How do you maintain Christian identity in a culture where Christianity is "merely one option among many"? Church historian Dr. Stephen Presley argues that today's believers face challenges remarkably similar to those of the early church—and can learn much from how ancient Christians navigated their complex cultural moment. Rather than withdrawing from society or seeking political dominance, early believers practiced what Stephen calls "cultural sanctification"—being fully present in pagan spaces while maintaining distinctly Christian identity through quiet evangelism, deep formation, and faithful citizenship.

In this conversation, Stephen shares how early Christians like Polycarp could respect civil authority while refusing to compromise their faith, why conversion involved both catechesis and liturgical formation, and what quiet evangelism looked like in practice. He offers practical guidance for local church leaders who want to engage their communities faithfully without retreating from the world or compromising their Christian identity. Stephen is Associate Professor of Church History at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of "Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World Like the Early Church."

You might think that the early church had a negative vision of politics or a political life, you know. And the thing that struck me was as I walk through the early church, it's just not there. In some ways, it's actually, they read passages like Romans 13. They read 1 Peter, fear God, honor the king.

I can't tell you how many, I actually didn't even get to put everything in. Every time they say pray for those who are in authority over you. It is all over the place. I, you know, I have to believe that they're making those indications because they are actually believing that God is sovereign overall.

Well, hello everyone. Welcome to the Pivot Podcast, the podcast where we explore how the Church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Terri Elton.

And I'm Dwight Zscheile Today we're thrilled to welcome Dr. Stephen Presley, who's Associate Professor of Church History at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of the compelling 2024 book, Cultural Sanctification, Engaging the World Like the Early Church. ⁓ To be our guest today, he's also recently published this spring another book called Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church, Recovering an Ancient Vision. And so in this conversation, we want to explore

With Stephen, the question of what should the church's relationship with culture and society be in a time in which the society is not Christian or less and less Christian in our case today? What does faithful witness look like? Early believers didn't retreat from pagan culture, but they engaged it through what Stephen talks about as cultural sanctification, which is a way of being fully present in the world.

while maintaining a distinctly Christian identity, what can we learn from them? So, Stephen, welcome to the Pivot Podcast.

Thank you all so much for having me. So good to be with you.

So tell us a bit about these two book projects, which seems to me, you know, are probably somewhat related, but how did they come about for you and why did you want to do these at this moment in the life of the church and society?

Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a Christian context. I grew up in the South in Texas, raised in a really Christian culture. And then when I went off to college and in my years in college, I felt a lot of the challenges, the cultural transitions that were going on around me. I felt called to ministry. And so I ended up going to seminary and in seminary I had some of the

the angst maybe some of your listeners feel about the changing culture. And I started reading the Church Fathers and I took a Church History class and I discovered apologists and defenders of the faith. And I started reading the stories of martyrdom and the stories of these people who were standing firm in their faith. And it was compelling to me. And so I went on and did a PhD in Church History and began teaching.

And as I was teaching ⁓ these early church fathers, I was also raising a family, going to church. And I just, I was living in a world where the church was embedded in society and constantly engaged with ⁓ that pagan world. And I just felt like in this cultural moment, the fathers especially, those early church fathers could,

provides some measure of wisdom for those of us who are charting a path in a very similar kind of society.

I love, we are such nerds on this podcast, at least at the table here. I went and fell in love with church history. That's not what everybody says when they go to school. We have great colleagues that are church historians that have taught us a lot and maybe some others on this podcast. ⁓ But you ⁓ argue that we are essentially the ancients again, that our post-Christian context mirrors the pre-Christian world of the early church.

and that we do live amidst a modern paganism. Can you explain that both for the nerds and maybe the non-nerds ⁓ about why this parallel is so significant? this is just like my history teacher saying, yes, you can learn from church history, right? ⁓ But help us think about that.

Yeah, I I like the way in sort of the technical kind of definition I use for defining a secular age. I draw from Charles Taylor, the very famous Canadian philosopher that defines the present moment in which we live as a secular age. And he explains secularity really in terms of diversity, diversity of mores, diversity of beliefs in which civil society itself is now reflected among a whole range of options.

And as he says, Christianity or belief in God is only one option among many. And he has this sort of line in there ⁓ in the secular age and frequently not the easiest to embrace that kind of like hangs over the rest of the book and really, and that's what I saw between the ancient world and today. know, Christianity is merely one option among the whole host of options. You got stoicism, you got epicurism, you got a whole range of philosophical systems.

