The Use of The New Testament in Latin American Ecclesiologies: Critique and Dialogue Between The Proposals of Leonardo Boff and René Padilla

The Use of the New
Testament in Latin American

Ecclesiologies: Critique
and Dialogue between the
Proposals of Leonardo Boff
and René Padilla1
Carlos Raúl Sosa Siliezar
C hristianity in Latin America today has a diverse

and changing face. Protestant Christianity
1. This is an expanded and significantly revised version of “Ecclesiology in Latin

America: A Biblical Perspective,” in The Church from Every Tribe and Tongue:
Ecclesiology in the Majority World, eds. Gene L. Green, Stephen T. Pardue, and K.
K. Yeo (Carlisle, UK: Langham Global Library, 2018). Used with permission (www.
langhamliterature.org).
Carlos Raúl Sosa Siliezar was born in Guatemala and has served in
Lutheran and Presbyterian churches in his home country, Scotland,
and the United States. He is associate professor of New Testament
at Wheaton College. His publications include La condición divina de
Jesús: Cristología y creación en el Evangelio de Juan and Savior of
the World: A Theology of the Universal Gospel.
19
Vol. 16, No. 1
BOLETIN_TEOLOGICO_JLAT_16.1.indb 19
experienced unprecedented growth in Latin America

between 1960 and 1990.2 New denominations and
groups were formed, and some older ones experienced
renewal through the influence of Pentecostalism.
More recently, some Latin American countries have
also seen the rise of newer groups called neo-
Pentecostals.3 In light of all these changes, José
Míguez Bonino, a prominent Argentinian thinker,
analyzed Latin American Protestantism by paying
attention to its “many faces.”4 Yet reflection about
the nature and purpose of the church
(ecclesiology) in Latin America has not
Reflection
been as copious as its many churches and
about
denominations.
ecclesiology in
Latin America There are, however, two influential pro-
has not been posals: Leonardo Boff’s “ecclesiogenesis”
as copious and René Padilla’s “holistic ecclesiology.”
as its many Although these writers are separated by
churches and different academic backgrounds and reli-
denominations. gious convictions, they both write from a
Latin American perspective. Boff is emer-
itus professor of ethics, philosophy of religion, and
ecology at Rio de Janeiro State University, where he
also completed a doctorate in philosophy of religion.
2. Christian Lalive d’Epinay, “The Pentecostal ‘Conquista’ in Chile,” Ecumenical

Review 20 (1968): 16–32; Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Devel-
opments Worldwide (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997); Martin Lindhardt, ed., New
Ways of Being Pentecostal in Latin America (London: Lexington Books, 2016).
3. Timothy J. Steigenga and Edward L. Cleary, “Understanding Conversion in the
Americas,” in Conversion of a Continent: Contemporary Religious Change in Latin
America, ed. Timothy J. Steigenga and Edward L. Cleary (New Brunswick: Rutgers
UP, 2007), 8.
20 4. José Míguez Bonino, Faces of Latin American Protestantism (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1997).
Journal of Latin American Theology
The Use of the New Testament in Latin American
Ecclesiologies: Critique and Dialogue between the
Proposals of Leonardo Boff and René Padilla
He wrote his ecclesiological proposal from a Roman

Catholic conviction. Padilla completed a doctorate
in New Testament from Manchester University and
identifies with the evangelical church.
This article seeks to interact with Latin Ameri-
can thought as represented by these two leading
voices in discussions of ecclesiology. However, this
study necessarily focuses on one specific aspect of
their contributions. I engage a dimension of their
proposals that has not received due attention: their
approaches to the New Testament. After a review and
critique of Boff and Padilla, I offer a reflection about
major emphases and themes found in the Gospel of
John in order to discern the potential theological
contribution of this Gospel to enrich the Boff-Padilla
conversation.
In this article, I use the noun “church” to refer
to denominations that call themselves Christian. I
also use the designation “Christian community” to
refer to groups of people who identify themselves as
followers of Jesus without a specific affiliation to a
church institution.5 The uses of these two designa-
tions will be evident in the following section where
I discuss Latin American ecclesiology prior to Boff
and Padilla.
5. In the New Testament, ekklesia is the Greek word translated “church” and it
“is used of the community of God’s people.” It refers to “a local assembly of those
who profess faith in and allegiance to Christ” and to “the universal church.” These
quotations are taken from C. Marvin Pate, “Church,” in Evangelical Dictionary of
21
Biblical Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 95.
Vol. 16, No. 1
Latin American Ecclesiology

