Belonging to God in an inhuman world
I found this book helpful in articulating why our “choose your own way” modern world feels so crushing, unreal and inhuman. It starts with something most people agree on- the modern world is hard. There is a sense of alienation and inhumanity, which means despite our wealth we are generally not happy.
Alan Noble connects many of our problems with our modern sense that we own ourselves, and are free to make ourselves as we please. And he points us to recognise that we are not our own. By creation we belong to God. And if we trust Jesus, in redemption we belong to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it: Q. What is your only comfort in life and death? A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful saviour Jesus Christ.
Diagnosis of an inhumane modern world- Subtitles to whet your appetite: Zoochosis, Incels, Stay-at-home moms, the mentally ill, unsustainable consumption, the burden of self justification, the weariness of being yourself, the uncertainty of meaning, the quantification of values, the insecurity of self belonging.
A thought as I reflect on this- our problem with the world feeling unreal and insubstantial, and yet pressing us into it’s mould, predates the internet age. The problem is that if everything important rests on my choices, then everything rests on how wise, good and strong I am. And I am not sufficient to ground or guarantee anything. So the freedom of choice (apart from creaturely freedom under God) leads to constructed worlds of meaning with no foundations. I am part of the “anywheres” (See David Goodhart), moving from place to place for study and work, travelling the world. But this freedom to be anywhere means that nowhere has the deep rooted “home” feeling. No place is my place because it has always been my place. I chose. And so the connection is less deep, dependent on my ongoing choices.
Living in a relatively new estate of a village next to a new town, I see this problem all around me. We are all constructing our lives, but the connections and foundations of community and belonging are weak.
Now it is very easy to romanticise the past, the communities with few choices but deep groundedness. They have other significant problems. And so I think Alan Noble is right to seek our rooting and our reality in God. God’s grace to us in creation and re-creation gives us a true foundation. Spirit-filled following Christ is the way to true freedom. With our limits, we are called to live with “palms turned upwards” in prayer. We are not masters of our lives or our world. We are creatures who belong to the God who made the world.
Here is some of his practical advice.
Pg177 to avoid integration, we must first be able to see and reject the seduction of the city. The city’s promise that it can enable us to fulfil our Responsibilities for Self-Belonging demands us to give everything over to making a name for ourselves, establishing our autonomy, and building a good life free from limits. It promises to help us achieve this through its laws, technology, social norms, and stories. But it is an empty and soul-sucking promise. So our first task is to rightly discern and reject the spirit of the city while praying for the city’s welfare.
Rejection must begin very simply: make a practise of calling out the contemporary anthropology as it appears in your life. Whenever an ad invites you to feel alive through buying a product, whenever a film implies that you will not be fulfilled until you embrace your inner self, whenever an expert urges you to optimise your life, whenever you feel inadequate in the face of overwhelming competition, call it what it is. This is an outworking of our contemporary anthropology. It’s a false conception of the human person that assumes that I am my own and solely responsible for making my life matter. It is a lie. I am not my own but belong to Christ.
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