names. Uh I don't know what she means by that. And maybe there's some inference there by Peggy Fletcher
Stack. I I think she takes it to an extreme that uh she says they're not quiet names. That could mean a lot of things.
Uh and But to an activist it certainly
means something specific. Right now the article goes on and I like this part here. It says it will better prepare
them into quotes in quotes now to understand the doctrine of the church they belong to. I think this is key. We
all need to focus more and more on the dark on the on the doctrine and not on
regurgitating things that are doctrine adjacent or maybe very far from what the
doctrine is. And they want continuing the quote and they want to be able to answer questions about it. That's fantastic.
And when they see things online, they want to know what the answers are. and this curriculum is going to provide a space for that. I think that they're
looking at what they're going to be talking about every week. I think that's a great focus. She's going to go over the four different things that they're going to focus on and that they're going
to do during the month each and every month when this gets put into place. And then she's going to talk about for the strength of youth new for strength of
youth pan what I which I think is excellent. There is something missing in this I'll I'll cover here also in in
just a second here. Here's the four-week schedule of young women classes.
They break down like this. The first Sunday will be a principlebased lesson
that is going to work better if there is a doctrinal foundation under it. Okay,
that is key. It's not only going to work better, it should be doctrinal. Right?
Principles are up here. You It's like self-help stuff. It's good stuff, but it's it's not doctrinal stuff.
So I think she's exactly right and I'm I'm glad that I see here she's she's looking she's separating what principles are and what doctrine is. Principles can
be built on doctrine but the doctrine is the key to the focus here. The second and third Sundays
will be doctrinal topics meant to strengthen the principles that are taught on the first Sunday and the lessons are actually not lessons. They
are discussion guides. That sounds fantastic.
get them involved. I I think that's great. I this this is actually very exciting. On the fourth Sunday, the class the classes will study women in
scripture and in church history. They will have statements that help them understand their roles and responsibilities as builders of faith,
messengers of hope, and gatherers of light.
The fourth Sunday is designed for them to start understanding their place and their purpose and their identity in God's plan. Okay. So,
I think that's great too, right? Go into the scriptures every month, one week a month, talk
about maybe one or several different women in the scriptures and in church history and talk about who they were,
the differences that they made, etc. Here's my only concern.
My only concern on this is how that is going to be manipulated by certain teachers, right? And how you might now
that that's the case with anything. How how are you going to take this and manipulate this into something else? And and how is Well, let's just cut to the chase.
Is there going to be discussion about these women that they're studying as wives and as mothers?
Because that is the cultural trend is to push away from this. There is not a single thing in this article and in the
long podcast from the three women in in the uh young women's presidency. There was not a single mention about helping
these women become good wives and good mothers about their marriages
about their destiny as as and and legacy as mothers. Nothing.
And it's not just for women, right? It's like I hope we're doing that with young men too. The same thing. Are are are is there anything in there that is being
discussed? Is there a focus on your role as being a husband and a father as a young man? Because that is kind of what
it's all about. And and that's the only thing I kind of wish would have been mentioned in here
as as the birth rate has dropped to historic lows, right? the lowest it's ever been. I I think it's important to
go out and push against this and it starts with a youth. Yes, it starts with the youth. Are you looking forward to
having a family and is there much discussion on this? I I I I just one
thing just one little caveat here that I would say, but I think the program looks looks fantastic the way it is. Now, what is interesting here? Well, let me let me backtrack one more thing here, right?
This is something else that is mentioned. Says, Latter-day Saint young women across the globe face similar challenges such as anxiety and loneliness.
Men have the same thing, Freeman said,
but this is in quotes, but I see young women all over the world who want to know they belong to something bigger. I think that's important, that they're
part of making a difference, that they're part of a good cause. I think that that is crucial. But again, the primary place to belong is family.
We we can't remove that. And she's not removing it. It's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying that that we we've got to nail that down. We we we've moved into such this this move the
other side of the pendulum away from well you're not just you know uh barefoot in the kitchen so to speak as
as a housewife into hey you're a girl boss and you have all the fulfillment in the world waiting for you out there in the world
not in your home in the world and and I just think we need to be careful and and how and understand and remember how all
of these young men and women are being messaged to on social media and the internet and school
and we should be going against the grain on this, right? It it's not it's not just, you know, you know, the birth rate within the church is, yes, it's higher,
but our all we're doing is just going down the same road as the rest of culture. It's a it's a road to destruction.