Prior to Boff and Padilla
The Roman Catholic Church

The following discussion will focus on three spe-
cific aspects of the rich and complex history of the
Roman Catholic Church in Latin America that are
important for a better understanding of Boff’s eccle-
siology. The first aspect is the use of the Bible by
Spanish conquerors to impose Christianity and dom-
inate indigenous peoples. The second aspect is the
lack of ecclesiological innovations in Latin America
prior to liberation theology. Finally, the third aspect
is the Latin American bishops’ idea that the presence
of a priest was necessary in order to have a legitimate
church in a particular Christian community.
Although the conquest of the American continents
was inspired by commercial gain, the Crown of Cas-
tile “had a genuine evangelizing intent with regard to
the new lands.”6 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
sent to the “new world” conquerors along with
priests, the sword along with the cross.7 However, a
violent evangelization of the Americas needed to be
justified theologically. Therefore, the interpretation
of the Bible was at the center of debates about the
legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church imposing
6. Mario A. Rodríguez León, “Invasion and Evangelization in the Sixteenth Cen-

tury,” in The Church in Latin America 1492–1992, ed. Enrique Dussel (Maryknoll:
Orbis, 1992), 43.
22 7. Johannes Meier, “The Organization of the Church,” in The Church in Latin
America 1492–1992, 55.
the gospel in the new world. Some scholars, such as

Spain’s leading humanist Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda,
argued for continuity between the church in the New
Testament and the current dominant religious insti-
tution in Spain.8 For Ginés de Sepúlveda, the Roman
Catholic Church, especially the pope, was the legiti-
mate heir of Jesus’s authority over the whole world,
and, thus, his representatives had the right to colo-
nize the Americas.9 He used the Old Testament to
justify the conquering Spaniards’ massacre and
exploitation of native peoples by referring to Bible
stories such as the flood (Ge 6–7) and the conquest of
Canaan (Jos 6). He argued: “It is lawful to subdue
Pagans in order to bring them to the true religion and
to spiritual health. It is also legitimate to
punish them with severe war.”10 The lack of
The lack of ecclesiological innovations ecclesiological
in Latin America prior to liberation theol- innovations
in Latin
ogy is not surprising given the context.
America prior
Johannes Meier judges that from “the
to liberation
beginning of its history the Church in theology is
Latin America entered into a close rela- not surprising
tionship with the Spanish or Portuguese given the
states.… Consequently, at least as far as context.
hierarchy and clergy were concerned, it
had a largely European countenance.”11
8. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Tratado sobre las justas causas de la guerra contra los
indios (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1987).
9. An important exception to this general observation is Bartolomé de las Casas.
His work The Only Way (1534) argues against the exploitation of native people
conquered by Spaniards.
10. Ginés de Sepúlveda, Tratado sobre las justas causas, 117.
23
11. Meier, “The Organization of the Church,” 63, 65.
Vol. 16, No. 1
Although the majority of the Americas eventually

emancipated from European colonial empires, the
Catholic Church was “the only institution carried
over from the Spanish-Portuguese colonial order to
the new, politically independent phase.”12 At a time
when the founders of the liberal states embraced sec-
ularism, the church in Latin America opted for more
traditional values that linked it to the Roman Catho-
lic Church in Europe.13
In 1955, Latin American bishops gathered
for the first time to assess the challenges
Latin American
and opportunities of the Roman Catho-
bishops
held that a lic Church in the region. They concluded
representative that the lack of clergy they were facing
of the was a “distressing problem.”14 Behind their
hierarchical preoccupations lay the idea that a repre-
institution was sentative of the hierarchical institution
necessary in was necessary in each parish in order for
each parish a community to have a legitimate church.
in order for a They developed several practical strategies
community to increase the number of clergy, but they
to have a did not see reasons to articulate a native
legitimate ecclesiology. However, the Latin American
church.
Catholic Church could no longer success-
fully fulfil its mission by only following
12. Enrique Dussel, “The Church and Emergent Nation States (1830–80),” in The
Church in Latin America 1492–1992, 105.
13. Ibid.
14. The conclusions of the Conference are found in Río de Janeiro, Medellín,
Puebla, Santo Domingo: Las 4 Conferencias Generales del Episcopado Latinoamer-
icano (Bogotá: Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano, 2004); William T. Cavanaugh,
24 “The Ecclesiologies of Medellín and the Lessons of the Base Communities,” Cross
Currents 44 (1994): 67–84.
the traditional ecclesiology from the Roman Cath-

