Christian Mission and Poverty

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Christian Mission and Poverty

C. R ené P adilla (1932–2021) Background

Born in Quito, Ecuador, C. René Padilla was a Latin American evangelical theologian and missiologist who lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Padilla coined the term integral mission (often translated as holistic mission) to stress the importance of both evangelism and social justice as key to Christian mission. Padilla earned a PhD in New Testament from the University of Manchester and was a founding member of the Latin American Theological Fellowship. He worked as the International President of Tearfund, the President of the Micah Network, and Executive Director of Ediciones Kairos. Having served in universities across Latin America, Padilla was actively involved in political conversations about religion and social change. From within contexts that produced Catholic liberation theology, Padilla developed an evangelical social theology. Padilla was a key thinker at the famous 1974 Lausanne Conference on global mission. Along with many other thinkers, church leaders, and activists, Padilla encouraged the evangelical church to recognize the holistic nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this Lausanne message on holistic mission, Padilla offers a background of the need for such a formulation, a description of such a theology, the biblical framework for this holistic Gospel, and the role of the local church in engaging in integral mission. Padilla follows in the footsteps of the mothers and fathers of the faith as an evangelical father proclaiming a Christian mission that engages both spiritual and social need.