Julie Canlis was raised in Seattle, graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in the Comparative History of Ideas. After marrying her childhood sweetheart, Matt, they together studied at Regent College (Vancouver, BC) where her degree in Spiritual Theology led her to pursue a PhD at the University of St Andrews. This work was published as Calvin’s Ladder (2010) which grapples with Calvin’s vision for the way humanity ‘becomes itself’ by participating in Christ. It was the Christianity Today Award of Merit for Theology in 2011.
After finishing her thesis in 2005, Julie stayed at home with their four children while Matt began ministry in the Church of Scotland. She studied in fits and starts, publishing along the way, and giving Templeton lectures in Greece, Hungary, England, Canada, and America, thanks to her winning the 2007 Templeton Prize for Theological Promise. She is liturgical director for Trinity Church, in Wenatchee Washington, and is raising four teenagers with Matt. Her most recent publication is "A Theology of the Ordinary" which is what happens when PhDs meet gardens, children, and chickens.