olic Church in Europe. New contextual realities,
such as the emergence of social revolutionary cur-
rents in Latin America, demanded new theological
articulations.15
A critical point in defining the role of the church
in Latin America is found in liberation theology.
Liberation theology is a sustained reflection on the
Christian tradition in light of experiences of oppres-
sion, vulnerability, and marginalization.16 This
theology proposes that, since God sides with the
oppressed, the church should embrace a preferen-
tial option for the poor in its mission.17 Therefore,
liberation theology is concerned with “practical mea-
sures for human betterment” leading to “action for
change.”18 According to Gustavo Gutiérrez, consid-
ered the main founder of this movement, liberation
theology is “a way to understand the grace and sal-
vation of Jesus in the context of the present and from
the situation of the poor.”19 Consequently, liberation
thinkers revisited traditional theological articula-
tions such as those related to Jesus (Christology),
15. Enrique Dussel, “From the Second Vatican Council to the Present Day,” in The
Church in Latin America 1492–1992, 154. Internally, laypeople were also demand-
ing a renovation of the church. For example, “lay people demanding church
reform occupied a church in Buenos Aires in 1966, Santiago cathedral in 1968, the
churches in Lima in 1970” (ibid., 156).
16. Christopher Rowland, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002), xiii.
17. Gustavo Gutiérrez, “Quehacer teológico y experiencia eclesial,” in Panorama
de la teología latinoamericana, ed. Juan-José Tamayo and Juan Bosch (Navarra:
Verbo Divino, 2002), 241–56.
18. Rowland, Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, xiii.
19. Gustavo Gutiérrez, “The Task and Content of Liberation Theology,” in Cam-
25
bridge Companion to Liberation Theology, 19.
Vol. 16, No. 1
the Spirit (pneumatology), the future (eschatology),

and God (theology).20 Another area of theology that
has also been reworked by liberation theologians is
ecclesiology. The thinker who has contributed most
to ecclesiology from a liberation theology perspec-
tive is Leonardo Boff.
The Protestant Church

The history of the Protestant Church in Latin
America is also rich and complex. For the sake of a
better understanding of René Padilla’s ecclesiology,
I focus here on three salient features of this intricate
history: 1) Protestant churches in the region have
mainly reproduced foreign ecclesiological models;
2) the first evangelical missionaries had a specific
concern for the spiritual conversion of Latin Amer-
ican peoples; and 3) Latin American evangelicals
suffered an “identity crisis” once they realized the
limitations of their inherited ecclesiologies.
During the colonial expansion of Spain and Portu-
gal in the sixteenth century, Protestantism was
successfully controlled by the Inquisition. This insti-
tution from the Roman Catholic Church was tasked
with, among other things, combating heresy.21
Because of the Inquisition’s efforts, Protestants were
20. For examples of articulations of Christian doctrine from a liberation per-

spective, see Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino, eds., Mysterium Liberationis:
Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993).
21. Bruno Feitler, “The Inquisition in the New World,” in The Cambridge History of
26 Religions in Latin America, ed. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Paul Freston, and Stephen
C. Dove (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016), 133–42.
mainly unsuccessful in their attempts to colonize