So why not instead of just following a little bit behind? Hey, we're a little more a little better than the rest of the
world. We're not sliding down as far as you, but we are sliding down as fast as you. And and instead of that,
why why don't we try and help make the turn in this and get ahead of it all with the youth is just my thought on
this. And speaking of this, let's go to the birth rate and and look what we find here. And this is again about are we
going to create girl bosses? Is that what really the focus is? Is that what equality really looks like? It it does
to some people. This is what feminism has done. It it is focused on get women out of the home. Get them to have fewer
children and have them focus on their own personal fulfillment out in the world. And you do that through careerism.
Right? So let's just take a look at this. This is fascinating but obvious as at the same time. Look at this chart. It came out from family studies.
Fertility is very low for all working women. Shocker.
Total fertility rate for women in each occupation group and survey decade. So that's going down here. You're going from 1972
to 2024, 50 years. And you have the birth rate there. uh uh the total fertility rate there from left to right
1972 to 2024 and where it ends up look at the top number there the top gra the
top line that green line that green line is nonworking women and that is their
fertility rate now you can see it's dropping right it's coming down it's it's still above replacement rate
actually for non-working women they're still having more than 2.1 kids in their lifetime. Right now look at all the
other numbers here. These are the numbers that are for uh different levels of of work and they are actually to some degree some have come up some have come down. Uh but look at that distinction.
It's very very clear. So if we are in a society that is completely pushing careerism on women which we are. I mean
you can go to BYU for example and say I'm getting into whatever program I'm going into over there. Of course, and they should be, the school, the department is going to be saying, "Hey,
we want to make you the best, whatever it is that you're you're focusing on. We want to make you the best accountant. We
want to make you the best uh uh business finance person. We want to make you the best teacher. We want to make, you know,
etc. And we want to get you placed if you want to go to grad school." Well,
our school looks better when we're placing more people in grad school. So,
how are they going to operate? what are they going to do? It's it's a a very difficult thing to deal with, right? At
the same time, and this is difficult because it's there's another walking the edge of the sword on this is that women that go to college get married more
often. Now, they they're getting married later, but at least they're getting married much more than those that do not the women that do not go to college.
So, so there's that to look at also. So,
so the ideal it seems to be for those that are having more kids is that they're going to college, women are going to college, maybe they're working
for a little while and then they're not working and and and they're the ones that are ending up having the kids. Over
at the Free Press, one of my favorite publications, there's an article by Katie Miller, who is the wife of Steven
Miller, and she says this on her podcast. She says, "America, I'm quoting on this. America is in a fullcale birth rate collapse.
This is not alarmism. This this is the number one problem in the world that we are facing. We just don't have the
effects of it fully yet today. Although we do culturally in our priorities and in how we're developing kids
and family structure. But the bottom on all this is going to fall out very quickly as the boomers die off where we
are we're in a we're in a difficult position here.
But the bottom is going to collapse on this as our population shrinks.
17 minutesNow America is in a full-scale rate collapse. She says our biological being women's biological destiny is to have babies,
not slave behind desks chasing careers while our civilization dies.
Look, I believe that. I believe that that is true. That doesn't mean everybody needs to do that. I don't believe that either. I think that women
should have choice. I want them to have choice. But until we instill in our
culture the ideal of family and kids and women who are focused on their kids now
maybe they've got a part-time job, maybe they can help out economically with a job that's very flexible and they can work from home and make it work there.
Those are things that I think you know technology is allowing us to do and maybe we need to move more toward that if there has to be an economic
uh support from the wife, from the mother. But unless we get a larger portion of women that are focused on the
kids and having children, we're in a lot of trouble. And you that's not misogynist. It is simply fact. And kids
do better. This is not just about the women. It's not about the parents. It's not about the lifestyle of the man and
the woman. It's about the kids. And and that is just rarely brought up. I I saw another article uh that was actually
from family studies that was arguing against some of the things that uh Brad Wilcox and others had written and talked about with this birth rate discrepancy
of non-working women and working women where they had said that you know the Brad Wilcox had said well maybe we need to return to a traditional male bred
winner. Okay, I'm for that to some degree. The argument in the article was going against that saying that's not traditional. It didn't used to be that
way. But but that's not really true either, right? I mean, imagine a farm and the man is building the house. He's
building the barn and he's out working the land, working the crops, clearing the land, working with the animals. And
the woman is just as busy, right? And and she is doing things. She's got to do the laundry on a rock of some sort or
whatever she's going to be using. Most importantly, she has to have food preparation so that there is actually food on the table that is not going to make you sick or kill you.
