You Are Not Your Own - by Alan Noble

About the Book

Modern life tells us that it's up to us to forge our own identities and to make our lives significant. But the Christian gospel offers a strikingly different vision--one that reframes the way we understand ourselves, our families, our society, and God. Contrasting these two visions of life, Alan Noble invites us into a better understanding of who we are and to whom we belong.

Book Synopsis

The Gospel Coalition Book Awards Honorable Mention

"You are your own, and you belong to yourself."

This is the fundamental assumption of modern life. And if we are our own, then it's up to us to forge our own identities and to make our lives significant. But while that may sound empowering, it turns out to be a crushing responsibility--one that never actually delivers on its promise of a free and fulfilled life, but instead leaves us burned out, depressed, anxious, and alone. This phenomenon is mapped out onto the very structures of our society, and helps explain our society's underlying disorder.

But the Christian gospel offers a strikingly different vision. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, "I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." In You Are Not Your Own, Alan Noble explores how this simple truth reframes the way we understand ourselves, our families, our society, and God. Contrasting these two visions of life, he invites us past the sickness of contemporary life into a better understanding of who we are and to whom we belong.

Review Quotes

". . . the success of You Are Not Your Own lies in Noble's winsome, even pastoral way of combining incisive cultural analysis with historic Christian teaching while bringing both to bear on the church's role in society. . . . Noble's book stands as a vital wake-up call for anyone suffering under the delusion that they belong to themselves."

"Alan Noble . . . wants Christians to take a step back and examine our idea of freedom. Noble doesn't want our culture to co-opt freedom. Rather, he wants us to get back to the Biblical freedom Christ talks about."

"Alan Noble has given us a gift. Using one of the most beautifully articulated truths in creedal history as its guide, You Are Not Your Own examines one of the great sicknesses of our age--the soul-crushing malady of self-belonging. With the learnedness of a professor, the meticulousness of a tutor, and the empathy of a friend, Noble guides the reader through crucial questions around personhood, identity, and meaning. And he does so in a manner that is at once exposing and healing for those exhausted (and seduced) by modern life. Importantly, this book offers more than cultural insight and a Christian anthropology; it offers much needed hope, not by commending religious techniques that only add to the burdens of self-optimization, but by commending Christ--the one to whom alone we must belong. Here is a book that is penetrating, accessible, convicting, and in the end, hopeful."

About the Author

Alan Noble (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, cofounder and editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture, and an advisor for the AND Campaign. He has written for the Atlantic, Vox, BuzzFeed, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and First Things. He is also the author of Disruptive Witness.