and evangelize the Americas for almost two centu-
ries.22 However, after the British Empire defeated the
Spanish Armada in 1588, European Protestants
established colonies in a few places in the Ameri-
cas.23 During this time, Protestantism followed the
theology and structure of British, Dutch, French,
German, and Danish Protestant denominations.24
Under the emergent nations independent from
Spain, the liberal independence movements’
attempts to distance themselves from Roman Catho-
lic hegemony facilitated the arrival of several waves
of Protestants in the Americas.25 On the
whole, however, these Protestants were Early
concerned with the spiritual care of Euro- Protestants
pean immigrants, not with the evangelization in the
of nationals, and, therefore, they mainly region were
reproduced ecclesiological models from concerned
their own denominations: e.g., Lutheran, with the
Anglican, and Presbyterian. Prien observes spiritual care
that “immigrant churches in general and of European
German immigrant churches in particular… immigrants,
not with the
have had difficulty working out their iden-
evangelization
tity in the Latin American ecclesiological
of nationals.
22. Guillermo Cook, “Protestant Mission and Evangelization in Latin America: An

Interpretation,” in New Face of the Church in Latin America: Between Tradition and
Change, ed. Guillermo Cook (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994), 43.
23. These Protestant attempts are described in Sidney Rooy, Misión y encuentro de
culturas (Buenos Aires: Kairós, 2001).
24. Jean-Pierre Bastian, “Protestantism in Latin America,” in The Church in Latin
America, 315.
25. Justo González, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 34; Hans-Jürgen Prien, Christianity in Latin America
27
(Leiden: Brill, 2013), 360.
Vol. 16, No. 1
and social context, hampered by an ecclesiology

which conflated German ethnicity with Protestant-
ism.”26
The gradual end of Catholic hegemony in Latin
America also allowed several waves of missionaries
from Europe and the United States to establish them-
selves in various countries. These missionaries, who
were largely North American, arrived from the 1840s
onward.27 Míguez Bonino observes that “despite
their confessional diversity (mostly Methodists,
Presbyterians, and Baptists) and origin (North Amer-
icans and British), all shared the same theological
horizon, which can be characterized as evangelical.”28
At the time of the publication of his influ-
Most ential Faces of Latin American Protestantism,
evangelical Míguez Bonino defined evangelicals as
missionaries those who profess complete confidence in
were primarily the Bible and focus on the message of God’s
concerned with salvation for sinners through Jesus.29
the “spiritual Although some evangelical missionaries
conversion” of established dialogue with the larger Latin
people. American culture,30 most were more
26. Prien, Christianity in Latin America, 365.

27. Míguez Bonino, Faces, 27; Mike Berg and Paul Pretiz, “Five Waves of Protes-
tant Evangelization,” in New Face of the Church in Latin America, 56–67.
28. Míguez Bonino, Faces, 27 (emphasis in original).
29. Ibid., 28. Míguez Bonino follows George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and
American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism: 1870–1925
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980), 3.
30. A notable example is missionary William Cameron Townsend. See William
Lawrence Svelmoe, A New Vision for Missions: William Cameron Townsend, the
Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Culture of Early Evangelical Faith Missions,
1896–1945 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008). Other examples are
28 found in H. Fernando Bullón, Protestant Social Thought in Latin America: The
Debate on Development (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2015).
concerned with the “spiritual conversion” of peo-

ple.31 After highlighting the many positive dimensions
of evangelical Protestantism, Míguez Bonino refers
to what he deems its most vulnerable aspect at that
time: “the opposition between the material and the
spiritual, and the ‘withdrawal from the world’
which in practice leads to a dual morality and to
introverted social and political criteria.”32
This resulted in the creation of local churches that
would later experience an “identity crisis.”33 On the
one hand, they inherited theology, ecclesial struc-
tures, hymns, and liturgies that were developed in
foreign contexts. Though belonging to a distinctive
Latin American culture, these churches were limited
in their ability to address the specific problems of
their Latin American contexts. In order to respond to
this crisis, a group of evangelical thinkers founded
the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana (FTL,
Latin American Theological Fellowship) in 1970.
They sought not only to remain faithful to their evan-
gelical convictions but also to “search for elements
that can fertilize theological reflection and evangel-
ical practice for today’s Latin America.”34 Although
these thinkers have made important contributions,
they largely neglected the area of ecclesiology. René
Padilla and Tetsunao Yamamori have observed that
31. Jean-Pierre Bastian, Historia del protestantismo en América Latina (Mexico

City: CUPSA, 1990), 155–214.
32. Míguez Bonino, Faces, 46.
33. This is the judgment of Orlando E. Costas in El protestantismo en América
Latina hoy: Ensayos del camino (1972–1974) (Costa Rica: INDEF, 1975), 45.
29
34. Míguez Bonino, Faces, 49.
Vol. 16, No. 1
“an important deficiency in Latin American evangel-

ical theology has been in the area of ecclesiology.”35
Padilla has attempted to fill this gap by suggesting a
“holistic ecclesiology.”
Boff and Padilla: Review and Critique
The ecclesiological articulations offered by Boff

and Padilla attempt to respond to the history of
the church in Latin America. The Roman Catholic
Church, as portrayed above, imported a European
ecclesiology to Latin America, used the Bible (mainly
the Old Testament) to justify a violent evangeliza-
tion of the region, and placed ecclesial power almost
exclusively in the hands of the official leaders (e.g.,
priests, bishops). In response to this situation, Boff
articulates an ecclesiology from a Latin American
perspective, uses the Synoptic Gospels36 to support
the liberation of the oppressed and to empower lay-
people to engage their social realities, and attempts
to legitimize the existence of the church among lay-
people without significant intervention from church
authorities.
35. Tetsunao Yamamori and C. René Padilla, eds., The Local Church, Agent of
Transformation: An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission (Buenos Aires: Kairós, 2004),
11.
36. The Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are called “Syn-
optic” because they usually have similar stories in roughly the same order. See
Armin D. Baum, “Synoptic Problem,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed.
30 Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin, eds. (Downers Grove, IL:
IVP Academic, 2013), 911–19.
Padilla’s holistic ecclesiology seeks to respond to

the history of Protestantism in Latin America. As por-
trayed above, the Protestant church in Latin America
had a mostly European and US American counte-
nance, while evangelical missionaries focused their
efforts mainly on the spiritual dimensions of Latin
Americans. As a result, Latin American Christians
experienced an identity crisis when they realized
their inherited ecclesiologies did not respond to their
contextual needs. Without rejecting all previ-
ous models of the nature and mission of the The
church, but rather by critically appropriating ecclesiological
them, Padilla proposes that the church articulations
should influence each area of Latin Ameri- offered by Boff
can culture with the gospel. This must occur and Padilla
even as the church struggles to overcome the respond to
perceived identity crisis of Latin American the history of
the church
congregations by providing contextualized
in Latin
reflections of the New Testament about the America.
mission and nature of the church.
Leonardo Boff: Ecclesiogenesis
Leonardo Boff was born in Concordia, Brazil in

1938. He was ordained a Catholic priest and for sev-
eral decades taught ethics and religion in his native
country, where he became aware of the extreme
living conditions of the poor. In light of that experi-
ence, he proposed a reinterpretation of the Christian
31
faith from a liberation perspective. However, the
Vol. 16, No. 1
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (for-

merly the Inquisition) silenced him in 1985, citing
serious concerns about his ecclesiology and politi-
cal positions. Although he continued working with
base communities for almost a decade, the threat of
new disciplinary measures led him to resign from
the priesthood in 1992. His ecclesiology is largely
a response to the outcry of the exploited who suf-
fer under oppressive powers linked to the industrial
economy.37
His contributions were also intended to provide
formal reflections about an important ecclesiological
phenomenon within the Roman Catholic Church, the
emergence of base communities.38 These “constitute
a movement of spiritual renewal and social action
that developed from the grass-roots upwards.”39 In
such communities “lay leadership, group Bible
study, and practical efforts to improve communal life
and promote social change characterize this renewal
of Christian faith.”40 Laypeople, without significant
37. This biographical information was taken from Leonardo Boff, “Teología bajo el
signo de la transformación,” in Panorama de la teología latinoamericana, 173–80;
Luis Rivera Rodríguez, “Leonardo Boff,” in The Westminster Dictionary of Theolo-
gians, ed. Justo L. González (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 58.
38. Stefan Silber, “Los laicos somos la Iglesia: ‘Otro modo de ser Iglesia’ ya es una
realidad,” Alternativas 30 (2005): 123–46.
39. Charles E. Self, “Bewusstseinsbildung, Bekehrung und Konvergenz: Über-
legungen zu Basisgemeinden und zur aufkommenden Pfingstbewegung in
Lateinamerika,” in Pfingstbewegung und Basisgemeinden in Lateinamerika, Welt-
mission heute 39 (Hamburg: Evangelisches Missionswerk in Deutschland, 2000),
67, quoted in Prien, Christianity in Latin America, 547. Self is in turn referencing
Sergio Torres and John Eagleson, “The Challenge of Basic Christian Communities,”
Papers from the International Ecumenical Congress of Theology (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 1981), 107–118.
32 40. Self, “Bewusstseinsbildung,” quoted in Prien, Christianity in Latin America,
547–48.
interventions from the Roman Catholic hierarchical

