Presley’s Cultural Sanctification is a new addition to the expanding genre of theological and cultural works giving advice about how Christians should respond to, and engage with, an increasingly secular culture in the West. The major cultural shift Presley sees is the direct hostility to Christian ethics. In addition to the well-worn belief that Christianity is wrong on an intellectual basis, many in the West today see Christianity as being “morally bankrupt” (p. 5). This is an important distinction in that it gives social permission for people to think in terms of the need to oppress Christian beliefs and practices. In this situation, Presley argues that contemporary Christians should look to the example of Christians in the first few centuries, since they were in similar circumstances culturally. His position, distinct from some others who write in this genre, is to advocate for the cultural sanctification of the world. This can only come by Christians holding to the same, high moral standards held by the early Christians. These Christians, Presley argues, avoided the paths that led to direct social confrontation or rejection of society, just as Christians should today.

Although differences exist between today and the first and second centuries, Presley starts by identifying some central parallels. As noted above, these are associated with society’s intellectual and moral shift away from Christianity. After an introduction, Presley uses five chapters to walk through five major areas of Christian life in the ancient Church, each concluding with comments on applicability to today’s issues. These areas include identity, citizenship, intellectual life, public life, and hope. The book’s conclusion re-emphasizes the central theme of the work: Christians must be focused on developing virtue, both individually and communally, in response to God’s grace. The point is that ancient Christians brought sanctity to ancient culture by neither rejecting participation in civic life nor by emphasizing a confrontation with it. Presley does an excellent job identifying and powerfully explaining early Christian sources in such a way that Christians today can see both affinity with them and be inspired by them.

Two main groups of readers will be interested in this book. Evangelical readers are the first and the most significant group. This group would include both evangelical leaders and well-read general readers who themselves are open to seeing the early Church as an important resource. One endorser of the book, for example, points to Presley’s respect for second and third century Christians in contrast with those “dismissing them as theological children—as some in the evangelical world have done.” Presley accomplishes this task mainly by presenting historical figures in their contexts and carefully (and judiciously) applying perennial lessons applicable for all Christians. The result is a book that functions as an invitation to learn more about the early Church in order to be influenced by it in these challenging times. In so doing, Presley makes an excellent contribution to the work being done in the genre as a whole. As Dreher’s The Benedict Option explicitly does, Presley’s presentation reminds Christians of all stripes that there is an importance for the wider Christian community to come together in the embrace of traditional teachings and morals in the face of increasing cultural hostility.

The other group of readers will be specialists, both historians and that increasing set of Christian scholars with different specialties who are turning their attention to this genre of theological-cultural intersection. There is much in this book which specialists will find appealing, since Presley’s work is not fundamentally controversial in how it presents ancient Christianity as a whole. That being said, some criticisms and conversations will surely revolve around the general presentation Presley gives of the role of Scripture in the early Church. Though he does not use the technical term sola scriptura, many readers, both general and specialist, may conclude that this is the framework of how early Christians thought. Such a framework is not historically accurate, but the raising of the topic has the potential to lead to even more positive ecumenical work. That the text is not written for specialists also seems to be evident in the odd oversight of bibliographic information for ancient sources. The book neither contains any such bibliographical information, nor does it give any attribution for the translations used. Although I did not check many quotations, the ANF series appears to have been used extensively.

Presley’s excellent book contributes to this genre of writings by emphasizing virtue as necessary to the discussion of Christianity’s response to a changing cultural and political environment.