And you got a whole range of thinking about your life in the world. And Christianity was just one option and frequently not the easiest to embrace. I do say, and no doubt your listeners will recognize this, that there are differences between the ancient world of today and maybe this world is even a little more complex in the sense that anyone who has studied church history knows that things have not always gone well for the church.

And in fact, some of our failures and some of our are a challenge for us today as we're both trying to minister once again in a world where Christendom or Christian institutions are often headed in different directions. And yet we're trying to remain faithful in a world in which Christianity is kind of going away in some places and in some ways. So those are that.

really use drawing on Charles Taylor's definition and looking at the continuity and discontinuity are ways in which I try to describe it.

So you have a bunch of stories in your book of some of those key figures in the early church who wrestled with these questions in their context. So share with our audience maybe a story or two about some of those ancient believers and what we can learn from them.

Yeah, this is, I try to include story. You I try to make it at least relatively readable and not so academic. So I begin each chapter, I open and close with a story of my own kind of trips to various ancient sites. And I begin with, for example, one of my favorites is the story of the martyrdom of Polycarp. And I have, I tell the story in,

You know, he is, he ultimately there's a there's a lot to that story, but that's a second century. One of the earliest martyrdom accounts we have. And he's brought before a Roman pro council in the middle of an amphitheater and in Smyrna and ancient Smyrna. And he's forced to defend his faith. He has a very famous line for 86 years. I have served him and he has never done me wrong. How can I deny my King and my savior now? You know, these great lines like that, but

What I also found is he asked him for defense and he says, I count you worthy of a defense because I have been taught to respect those in authority over me. So there's already kind of a political theology. He's quoting Romans 13 right there. There's already sort of a respect for authorities and yet an unwilling, you know, one who is unwilling to bend.

and pinch incense to Caesar and capitulate to the secular deities that are in front of him. So that's one. also tell, I tell the story, I end with the story of Blandina, the young girl who was also martyred and her compelling witness, the story of Tertullian. I tell the story of the crown. In North Africa, there was a Christian soldier who took the crown off his head and held it in his hand.

which seems to indicate an allegiance to Caesar, but yet a recognition of Christ as King overall. And Tertullian even describes the early Christian community saying, doesn't he just wear the crown? Why is he not just following, just doing what they tell him to do? And so Tertullian's whole work is a second century church father explaining why.

It was important to honor Christ as King over all and then pay allegiance to civil authorities or other authorities that are placed over you. But it's filled with those kinds of stories where you're interacting with people all around you and walking that tension between maintaining a faithful commitment to Christ and yet trying to inhabit all of the cultural spaces around you in ways that are faithful.

Yeah, lot of drama in those, right? And I think sometimes it's harder to do that kind of reflection on our own time, right? And it may be easier to see it a little bit with some distance around what they were struggling with.

Yeah, there's quite a bit of drama. think that's what makes it so compelling. I mean, when I quote that bit in Tertullian, when he is quoting Christians in North Africa who say, why don't you just wear the crown? Like you can hear the struggle and it shows you not everyone is agreeant. Not everyone is agreeant. And ⁓ there's important, it's an important example for how ⁓

how the church, I think, can think theologically and think culturally about how to live christianly today.

love that. So you describe early Christian conversion as involving both catechesis and liturgical formation, not just some mental assent, but actual identity transformation, right? And it's both personal and communal. So as we think about what it means to follow Jesus now or be a disciple today, what can we learn from this early time in

Christian conversion.

You know, I mean, I think as we were chatting earlier, I found a lot of traction in works on missiology and working and talking with missionaries. Actually, while I was writing this, I did some training with some missionaries who were heading overseas. I think I mentioned it briefly in the book, but I can remember I was teaching, actually, I had to do some teaching on early Christian orthodoxy and discussing early Christian heresies and things that missionaries might encounter.

kind of out whenever they're on the mission field. And I can remember talking with them and counseling and just sort of teaching with them. And I was just struck by the joy they had in their lives of just ready to go out and face the world because that was the kind of joy I had been reading in those texts. But I also had my conversations with them. I was so struck by the similarities between...

how hard it is to plant yourself down in a culture that is not defined by Christian mores, that is not a Christian culture, and then try to persuade, try to live, and you really understand, those missionaries really understand that when my conversion to Christianity involves a complete revision of my entire view of the world, from the top down, who is God?

all the way down. And so that's what I tried to bring out in that chapter. And what I saw in the early church was really establishing a rule of faith, some basic confession of faith that's confessed at baptism. mean, is the bird of the ships, baby, because we are joining the church and now this is what we believe. There is one God, we confess Christ, this now shapes our community. And then the importance of those kind of worship structures.

