O. Alan Noble

As a writer, Dr. O. Alan Noble isn’t afraid to touch on big topics — from pluralism and secularism to mental health and suicide. He also speaks about church and culture at colleges, churches and youth groups. But whether he’s in front of a crowd or sharing his thoughts on paper, he has one goal in mind — to say something real and true that can help others. In this interview, Alan is opening up about the relationships that matter most to him, the inspiration behind his latest book on mental health and the resources that have shaped his thinking.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

I tend to be a fairly boring person when it comes to food. If I had my way, I’d eat like a 13-year-old boy — chicken fingers, pizza or cheeseburgers and fries. I have an uncultivated palate and I know it. As a kid, I thought Sizzler was a fancy restaurant because, for us, it was. I’m also risk-averse when it comes to eating out. If I find a meal I like, I tend to eat it every time. I think that comes from growing up fairly poor. It was so rare for us to eat out (even fast food) that I wanted to make sure I liked what I was eating.

We do have one place, called Shawnee Pho, where I enjoy eating. I don’t get the pho, though. I should probably try that at some point. I get the Kung Pao Chicken — every time.

It’s one of the few places where (almost) my whole family enjoys eating (my youngest child is an infamously picky eater — she basically will only eat grilled cheese). I’ve gone on dates with my wife there. We’ve celebrated a birthday with friends there. But my strongest memory is when some very dear friends told us that they were moving away while we shared a meal at Shawnee Pho. Now I can’t go there without feeling at least a little melancholy. Luckily, the food is good enough to overcome my temptation to avoid the bad memories.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?

So far, all my books have been me preaching to myself, and one of the main themes of my first two books (“Disruptive Witness” and “You Are Not Your Own”) is the importance of rest — learning to cease from your labors, trust God and delight in his creation. I’m terrible at doing that. I’m really good at working constantly and then crashing from exhaustion or depression or anxiety. It’s a deep defect in my character, to be honest, but one I’m actively working on. All that to say, I struggle to find non-spiritual (or spiritual!) activities that I love.

There are two that come to mind, however. I enjoy going on walks with my wife and children, especially my youngest daughter. She’s 7 and loves to ride her bike or walk with me and talk and talk. She takes tremendous pleasure in just being with me, talking about her day at school. Sometimes she’ll ask what my favorite color is (even though she’s asked 100 times) just to have a conversation. I enjoy the feel of my feet on the road and the easy way words come when I’m moving.

My other pleasurable activity is making dumb jokes on Twitter or absurd demotivational memes on Instagram. Humor is one of the purest joys of my life. I love making people laugh and being witty. And I love stupid dad jokes and profound social satire. I know social media has tons of problems, but I love that I can hop on Twitter, make a bad pun and give other people pleasure.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?

Aside from mental health issues, which I’m not going to go into (sorry, not sorry), loneliness is my weakness. I’m an introvert, but man, do I love people. Have you met people? People are great. Especially people who know you well and who have lived with you for years.

The older I get, the more I value close friendships and the harder it is to establish and sustain close friendships. I really took friendships for granted when I was young. Finding and keeping friends was easy in college. But once you graduate, start a job and have some kids, your life gets spread super thin with the insane and inhuman demands of the world, and meeting people who get you is extremely difficult. And even when you do meet someone, modern life is so liquid. Jobs end. People move. Life is crazy. By the way, if it’s this hard to find and keep friends in the modern world after college, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in the dating pool.

When I’m lonely, I tend to turn to social media. It’s a very poor substitute for embodied friendship, but if it’s the best you’ve got, it’s better than nothing. I have a number of close friends I talk to on the phone. They help keep me sane. A voice is more embodied than a text message.

The older I get, the more I realize that I’m built to be in close relationship with people. Maybe everyone is built like that — I don’t know. What I do know is that loneliness kills me.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?

Right now, the most exciting thing I’m working on is my new book, “On Getting Out of Bed.” It started as an essay titled “On Living” about mental health and suicide that poured out of me one night a couple years ago.

While I was working on my second book, “You Are Not Your Own,” I kept getting emails and messages from people about the essay. When you’re editing a book, you see all its flaws and it’s pretty hard to be positive about your work. So it was an interesting time when I was dissatisfied with the book I was working on and was getting all these messages of thankfulness about an old essay. So I pitched it to my editor as an experiment.

It’s not a self-help book, it’s not a memoir, and it’s not a professional mental health advice book (because I’m not a mental health professional). It’s inspirational, I guess. But the way I like to describe it is as a letter from a friend who loves you. It’s a meditation on the most fundamental of existential questions: Why get out of bed? Why live?

I know that sounds a little morbid, and some people will probably be shocked that a Christian is even asking those questions. But everyone needs an answer to the question of life. Everyone. At one time or another, your suffering is going to be so overwhelming that you’re going to need a reason to get up. And when that time comes, you need to have an answer ready.

That’s what this book explores. Why live? I’m excited about it because it’s very different from the social criticism of my first two books but also because it’s such an important topic. I think it has the potential to help a lot of people who are suffering from mental afflictions. I hope so, at least.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

Writing is hard work. Sometimes it pours out, but usually, I fight for each word. In writing “On Getting Out of Bed,” there were times when I felt like I was saying something true. That’s the goal — to say something real, true and worth saying that might help someone else. We all feel so alone.

