René Padilla

C. René Padilla (born 1932) is an Ecuadorian evangelical theologian and missiologist known for coining the term integral mission (Spanish: misión integral) in the 1970s to articulate Christianity's dual priority in evangelism and social activism. He would popularize this term in Latin American evangelicalism through the Latin American Theological Fellowship and through global evangelicalism through the Lausanne Conference of 1974.

Life

Padilla was born into a poor family in Quito, Ecuador, in 1932. Due to the Great Depression, his family would move when he was two years old to Colombia, where he would grow up.[1] He would later pursue a BA in philosophy and a MA in theology at Wheaton College, before continuing on to complete a PhD in the New Testament from the University of Manchester, under F. F. Bruce.[2]

His education and experiences with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship underscored Padilla's evangelical foundations and the priority he would place on the historical-critical approach to hermeneutics.[1] However, in 1959, Padilla was appointed a traveling secretary in Latin America for International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. In his work with universities throughout Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, Padilla would be faced with a tense sociopolitical context. Students were immersed in Marxist writings and grappled with the possibility of revolution. This would be the context which produced not only Catholic liberation theology, but also challenged Padilla to develop a new evangelical social theology which he would later term "integral mission."[3]

Padilla would bring his ideas to the global stage at the Lausanne Conference of 1974.[4] This would have a significant effect on the nature of global evangelicalism and the growing priority of evangelicals in both evangelicalism and social activism.[5]

In 1992, Padilla would receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Wheaton College.[2]

He is the father of the theologian Ruth Padilla DeBorst.

Works
  • Padilla, C. René (2010). Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom (rev. ed.). Carlisle: Langham Monographs. ISBN 978-1-907713-01-9.

References
  1. Padilla, C. René (2008). "My Theological Pilgrimage". In Marks, Darren C. (ed.). Shaping a Global Theological Mind. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 127–138. ISBN 978-0-7546-9253-9.
  2. "René Padilla". The Work Of The People. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  3. Kirkpatrick, David C. (April 2016). "C. René Padilla and the Origins of Integral Mission in Post-War Latin America". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 67 (2): 351–371. doi:10.1017/S0022046915001670. ISSN 0022-0469.
  4. Escobar, Samuel (2012). "Doing Theology on Christ's Road". In Jeffrey P. Greenman (ed.). Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective: Exploring the Contextual Nature of Theology and Mission. Gene L. Green. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. pp. 74ff. ISBN 978-0-8308-6970-1.
  5. Stanley, Brian (2013). The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. pp. 151–180. ISBN 978-0-8308-2585-1.
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