{"id":52587,"date":"2026-01-29T04:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T11:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=52587"},"modified":"2026-01-25T08:20:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:20:06","slug":"dont-try-to-make-me-good-shoot-me-the-complicated-reality-of-j-golden-kimball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/dont-try-to-make-me-good-shoot-me-the-complicated-reality-of-j-golden-kimball\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Don&#8217;t Try to Make Me Good; Shoot Me&#8221;: The Complicated Reality of J. Golden Kimball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"8\"><span class=\"citation-75 citation-end-75\">To most Latter-day Saints, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/j-golden-kimball-andrew-kimball\/\">J. Golden Kimball<\/a> is a folklore figure\u2014the &#8220;swearing apostle&#8221; (who was actually a Seventy) whose colorful language and irreverent pulpit humor provide comic relief in a culture that often takes itself very seriously.<\/span> But who was the man behind the myths? In a revealing new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, <i data-path-to-node=\"8\" data-index-in-node=\"354\">From the Desk<\/i>, biographer <b data-path-to-node=\"8\" data-index-in-node=\"380\">Andrew Kimball<\/b> peels back the caricature to reveal a man of profound contradictions: a leader who battled severe depression (&#8220;the depths of hell&#8221;), financial ruin at the hands of a fellow General Authority, and a stalling career in the Church hierarchy, yet who managed to &#8220;live in the hearts of the people&#8221; precisely because he refused to hide his flaws.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"t1ef0f8PQ7\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/j-golden-kimball-andrew-kimball\/\">Who Was J. Golden Kimball?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Who Was J. Golden Kimball?&#8221; &#8212; From the Desk\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/j-golden-kimball-andrew-kimball\/embed\/#?secret=5z8dAHgalc#?secret=t1ef0f8PQ7\" data-secret=\"t1ef0f8PQ7\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 data-path-to-node=\"9\">The &#8220;Hell&#8221; of a Nervous Temperament<\/h3>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"10\">One of the most striking aspects of the interview is the reframing of Golden\u2019s famous &#8220;cussing.&#8221; It wasn&#8217;t just a bad habit; it was the steam valve for a volatile, high-strung personality.<\/p>\n<blockquote data-path-to-node=\"11\">\n<p data-path-to-node=\"11,0\">&#8220;Went up town feeling blue, cross, and full of cussedness,&#8221; he wrote in 1895&#8230; &#8220;I seemed not to have a spark of the Holy Ghost within me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"11,1\">Decades later, J. Golden would describe these mood swings to his son Max as feeling &#8220;always up, or down and do not run on a level plain.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"12\">This &#8220;nervous temperament&#8221; was exacerbated by genuine tragedy. The interview details how Golden and his brother Elias were financially destroyed\u2014not by the world, but by <b data-path-to-node=\"12\" data-index-in-node=\"170\">Apostle John W. Taylor<\/b>, who convinced them to leverage their assets for a speculative land scheme that collapsed, leading to Golden&#8217;s bankruptcy in 1899.<\/p>\n<h3 data-path-to-node=\"13\">Stalled Ambition and Church Politics<\/h3>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"14\">We often assume Golden was universally beloved, but the interview reveals he was a polarizing figure among Church leaders. Despite his father (Heber C. Kimball) being a giant of the Restoration, Golden\u2019s career &#8220;stalled&#8221; in the First Council of Seventy.<\/p>\n<blockquote data-path-to-node=\"15\">\n<p data-path-to-node=\"15,0\">By 1898, he had been passed over three times as places in the Quorum of the Twelve became available&#8230;<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"15,1\">His outspoken brother Elias&#8230; wondered if &#8220;one or two Kimballs being pushed ahead has fully convinced the brethren that they want no more such outspoken men.&#8221; Golden thought that observation &#8220;has about hit it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"16\">This tension came to a head in 1933, when President Heber J. Grant summoned Golden to his office after a particularly colorful conference talk and delivered an ultimatum: reform his language or be released.<\/p>\n<h3 data-path-to-node=\"17\">&#8220;Don&#8217;t Try to Make Me Good; Shoot Me&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"18\">Despite the pressure to conform, Golden\u2019s authentic spirituality shone through. He famously ordained a man to the Seventy who had a cigar in his pocket, saying, &#8220;By all the power invested in me&#8230; I ordain you&#8230; cigar and all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"19\">Perhaps the quintessential Golden moment shared in the interview involves his involvement with the controversial &#8220;Dream Mine.&#8221; When ordered by President Grant to disassociate from it or lose his calling, Golden complied, but confided to a congregation that he felt like a little girl who, tired of her mother\u2019s constant correction, finally cried out:<\/p>\n<blockquote data-path-to-node=\"20\">\n<p data-path-to-node=\"20,0\">&#8220;Mother, don&#8217;t try to make me good; shoot me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" data-path-to-node=\"21\">For more on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/j-golden-kimball-andrew-kimball\/\">J. Golden Kimball&#8217;s<\/a> mother\u2019s secret polygamous life, his friendship with B. H. Roberts, and the tragic car accident that ended his life, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog, <i data-path-to-node=\"21\" data-index-in-node=\"183\">From the Desk<\/i>, to read the full interview with Andrew Kimball.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"21\">While you\u2019re there, check out the new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/gerald-causse-quotes\/\">G\u00e9rald Causs\u00e9 quotes<\/a>\u00a0page!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To most Latter-day Saints, J. Golden Kimball is a folklore figure\u2014the &#8220;swearing apostle&#8221; (who was actually a Seventy) whose colorful language and irreverent pulpit humor provide comic relief in a culture that often takes itself very seriously. But who was the man behind the myths? In a revealing new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, biographer Andrew Kimball peels back the caricature to reveal a man of profound contradictions: a leader who battled severe depression (&#8220;the depths of hell&#8221;), financial ruin at the hands of a fellow General Authority, and a stalling career in the Church hierarchy, yet who managed to &#8220;live in the hearts of the people&#8221; precisely because he refused to hide his flaws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2890],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-desk"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52633,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52587\/revisions\/52633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}