for the community to continue to form you after baptism and the importance of establishing that culture of Christianity. Again, not one that is removed, but yet one that is regularly forming. And I think it's important, I have found talking with this and no doubt, you know, some of your listeners would maybe experience this. In the West,

where we have often had a Christian culture, it's hard for people to think missiologically or sort of get around in their brains the challenge of what is facing those that go into sort of contexts that are not defined by Christian. They go into cultures that are not distinctively Christian. And so the early church, I think, is a reminder of that and a helpful, in terms of forming that community that shapes believers.

As many missionaries found out too, conversion often took a long time. It was hard soil. It was not this sort of dramatic kind of thing. It took long periods of catechesis and discipleship and formation.

Well, I think ⁓ I can see two ditches to this. I'm a Lutheran. I'm an ELCA Lutheran. We're word in sacrament. We would be more of the liturgical formation route and maybe light on the catechesis. And some traditions might be heavier on the catechesis or that kind of formation and lighter on the liturgical. And I think what is beautiful to me is in this is we need some of both here.

What does it mean to come alongside? And then to your point around, ⁓ for those of us with liturgical tradition, sometimes in a Christian culture, that has really become dry and meaningless as opposed to formative.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And one of the objections I also get especially is more on that like ⁓ conversion side, especially sort of longer catechesis and that sort of thing. And, you know, in the early church, they actually knew, for example, the example of the Ethiopian eunuch. And Irenaeus, the second century church father mentions Acts eight and mentions the eunuch. And because people bring that up, especially if you come from a tradition that's sort of a,

a baptistic tradition of some kind or an evangelical tradition that would have some kind of adult baptism. They usually point to that as a reason for getting baptized immediately. And Irenaeus points out to that text and he says, what was the eunuch doing? The eunuch was reading Isaiah 53. In fact, that's the first time the word catechesis appears in Christian literature. And he says, look, he had already been catechized, so there's no reason.

you know, a baptism should, should be delayed. But then Irenaeus compares that with act 17 and Paul and Mars Hill. And where does Paul begin? He begins with monotheism. Look, we've got to like clear the decks here. Let's, let's, let's get from polytheism to monotheism. First of all, and this is going to, this is going to take some time. This is going to take a little bit of time, sort of disciple someone and help someone.

kind of come to the faith. But I think you're exactly right. The church is trying to learn that tension between liturgy and catechesis formation and maintaining a vibrant spiritual life while not falling into just rote liturgy, but also the importance of confession and that sort of thing.

So I find this super helpful in a time when I think a lot of parts of the church are looking to later periods of Christian history for inspiration. So there's the kind of Benedict option conversation that's going on around we just need to sort of withdraw and not engage with society in the same way. And then there are those who are very much the opposite of that, who kind of much more in a Christendom approach want to kind of

take back the nation for Christ and some kind of political engagement that with left or right wing versions of that that are going on. But your work seems to suggest that both of those are somehow missing the point at a deep level. I wonder if you could speak to that, that kind of with withdrawal as one temptation, accommodation certainly is a temptation and mainline churches have done that in many ways. There's other versions of accommodation, I think in certain streams of

nationalist evangelicalism, but you're pointing to a different kind of relationship between church and culture and politics. I wonder if you could speak to that.

Yeah, yeah, happy to. And that's what ultimately got me sort of headed down this road. I can remember back when the Benedict adoption was popular. And for those who have read it, know, ⁓ Rod Dreher, takes Alasdair MacIntyre's book, it's called After Virtue, the closing line of After Virtue. And MacIntyre's book has been very important and influential in terms of understanding kind of the moral ethos of the modern world. He sort of alludes to Benedict.

⁓ and, as I say in the end, I, I, this is not in, in some ways, asceticism is a good thing. You know, some measured asceticism is wonderful. You know, some measured of, of holy life is essential. Even if you're no matter where you are and what tradition in which you find yourself. So it's not necessarily a critique of them, of the monastic tradition, but really, as you said, this sort of like either we got to get the reins of political power and we either have to.

