Ordinary Theology

What is‘Ordinary Theology'?

These two words don't seem naturally to sit together, but according to Jeff Astley, we need to release the word ‘theology' from its captivity in colleges and universities and return it to its main task and its first home, as the work of all God's people.

Jeff writes:

‘Theology' is just God-talk, talking about God. When the word was first used in the church it was applied to anyone who thought and spoke about their faith. It was only a lot later that it became an academic subject, the possession of scholars.

‘Ordinary theology' is the sort of God-talk that comes first to the lips of all Christians when they reflect about their faith. Its main auditorium is not the lecture hall, or even the church building, but at home or at work; in the pub or in the garden; on the bus, at the shopping centre or on a country walk. Unlike the more ‘extraordinary' theology of the academic world, it is ‘just ordinary' and employs no technical jargon or philosophical ideas. It is, rather, couched in story and anecdote, using everyday language (which includes metaphors - without which we could hardly talk at all) and powerful images to express our deeply felt commitments and - sometimes - our agonized concerns.

We don't have to go to college to learn how to do this. We only have to be ourselves, and to speak of what we feel and of what we know. To express in our own stumbling, inadequate way what we believe about God.

The stumbling doesn't matter. What matters is that it is what we really think. For this is our theology.

The theologian gets no new revelation and has no special organ for knowledge. He is debtor to what we in one sense have already - the Scriptures and the lives and thoughts of the faithful. . . . This puts theology within the grasp of conscientious tentmakers, tinkers like Bunyan, lay people like Brother Lawrence, and maybe someone you know down the street who shames you with his or her grasp. . . . Theology is often done by the unlikely. . . . God's ways are still discovered by his friends and not in virtue of techniques and agencies of power.

Paul Holmer The Grammar of Faith, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, p. 21