You Are Not Your Own - A Review
Sometimes the world is too much for us. Especially when we believe that we are our own people, destined to make our way in the world alone. Perhaps we are stardust, but as the dust of celestial bodies we have a lot to live up to. The pressure to become something and to be someone can eat our souls and sap our energy. It is this feeling that has caused many adults to burnout only a decade or so into their adulthood.
But what if we do not actually belong to ourselves?
What if we are not our own, but we belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to a faithful savior, Jesus Christ? What if he has fully paid for all our sins with his precious blood?
In fact, he has, which is what the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us of in Question 1. It is also what Alan Noble has sought to remind the world of in his latest book, You are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World.
This is Noble’s second book. His previous volume, Disruptive Witness, is a call to resist the consumeristic pressures of the world and, as Christians, to live redemptively in such a way as to witness to the goodness of God and disrupt the common pattern of the world. For those wondering how to live differently in a world that won’t leave us alone, that book is a great place to start.
But even being a disruptive witness can be exhausting if we see our identity as wrapped up in that effort. If we feel we must earn favor with God by seeking to live just right in this world and make something of ourselves for Jesus, that too will wear us down and leave us bent, bleary eyed, and hopeless. We can never be enough.
One of the first things that Noble does in this book is to establish the fact that the world is not made for humans. This is why we are so uncomfortable. It’s not that we are failures, it’s that society is structured in a way that fights against human flourishing. Everything in the world tells us that we are atomized individuals, adrift in a sea of stars. We are the captains of our souls. But, as Noble points out, we are actually more like animals in the zoo. No matter how hard the zookeepers and veterinarians try, they can never truly mimic the jungle for the tiger or the savannah for the lion. The zoo is made for the humans, not for the animals.
As a result of the inhumanity of the world we seek various ways to cope. For some it is illegal drugs or excessive alcohol. For others the solution is sought in online relationships, video games, or prescription anti-depressants. An increasing number of people seek fulfillment in sexual fantasies made possible in every variety through free, always accessible pornography. Many of these forms of self-medication are not wrong in and of themselves—though some of them clearly are—but they all tend to either treat the symptom without seeking a cure or simply make the problem worse.
However, Noble reminds the reader that we are not our own and that we belong to Christ. This is our only comfort in life and death. These are theological truths that are robustly biblical, but also tested by time. They come from an era before our own, with different trials and temptations, to bear witness to the goodness of Christ in all situations.
The book does not resolve with easy solutions. The last chapter opens up with what seems a somewhat dire statement, “Life is hard and death is terrifying.” Thanks. I think.
But Noble continues to trudge toward a better solution, “The only people who don’t recognize the need for comfort as we go through life and face death are those who have so effectively numbed themselves that they no longer recognize their numbness as a form of comfort.” So it is a good thing that the sense of alienation and longing remains with us. We are not yet beyond hope.
And then the book moves to close by assuring readers that there is no simple solution that will make everything better. There is no secret key that will unlock a human shaped culture within the alienation of modernity. Rather, there is hope to be found in Christ: “Only in Christ can we find a belonging without violence or abuse, a belonging that grounds and fulfills our personhood rather than effacing it. . . . We find comfort in belonging to Christ because Christ is the only one we can belong to without harm or loss of our humanity.” That is a powerful answer.
You are Not Your Own is an example of the sort of synthetic work that needs to continue to be done. As Noble readily admits, there is nothing novel in what he writes. But he does not need to be novel. He simply needs to convey an intelligible message to those who need to hear it and be shaped by it. And he does that.
I read this book in one sitting on a plane. It washed over me like a flood of assurance and comfort. I belong to Christ. My feelings of failure and inadequacy belong to the world and not to me. Noble is right about his diagnosis of the problem and right about the solution. We need to find our belonging in Christ—the creator of everything—in this inhuman world.
This is a book I would recommend for people of every age, but especially for those about to be sent out into the world. Noble teaches undergraduates, so it has the marks of many conversations had behind an office door, with students who came for help with an essay, but needed assistance in putting life together. Would that many more young Christians would discover the central message of this volume before heading out into the world, making shipwreck of their health, their life, and perhaps their faith in attempt to become someone, do something, and belong to themselves in an inhuman world.
NOTE: I was given a free copy of this volume, in part because I provided feedback on an earlier draft of the volume. However, a positive review was not guaranteed.
The way we talk about humans also has moral implications, which are more significant than how we treat our pets. In his 2011 book, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, David Livingstone Smith explores how language changes culture and leads to the justification of extreme violence against others, especially when they become perceived as less than human.