The most prominent Roman Catholic person in the world—newly elected Pope Leo XIV—is an Augustinian priest, which makes Joshua D. Chatraw and Mark D. Allen’s The Augustine Way particularly timely. Chatraw and Allen’s newest contribution, which expands on their earlier Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2018), seeks to recover Augustine’s mature apologetic voice in order to address the challenges encountered by the church today. The authors successfully engage the reader in Augustine’s Confessions and The City of God before bringing the fourth-century bishop into the present and imaginatively extrapolating how the greatest Christian theologian would speak to contemporary apologetics within its late-modern context.

Chatraw and Allen argue that the “encyclopedic rationality” (p. 140) Christian apologetics has maintained over the past 200 years is no longer viable. They reason that the dominant apologetic methods are “insufficiently contextual and anthropologically thin” (p. 37) because they neglect what philosopher Charles Taylor has termed the social imaginary. This results in an “apologetic malpractice” (p. 39) that ignores “cultural contingency” (p. 64) by relying solely on rational tools and syllogisms without considering how secular late moderns reinterpret the very axioms (logic and reason) upon which these analytical methods are built.

In contrast to reductionistic anthropologies, which treat people either as thinkers or believers, Augustine suggests people are primarily doxological and models an integrated apologetic method that speaks to the whole human person. This leads the authors to make what might be their most crucial point: wholistic apologetics cannot be separated from the ecclesia, which is not only where apologetics happens but is an apologetic. Moreover, the necessary apologetic posture—epistemic humility—is developed through participation in the local church community, where discipleship is reunited with apologetics so that rehearsing God’s story through Scripture, song, and sacrament produces apologists characterized by both virtue and skill. The church is to be a missional hospital where seekers are not only taught truth but also shown how to believe, love, and reason: “a healing community” that “redirects disordered loves and longings toward the love of God” (p. 99).

Thus, the authors propose a new approach to apologetics: a “meta-apologetic strategy” (p. 182) aimed at “holistic persuasion” (p. 141) that incorporates narrative, history, psychology, and logic in two steps. First, an immanent critique (pp. 148–54) engages with a social imaginary by deconstructing it internally. Augustine demonstrates how to “reason with modern-day pagans” (p. 154) by appealing to his opponents’ sources and exposing weaknesses within their culture-making narratives as well as teasing out their existential implications. Rather than destroying the opposing worldview, this step is an “exploratory surgery” (p. 148) through which apologetic questions lay bare the patient’s wounds in hopes to prepare him or her “to be willing to try out the medicine of Christ as the cure for their ailments” (p. 156). Second, Augustine’s way delivers “holistic therapy” by inviting the other into a better story by showing how answers to their deepest questions and longings are answered in the Christian story. While the pastor-theologian-apologist redirects his audience towards Christ, he provides ad hoc arguments (evidence to strengthen his claims as well as responses to critics) just as a doctor might need to pivot in order to address complications that arise during surgery.

Fundamentally, the common denominator in Augustine’s apologetic structure is his central aim to convert and to cure rather than to convince. Chatraw and Allen repeatedly describe the Augustinian approach as nimble—which aptly encapsulates the elasticity in Augustine’s multidimensional approach. Flexibility, the authors posit in their concluding remarks, is also required in adapting the Augustine way today because the bishop has provided us with “a trajectory” rather than a destination: “resources to build on” and an adaptable “rhetorical strategy” to employ in multiple contexts (p. 174).

Notably, Chatraw and Allen embody their philosophy; their communication style integrates symbolic and narrative elements into their logical arguments, addressing the whole person. For example, a composite character in the rural American South shows, rather than tells, socio-cultural parallels between Augustine’s time and ours, and popular streaming hits Ted Lasso and The Morning Show serve to illustrate late-modern longings. Similarly, the authors use Augustine’s principle that apologetics is always contextual and involves real people, illustrating this with Rhett McLaughlin’s deconversion story to highlight the problems of a simplistic understanding of human nature. Another key strength of this book is its inclusive vision. Following C. S. Lewis’s non-denominational approach in Mere Christianity, Chatraw and Allen present Augustine as a common denominator and a key voice in all church traditions. Even though their critical assessment seems to target predominately North American evangelical apologetics, the authors generally apply an ecumenical approach, as they amass Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant philosophers and theologians to make their case and to highlight how these diverse thinkers embody Augustine’s methods and posture.

Though The Augustine Way is clear and concise in its overall structure and style, the last chapter, “A Therapeutic Approach,” is, at times, rather dense. Furthermore, Chatraw and Allen’s predisposition to provide historical background to apologetic methodology questions, such as the lengthy segment on Alasdair Macintyre’s 1987 Gifford Lectures, may disrupt an otherwise streamlined reading experience.

Chatraw and Allen successfully revive Augustine’s wisdom for pastors, theologians, missionaries, and all Christians engaged in modern apologetics, offering readers a practical approach to sharing the gospel. Augustine’s influence is undoubtedly needed in contemporary Christianity, and this short but weighty volume may prove instrumental in this timely endeavor.