ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of the more significant aspects of ordinary theology. It argues that there is much about 'ordinary believers' that others who are less ordinary should recognize as being valuable. The 'affirmation of ordinary life', understood in terms of the life of production and reproduction, is a feature of Charles Taylor's account both of Christian spirituality and also of the understanding of what it is to be human. The habitus of theology is no mere cleverness or lust for information, therefore, but embraces an orientation towards God that involves, and is an expression of, learning how to live before God - and, in this sense, to live theologically. But introductions, dictionaries and handbooks of theology also offer broader definitions that suggest that theology is to be understood more generically as 'reflection about God' that makes use both of rational processes and of imagination.
