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Faith Matters

The Blessings of a Quirky Ward - with James Goldberg

Faith Matters

Faith Matters Foundation

Christianity, Ethics, Latter-day Saint, The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints, Mormon, Mormonism, Morality, Lds, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We have a really fun episode for you today—We’re talking with James Goldberg about his delightful book Tales of the Chelm First Ward, which he co-wrote with his, wife Nicole Wilkes Goldberg, and his brother, Mattathias Singh. The book is a collection of fictional stories set in a Latter-day Saint ward in the imagined town of Chelm—a nod to Jewish folklore and the famous “village of fools.” The humor is wonderfully absurd but beneath the silliness is something powerful and profound. In this co...

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everybody, really quickly before we get started, I just wanted to jump on and tell you about

0:03.9

our Friends of Faith Matters program. This is a great way to support the work that we're doing,

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and we put together some really fun little perks to say thank you. So for donations of $10 a month

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or more or $100 a year, you'll get a free subscription to the Faith Matters Print Magazine, Wayfair,

0:18.3

and we'll send you copies of any new books that Faith Matters publishes throughout the year, which this year will include books from Jennifer Finlayson

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Fife, Terrell Givens, and an essay collection edited by Phil Barlow. And then you'll also receive

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discounts on all of our online courses and access to exclusive live streams at our Compass

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Gallery events. So if you'd like to help support Faith Matters, you can become a friend

0:38.2

at Faith Matters.org slash support. Thank you so much. We love doing this work, and we are so grateful

0:43.1

to be doing this with you. Hey, everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters. Today we have a

0:50.0

really fun episode for you. We're talking with James Goldberg about his delightful book,

0:54.3

Tales of the Kelm First Ward, which he co-wrote with his wife Nicole Wilkes-Gulberg and his brother

0:59.1

Mattathias Singh. This book is a collection of fictional stories set in a Latter-day Saint Ward in this

1:04.8

imagined town of Kelm, which is a nod to Jewish folklore in its famous village of fools.

1:10.4

The humor is wonderfully absurd, and beneath all the silliness is something powerful and profound.

1:15.9

And in this conversation, we explore what you might call the theology of humor.

1:19.8

James reflects on how laughter opens us.

1:22.3

It softens the edges of our seriousness and rigidity, and it draws us closer in shared connection.

1:27.4

And he helps us see that not everything about church culture needs to be critiqued or stripped

1:31.7

away, that some things can just be embraced with lightness and joy, so that our differences

1:36.0

and the unique gifts that we each bring can shape a collective that helps us all get a little

1:40.4

closer to truth.

...

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