And of course, anything else that goes on within the house because you're going to be more around the smaller kids. That that is a a very that is how gender roles are created. It's not oppression.
It's not oppression. It's biology.
And too often we go back in time and look at well women have been oppressed the entire No is technology.
Technology is what changed things.
Domestic technology is what changed things. And the thing that changed things more than anything else I believe culturally
maybe AI will take it over. I don't know. But I mean even beyond the internet, even beyond social media, what changed the world more than anything else is the pill. Go go go go go go back
and look at the fertility rate and marriage statistics going back to the 60s, right? The pill came around in the late 1950s, was in
full use by the late 1960s, and you'll just see the graph just go boom. That is that is going to be, I believe, is it is
to date the largest, biggest, most consequential uh uh technology that has that has been
brought about. Now, that doesn't mean I don't believe in it. That doesn't mean I'm against birth control. I'm not It It just means I'm saying stating a fact.
That's it. I'm just stating the fact on it. The article continues here. Emma Waters,
author of uh author and policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, posted that girl boss feminism has a body count and its
birth rates. Right? So, it's a negative body count in a sense is what they're talking about. Body count is a big topic these days. in a statement, I haven't
heard her name in a while, of the independent women's forum argued that the rise of the professional woman is a result of taxpayer subsidies and
policies and that discriminate against men.
Get rid of those unjust incentives and penalties, she suggests, and more women will pursue traditional family life.
Sure, there are different things that we can do in structure that will change these types of things, but I believe it's more about the ideologies. It's
more about what is taught. That is the only thing we have to fight against honestly against convenience, against
technology and and the economy, right? And and those things have changed things more than anything else. Even feminism,
feminism has changed so much and it is so powerful and we're so bathed in in in the ideology of feminism and critical theory.
But even then the biggest changes have been technology. The biggest changes in our structure today of family and and
the way we work and what we consider traditional and what is modern all has to do with technology and those are the
biggest creations and changes. Feminism and the protests and all of these things were not the great major changes that happened even going up into the the 19th
amendment. I mean one of the big things that started to change was convenience for women in the home.
that started to change an immense amount. And again, the pill,
it allowed for, you know, pro or con, it allowed for women to go out into the workforce and not worry as much about kids and they could plan it.
They'd never been able to do that before. So, technology is the is the is the real driver. However,
we better deal with the birth rate or or we're going to be in trouble. All right,
I want to go to this last point here and this is on the church and this comes from Ryan Burge uh who does all of the
uh the religious graphs. He does a fabulous job of this. But I want to look at this a couple of these graphs that he just put out on his Substack recently.
Look at this graph. All right, look at that green line again. Look at that green line. This is the general composition of the general from the
general social survey 1972 to 2024. So again, we're talking about 52 years here, 53 years. And and and what you're
going to see here is phenomenal. This is the amount of of this is the
predominance, the percentage of each generation. And and so you look at the different generations going all the way back to the greatest generation that's
in blue. You can see that dropping down because it's it wasn't huge and because they're all dying off, right? So, the
percentage is very low. Down to 2016 and it's practically zero, right? There's hardly anybody from that generation left. The silent generation is the red coming across and going down.
That's my parents. The boomers, that's the green. Look at this. Every other
the first two, you've got the greatest and the silent generations, the blue and the red. They are dropping down, right?
Smaller and smaller percentage of the total amount of people.
Now look at the boomers. They peak all the way up at nearly 45% in around 1985.
And 45% now these are 18-year generations. That's how it goes, right? It's 18 years.
So for in in 1985 almost half of the population
in the US was boomers.
They came almost half the population came from 18 years.
The total of those 18 years people born in those 18 years. That's incredible. that the boomers are so large.
So large that as you follow that green number over and see it come down,
it's not until about 19 2018 that they finally are not the number one
generation populationwise, percentage-wise in the US all the way over to 2018.
And who overcomes him at that point?
It's not Gen X. Nope. Gen X, my generation, the lost generation. You can
see why. They have always been in the shadow of the boomers.