Ernest Hemingway talked about the importance of writing one true sentence, and I think he was right. But the reality is that you really don’t know what you’ve created until you send it out into the world. The sentence or idea that feels profound and important may not be the one that resonates with your readers. So for me, the most meaningful moments of this project came when I shared it with a few earlier readers who told me that it meant a lot to them. I’ve written three books, but this was the first time that early readers were excited by what I wrote.

Like I said before, this book was an experiment. I had things I needed to say (mostly to myself), and I didn’t know if anyone else needed to hear them or could benefit from them. When other people began to read the book, I realized that God had worked through me to write at least a few true, good, beautiful sentences. And it may be that only a couple of readers resonate with the book. For all I know, it’s already helped the people it’s going to help. But that would be okay.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?

I’m terrible at the spiritual disciplines. This is one of many areas of my life that I am actively working on.

What I would like to say is that I pray the Daily Office three times a day and listen to the “ESV: M’Cheyne Reading Plan” podcast every day. That would be lying, though.

The reality is that my most valued daily spiritual practice is repentance and petitions as the trials and travails of life overwhelm me. I try to keep my head above water by crying out for help and repenting for plunging myself into the water in the first place.

And the great thing is that God’s grace is sufficient even for an undisciplined fool like me. God meets us where we are, but he doesn’t leave us — thankfully.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are three resources that have impacted you?

1. Zygmunt Bauman’s “Liquid Modernity” is an insightful and fairly easy-to-read study of modernity. His basic thesis is that the defining feature of modernity is its liquidity. Everything feels like it’s shifting under our feet. The modern person feels like they’re scrambling to turn a liquid into a solid, but it’s always slipping through their fingers.

2. Jacques Ellul. Ellul’s writings have had a profound influence on me in recent years. There are two major strains of his writing: secular and sacred. Books like “The Technological Society” and “Propaganda” redefined the way I understood our society and heavily shaped my second book, “You Are Not Your Own.” He also has several books of biblical and spiritual commentary, like “Presence in the Modern World” and “The Meaning of the City.” While I often disagree with his theology, I always learn something from him. He is wise even when he is wrong.

3. The other great influence on me has been the work of Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor. I read his “A Secular Age” and “Sources of the Self” when I was working on my dissertation in graduate school, and they utterly rocked my world. My favorite books name and explain what I know to be true but don’t understand. Taylor’s works do that for me. They explain what it means to be a modern self and why it’s uniquely challenging to have faith in our moment.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name resources you’ve found indispensable in this current season — and tell us what it’s done for you.

1. “Mere Orthodoxy.” MereO is a web magazine run by my friend Jake Meador, whose books you should read! It’s one of the most vibrant and challenging evangelical publications on the web. By vibrant, I mean the writers regularly disagree with each other about matters of great importance but all within orthodoxy. You’ll find in-depth articles and challenging perspectives by some of the best thinkers in evangelicalism (and wider Christianity), including some big names like Tim Keller. I do not agree with everything they publish. Some articles I deeply disagree with, but that’s why I love them. I know Meador and his authors are not pandering to me.

2. Hartmut Rosa. Rosa has a few tomes that I have yet to work my way through, but he has a little book called “The Uncontrollability of the World” that’s profound. His basic thesis is that the modern world demands that we control the world, but the most profound experiences in life (what he calls “resonance”) occur when we accept and go with the fundamental uncontrollability of the world. Although his argument is not explicitly made in theological terms, it helps explain our dependence upon God in his world.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

I have two projects on the horizon. The first is a fourth book with InterVarsity Press tentatively called “Re-collecting Your Life: Practical Wisdom for the Restless and Confused.” My first two books were social criticism that almost entirely avoided giving practical advice. That’s just not what they were about. I wanted to diagnose the problems with society, not give answers. But people want answers, and that’s fair. So my fourth book will be an attempt to provide answers to the question: How do we practically live in a deeply inhuman society? I plan to use the seven virtues (faith, hope, love, justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude) as the guiding principles.

My second project is my real dream project — a novel based on my experience taking my grandfather across the country during the last months of his life. It will be about the problem of certainty, mental health, family, duty, suffering well, poverty and love. Mostly, it will be about love, and it would be told in the first person. Although it’s based on my experience, I want it to be fictionalized so that I have the liberty to emphasize certain themes and ideas. I’ve been working on the project off and on for almost a decade now. I hope to have some space to work on it in earnest this coming year. It will be a serious experiment for me, and I’m not sure I can get a publisher willing to pick it up, but it will be good for me to get these ideas out of my head.

Loneliness is a huge problem in our modern culture — and it’s only worsened in the aftermath of the pandemic. Medical studies show that loneliness impacts people across all age groups and demographics. Sadly, over half of U.S. adults consider themselves lonely.

This is concerning, especially since loneliness often goes hand in hand with mental health concerns. And is that such a surprise? God said in Genesis 2:18 that “it is not good for the man to be alone” (NIV). His solution? A close companion, someone with whom Adam could walk through life, share his thoughts and feelings, and (after the fall) even suffer.

In our disconnected society, it’s easy to overlook our need for close relationships. So maybe the answer to our loneliness begins with simply being intentional. Who around us needs a friend, too? Let’s start there.