Remembering Dr. René Padilla • dwight j. friesen

“The practice of justice is at the center of God’s purpose for human life. It is so closely related to the worship of the living God as the only true God that no act of worship is acceptable to [God] unless it is accompanied by concrete acts of justice on the human level.”
C. René Padilla

Sadden to learn of the death of Dr. C. René Padilla. Dr. Padilla died on April 27, 2021, he was 88 years old.

Dr. Padilla was an Latin American theologian and missiologist maybe best known for coining the term and developing the concept of “integral mission.” His collaborative work Latin American theologians and practitioners led to the creation of the Latin American Theological Fellowship. In 1974 he delivered a powerful – now legendary – talk at the Lausanne Conference in which Padilla prophetically dared North American evangelicals to repent for exporting the “American way of life” to mission fields around the world, devoid of social responsibility and care for the poor, making the case for misión integral. The world is a better place and the church has a larger and more shalomic imagination because of this man’s love, life, and work.

Brian McLaren first time introduced René Padilla way back when I was still pastoring Quest – A Christ Commons. I remember asking Brian for some recommendations for theologians from the majority world who I needed to read. Dr. Padilla was one of the people Brian inspired me to engage. Since then I read a number of Padilla’s works and have even had opportunity to meet him, though very briefly… and in case you’re wondering yes, the theologian Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst is his daughter. I have also followed his lead in becoming active in the Micah Global Network which he helped to found and led. Micah Global is network of people and missional organizations seeking to discover and practice a more Integral Mission. As René writes:

“On the one hand, the Gospel cannot be reduced to social, economic and political categories, nor the church to an agency for human improvement… On the other hand, there is no biblical warrant to view the church as an other-worldly community dedicated to the salvation of souls, or to limit its mission to the preaching of man’s reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ.“
C. René Padilla

Here are just a few of the many theological and missiological contributions: