Author: Adam S. Miller
Title: Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Publication date: 2012
Genre: Theology essays
(Reviewed by Conor Hilton)
A worthwhile book that I’ll be revisiting in the future. Like much of Adam’s writings there are big, deep ideas here that are sometimes hard to fully grasp the significance of that I often feel need more time to really sit with. The book is dense, but provocative and worth exploring I think. Not all of the chapters resonated with me equally, but the ones that hit, hit hard. “A Manifesto for Mormon Theology”, “A Hermeneutics of Weakness”, and “Groundhog Day” all struck me as particularly insightful and powerful (as did the notes on sin in “Notes on Life, Grace, and Atonement”). I need to revisit the entirety of the book, but especially “Messianic History: Walter Benjamin and the Book of Mormon” and “Overwritten, Written Elsewhere: Names, Books, and Souls in St. John’s Apocalypse”, both of which felt powerful and significant, but as I was reading were somewhat elusive, just beyond my grasp. Highly recommend reading this, ideally with some people nearby to talk about it with and to read slowly, devoting yourself to each page, letting it flow over you, marinate in it. That seems the best way to really internalize Adam’s ideas.