Rev. Robert J. Pacienza challenges the Church to speak to the full spectrum of contemporary cultural concerns in his new book, The Hope of The World: Christian Cultural Engagement in a Secular Age.
"Our purpose is to live out a public faith, bringing the mind of Christ into every cultural sphere," contends Pacienza, senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in South Florida, and President and CEO of D. James Kennedy Ministries, a national broadcast media outreach.
Pacienza's new book comes at a crucial moment. Just 21 percent of people who attend a Bible-believing church in America think the Bible is relevant to every area of life, according to a poll by George Barna.
Nearly four decades after author Richard John Neuhaus lamented the Church's absence from the public square, "we continue to see a dearth of Christian voices in our culture," Pacienza writes.
And that absence, he adds, has "drastic implications for the Church's influence" in American society. But in The Hope of the World Pacienza gives readers a vision of cultural engagement that is deeply rooted in a robust Biblical theology.
"My prayer is that the Church would fully embrace the calling to live in light of the truth that Jesus is Lord of all," says Pacienza. "The Church, with this message, is truly the hope of the world."
Theologian R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, praised The Hope of the World:
"In this important new book, Rob Pacienza combines keen cultural analysis with faithful Christian thinking, pointing us to a model of Christian cultural engagement that is faithful to the Gospel, grounded in Christian truth, and filled with hope. Pacienza offers a timely and truthful call to the Church—a call that demands an answer."
More information and an excerpt from The Hope of the World is available at www.djkm.org/hope.
