Everything in Western society teaches us that we belong to nobody but ourselves. This sounds great! We can create our own identities, map out our own lives, and find significance in ourselves. This means that we are entirely responsible for ourselves. But Alan Noble says this overwhelmingly burdens us to try to justify our existence and to create and express our own identities. And society is more than happy to manipulate us as we do so. There is a lot of money to be had in people who are burdened with creating, sustaining, and projecting who they are.
Alan Noble (Ph.D., Baylor University) is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University. He is the editor-in-chief of Christ and Pop Culture, and the author of articles and books, including his latest, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (InterVarsity Press, 2021).