⁓ make sure only Christians and Christians only are the ones ruling in all places. Or we try to retreat and create our own sort of civil society, Christianized society, which has been tried many, many times and hasn't always gone so well. And so I try to cast this vision where the fathers are very much learning how to live within a pagan spaces.

and learning very much how to maintain a Christian faith in pagan spaces. And doing so with joy and with a vibrant faith, ready to defend the faith and ready to cultivate community and ready to do those kinds of things. So that's really the heart of cultural sanctification. And again, I get it from Andrew Walls. He's Andrew Walls' work where he talks about in his history of missiology,

talks about both that indigenizing principle and that pilgrim principle that the church is always trying to hold together. And that's where I get that term cultural sanctification from. It's really thinking about Andrew Walls in a church that is trying neither to assume that if we get our politics right, everything discipleship would follow, nor run away from one's responsibilities.

⁓ of good, healthy citizenship in a civil society.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that's so hard in our context to actually hold because I church leaders have defaulted to church categories and Christendom in many ways as a vision, right? So that, if you will, third way or other way, right, is unique. ⁓ You write that Christianity taught the world to hate genocide, to treasure human life, and to respect the dignity of all people.

I wonder if, well, first of all, that was true because that wasn't the case in the Roman Empire. And I wonder if those early Christians communicating those values that were different from the Roman Empire might actually help us think differently about just what you just said. ⁓ How do we find our way through and how do these

this statement, right, help us think what does it mean to treasure human life and respect the dignity of all people, right?

Yeah, you know what's fascinating? If you read, if you just read like, like Rodney Stark's, Rise of Christianity, or you read like, how did, how did the church actually change sort of the Western world? Like, how did it do it? And it's a complicated question and it, and it does, but you get to the end of Rodney Stark's book, The Rise of Christianity, you know, it's a, it's a great book. You get to the, you get to the end of it. And he says, ultimately, the

ultimate thing was the way the Christian doctrine and Christian morality actually took on flesh in the communities. And so I think first and foremost, that's what I'm trying to get at is Christians who are maintaining that faithful commitment to historic Christian orthodoxy, historic Christian faith.

and doing so in ways where they embed themselves in society and they hold those principles that I just, that all that you just emphasize. Underneath it all, the dignity of every human person. I think it does mean on some level a recovery of cooperation, both among Christian communities. So one thing I've tried to do oftentimes, and I think the church fathers are helpful for this.

because all traditions on some level can go back and find some common, some common unity in some of these early church writers and thinkers. But I think some level of cooperation among Christian communities, I think is essential today. And I think valuing some level of pluralism in the sense of honoring and respecting all traditions, yet not letting that ⁓ deny us

or not letting that stop us from faithfully and honestly and genuinely proclaiming our faith and living out our faith.

Well, I want to follow up on that a little bit and talk a bit about evangelism, because you say that cultural sanctification happens through quiet evangelism rather than fiery rhetoric. So thinking about our kind of technological social media age, what can we learn about quiet evangelism from ⁓ this period of Christian history?

I want to know if he connected fiery rhetoric with social media. I'm not sure that's exactly where I'd go. I just want to put that on the record.

Well, that is it is I do talk about the differences between the ancient world and today and obviously all kinds of technological advances. I don't know what Tertullian would be like if he had a, if he had a Twitter if he had a Twitter account or an "X" account or whatever it's called now, but, ⁓ you know, what, what I appreciated again, if you, you, if you trace through all the literature of how did the church go from sort of 12 guys hanging out with Jesus to Constantine in the fourth century, like how did we get there?

It's really interesting and really complicated and really fascinating. And it does seem like if you read all the books on early Christian evangelism, there's no major revivals. It's not like there's this, there's a few sort of accounts, a couple here and there, but it just seems to be slow, steady, organic, playing the long game, building institutions. Like this is this sort of long game of

steady, honest, and faithful witness among people. And there's so many books that trace out how it happened. know, Kyle Harper, for example, I talk about him in the book. He talks a lot about that transition, the way the church viewed human life, the way the church viewed, ⁓ yeah, all of those kinds of things dealing with the value of the human person.

And so many other books that of shape the way Christians view the world and the way they built a community that was attractive to those outside. ⁓ And I can think about Justin Martyr, I give one example in his first apology, he's writing ⁓ to the emperor and he's like, look at our community. We got people that used to be involved in all kinds of crazy things and they're not any longer.

They used to be ⁓ dabbling in really immoral stuff, but look at them now. We're your best citizens. We're the best people that you got. And it's this sort of like this moral apologetic, this apologetic about the goodness of the faith. And to tie it to social media, I mean, one thing that has been challenging is figuring out how

I still am convinced that at the local level and in the communities, the importance of people of faith living out their faith and through active and honest and real and personal engagements, not in the kind of fiery rhetoric and not in the kind of mockery and those sort of things that have often characterized our public testimony.