Even today, to this date, there has never been a Gen X president of the United States. It's really odd,
right? They're boomers. They're all boomers. And so, or beyond boomers or or the silent generation.
So now as I as I look over here at Gen X, see they're still down. Still today, Gen X is about is third, the third largest generation.
Number two is that purple line going up, which is the millennials.
There are more millennials today than Gen Xers.
And and that's the way it typically would work,
right? They they they come up as the next generation and and and take their spot. etc. But here's what, you know,
then you've got Gen Z here at the end there where they're just still moving up here and they need to wait for all those boomers to die off and others before they become a larger percentage of of the country.
But what is interesting here is when you look at this with religion, this is the boomers that have dominated the pews. So
this is the generation for those that are sitting in the pews in Christianity, right? So look at this again. the green.
You had the greatest generation was the top one percentage up and then boom, no pun intended. And then in about 1982,
right, 1982, the boomers take it over.
They drop for some reason here in the mid 1980s, pop back up. The silent generation then takes its run for a very
short period of time, about it looks like just a year. And and then it's the boomers. Boom. From then on, it's the boomers going right into about 1987,
1988.
The boomers since 198788 have been the highest percentage of those found in a pew until today.
That's incredible.
And the reason that's important is is well, if they they are still the highest percentage and have been for 40 years,
what happens when they leave?
What is going to happen? Do we have what should be at that point mostly because they're 18 years? It should be the millennials really that should be taking
not Gen X that should be taking over for the boomers. The Gen X is just kind of this subset kind of of of the boomers in
a way. They're always going to be overshadowed. They will we will always have been overshadowed by the boomers.
But but millennials are supposed to be the ones that are going to take over.
Well, where are the millennials? Uh where they where do we find them? They are this purple line here, right? They are the purple line here. And that's the
percentage. Now, obviously, their number will grow as the boomers die off and and as Gen Xers get older, I suppose. I don't know, maybe they'll become more religious.
The problem is is they're not as religious. Millennials are not nearly as religious and we can see that from the
following graph. In this graph, you can see that the boomers have stayed steady in the amount of weekly attendance all
the way going back to when they were in their 30s. Right? Right when they get to 30 years old, they're at 31% and they remain pretty much there all the way until they're in their 75 till today.
Right? They've stayed steady in in in weekly church attendance, which is remarkable. Okay. Uh you go down and you say, "Okay,
well, where are the millennials?" Well, of course, they're younger, but you've started a much lower base. When you go all the way back to 18,
they're starting off at only 19% as compared to 22% with the uh um with the
boomers. they're up to 20% where at the age of 30 where boomers were up at 31%
and remained. So unless there's a radical change with the millennials,
you're going to have a you know, every generation has been less and less churchy, less and less of an attendance and involved with with church. Now,
here's the interesting thing about Latter-day Saints.
Going up to this graph, take a look at this graph.
This is all of the green represents the denominations, the Christian denominations
that are dominated by boomers where they have the number the largest generation within each tradition.
This is insane. In all of these, it's almost always you have the church of Christ where they have seven different
years since 2000 2008 to 2024. seven different years where it has been a
other generations have been larger than the boomers. And then way down in non-denominational evangelical in 2010,
you had another generation that was more than the boomers for a year. That's a blip. That doesn't count. You can't even count that statistically. But look at the top.
from 2008 to 220 to 2024,
you do not have boomers in a single year dominating as the largest group of people in with the Latter-day Saints.
That is incredible.
That is amazing. What that means is that for those that are active as Latter-day Saints,
unless there's a larger drop off and and entropy, right, some spiritual entropy
that enters into the church, you're going to have more members of the church
in as Latter-day Saints. and the other denominations that are all dominated by boomers, as those boomers die off are
going to have a harder time. They're going to struggle more than the Latter-day Saints in total attendance.
But this surprises me a little bit. And I was thinking, okay, well, maybe it's because Latter-day Saints have so many more kids than others do. That's dropping, but they have more kids than
than most others do. But so do Catholics. And and maybe the Catholics aren't quite where we are, I suppose,
but they don't have a single year since 2008 where boomers have not been the number one generation of of churchgoers.
So that that is a stark difference that tells you that the Latter-day Saints are the to in this and and including these
major denominations including non-denominational that the Latter-day Saints are the youngest
sect of Christianity it appears and I wonder what that means for the future.
Thanks for listening.