Image: Courtesy of Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana / edits by Rick Szuecs
Editor’s note: CT also offers a collection of tributes by leaders and friends of Padilla.
C. René Padilla, theologian, pastor, publisher, and longtime staff member with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, died Tuesday, April 27, at the age of 88.
Padilla was best known as the father of integral mission, a theological framework that has been adopted by over 500 Christian missions and relief organizations, including Compassion International and World Vision. Integral mission pushed evangelicals around the world to widen their Christian mission, arguing that social action and evangelism were essential and indivisible components in Padilla’s words, “two wings of a plane.”