Book Review: Julie Canlis, A Theology of the Ordinary

Julie Canlis, A Theology of the Ordinary, 2nd ed. (Wenatchee, MA: Godspeed Press, 2018)

Certain strands of Christianity thrive, it seems, on excitement. When I came to faith in the late 1980s, immediately I dived enthusiastically into the world of Christian paperbacks (The Cross and the Switchblade! God’s Smuggler! No Compromise!), Contemporary Christian Music, and Chick tracts, all of which conspired to make it quite clear to my impressionable teenage mind that following Jesus was (or should be) an ever-burning fire of evangelism that, supported by signs and wonders and evidential apologetics, would lead Satan-blinded wretches (i.e. my family and friends) to mass repentance and, importantly, revival. Of course, revival never happened, despite my best attempts at spreading the good news. By the time I started university in the mid-1990s, I had toned the evangelistic efforts down a notch, and these days I merely want to get on with my life as a genuinely faithful Christian but without the added pressure of being responsible for billions of hellbound souls. Nonetheless, the idea that Christianity is or should be exciting or radical or passionate is something that still has its foot in the door of my brain. Old presumptions die hard.

A Theology of the Ordinary is the perfect antidote to adrenalised Christianity. Julie Canlis opens her slim book (sixty-eight postcard-sized pages) by noting how many recent books on Christian discipleship appear to presuppose and encourage a journey of spiritual discovery and intensity while downplaying the fact that discipleship for most people is conducted in the workplace or at home and without clear-cut opportunities to mount a soapbox and orate the gospel to the dying masses. Canlis does not scorn or reject the need for passionate discipleship, but rather balances this against an equal need to recognise the triune God’s presence in the everyday. As she expresses it, ‘A robust trinitarian theology of the ordinary will not undermine being passionate or sold-out but will ground and purify it’ (p. 3).

The majority of A Theology of the Ordinary relays what Canlis calls ‘the trinitarian story’, looking at creation, redemption, and the new creation, but all with a focus on how these affect the mundane. Much of the chapter on creation outlines the increasingly popular idea that God’s good creation is God’s temple, with humanity serving as priests within it. This notion provides a framework for discussing how Jesus redeems and recreates (fallen) humanity in and through his own life—‘Each stage of His “ordinary” human life was crucial to the atonement’ (p. 30)—and for a series of observations on how the Holy Spirit draws us to the Father through Christ (or places us in Christ to know the Father) in the world. Canlis also provides as part of these three chapters the relevant counter-stories—Gnosticism, Docetism, and Platonism—that she believes militate against a truly Christian portrayal of ordinary life. Her inclusion of these counter-stories is effective and demonstrates precisely why good theology is necessary for the Church. Each chapter closes with questions for further reflection, which makes this book an ideal read for church home groups and the like.

It seems fitting to end this review with Canlis’s own concluding words:

When we live our lives as ordinary persons [in Christ], we become an extraordinary picture to the world of what we were intended to be: God and humanity united together in heart and purpose. (p. 66)

Thank you, Jon, for giving me a copy of this book!