I wonder if our social media mantra could be, you know, to treasure human life and respect the dignity of all people. And if it doesn't pass that test, it doesn't go on social media. Sorry. That's a long game.

I think that's a long game. I think that a long game.

Yeah. So you suggest that our democratic contexts give us more political influence than the early Christians had. And at the same time, yet politics isn't the problem nor the solution. How should this help us as Christians today think about political engagement? Any insights into that one?

You know, I was struck, it's really interesting if you come through a lot of New Testament literature, it's interesting without knowledge of the early church, those first three centuries before Constantine, if you just had the New Testament and you just read passages like Rome is Babylon, or you read sort of, yeah, the text that sort of ⁓ critique kind of paganism, you would think, you would think you might

that the early church had a negative vision of politics or a political life, you know? And the thing that struck me was, as I walk through the early church, it's just not there. In some ways, it's actually, they read passages like Romans 13. They read 1 Peter, fear God, honor the king.

I can't tell you how many, I actually didn't even get to put everything in every time they say pray for those who are in authority over you. It is all over the place. And I, you know, I have to believe that they're making those indications because they are actually believing that God is sovereign overall. And it might not look like things are going well, but there really is this trust in the transcendence of God.

I think Stephen Smith's book, Pagans and Christians in the City, talks a lot about this. He's a constitutional lawyer at the University of San Diego. And there's just this real honest, in some ways it was convicting, trust in the transcendence of God. Yet, not in some sort of Gnostic or escapist or... And so I fully, they are fully invested in civil society and embedding themselves in civil society. So...

When I talk about, I have the whole chapter on citizenship, I talk about they're actively praying. They talk lot about taxes to mentioned. You know, in the scriptures. And I took that as, especially in the context of them investing in the institutions around them, the importance of ⁓ being invested. Again, not in a gnostic way where you're retreating, but actually investing.

their time, their resources in the world around them. Cause oftentimes I think within evangelicalism or in some communities, we think about political engagement in terms of voting and the early church really stress, obviously because it's not a democratic society, it really stressed this to be a citizen means I love, I love this place and I want to see this place become better and to the glory of God. Yeah.

So one last question for you. ⁓ For a local church leader who might be listening or watching this, ⁓ what would be a word of advice if they want to practice cultural sanctification in their context? Where should they begin?

This is great. Well, you in the book, one of the challenges and you brought it up earlier. One of the challenges when I wrote this book was trying to look at, at how did they do it? How did they engage in each chapter? It forced me to think about citizenship. It also forced me to think about catechesis and discipleship. And then it also forced me to think about public engagement. How do I, you know, deal with all the kind of social issues that are going on?

And then it forced me to think about hope in the way they sort of had that, tell us. And that really is the plan of the book. So I think at a local level, two things I've tried to do that flow from this book. One, I've thought a lot about discipleship in catechesis. Number one, how are your people being formed? Whether you're a high liturgical church, what kinds of, in the liturgy itself, reinforcing those things that are forming those people.

in the tradition in which you live and serve and that sort of thing. So number one is that catechesis piece. Yeah, number two, I think there's all kinds of questions at the local level of how am I as a Christian investing my time, my resources, my energy in the place in which I live? And I think that is second, is another question.

That also involves this larger question of cooperation that I mentioned earlier, especially as denominations go through some transitions. think there will be new forms of cooperation that may emerge. ⁓ I hope a lot of the denominations maintain and can grow stronger, but how do we form cooperation? So I think pastors just looking to cooperate at the local level on the issues that they're facing at the local level. And then,

What are the kind of forums for your people to sort of all the political questions that you raise or their forums where you can have sort of honest and good conversations about this. So those are the things that I have walked through personally at the local level with some pastors here where I am. And as I've think about the way this sort of ⁓ translates into the local ministry.

Well, Stephen, thank you for this deep dive into a past time and to really lift up the wisdom of early Christians and to think through how they can help us think about how we engage our post-Christian context and be a witness to the gospel, right, in this time. So thank you for this. And I would encourage ⁓ our listeners to go into the book and get more.

Thank you so much, it great to be with you.

And to our audience, thank you for joining us on this episode of Pivot to help spread the word. Please like and subscribe if you're catching us on YouTube or if you're listening. Leave a review on your podcast platform. It really helps.

And the best compliment you can give us is to share this episode of The Pivot Podcast with a friend. So for this week, this is Terri Elton and Dwight Zscheile signing off.