institution, gathered together and claimed to be a
true representation of God’s church.
Historically, base communities were a response to
institutional crises in the Roman Catholic Church.
As was previously mentioned, the bishops who gath-
ered in 1955 regarded the lack of clergy in the region
as a “distressing problem,” because they thought a
representative of the hierarchical institution was nec-
essary for a community to have a legitimate church.
Laypeople, however, found a solution. They gathered
as churches (e.g., they read Scripture and celebrated
communion) without necessarily being under the
authority of a priest.
While the official Roman Catholic Church regarded
base communities as an imperfect solution to the
perceived distressing problem, Leonardo Boff
saw base communities as legitimate represen- Base
tations of the church in Latin America. He communities
described these communities as “new ecclesi- gathered as
ological experiences,” “a rebirth of the churches
church,” “the emergence of a different way of without
being church,” and “a reinvention of the necessarily
church.”41 These ecclesiological experiences being under
motivated Boff to revisit traditional ecclesi- the authority
ology. The fruit of his reflections was a new of a priest.
41. These designations are found several times in Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogenesis:
The Base Communities Reinvent the Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986). See also
Antonio Alonso, Comunidades eclesiales de base: Teología-Sociología-Pastoral
(Salamanca: Sígueme, 1970); Ronaldo Muñoz, La Iglesia en el pueblo: Hacia una
eclesiología latinoamericana (Lima: Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1983); José
33
Galea, Uma Igreja no povo e pelo povo (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1983).
Vol. 16, No. 1
ecclesiology, that is, a new set of theological reflec-

tions about the meaning, mission, and nature of the
church. Instead of the traditional view that proposes
that “the church starts from the top down: pope to
bishop to priest to brother or nun to laity,” Boff sees
the church as “the fellowship of all members; it is a
circular, participatory model.”42 He identified his
new ecclesiology using the label “ecclesiogenesis,”
which means the origin (genesis) of the church
(ekklesia).43 Boff was convinced that the organiza-
tional structure that the Roman Catholic Church had
acquired over the centuries was not a faithful repre-
sentation of the original church found in the New
Testament. In contrast, he suggested that base com-
munities with their simple structure were a true
representation of the original church.44
Boff’s articulated reflections about ecclesiology
are found in Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communi-
ties Reinvent the Church.45 An important resource
for Boff’s reflections about base communities is the
New Testament, especially the Synoptic Gospels.
42. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 46.

43. Marcello de C. Azevedo, “Basic Ecclesial Communities,” in Mysterium Liber-
ationis, 638, observes that it is almost impossible to provide a definition of base
communities because “this would go against one of their fundamental character-
istics, their flexibility and openness to change and transformation in tune with
reality and the signs of the times.” He only provides some “characteristic elements”
of base communities: 1) they foster a “Christian lifestyle that contrasts sharply with
the individualistic and selfish…style that marks…Western culture”; 2) they belong
to the visible institutional reality but are open to ecumenical dialogue; 3) “they
understand themselves as the ‘base’…with respect to the hierarchical structure of
the church” (638–39).
44. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 1–2.
34 45. Originally published as Eclesiogênese: As comunidades eclesiais de base rein-
ventam a Igreja (Petrópolis, Brazil: Vozes, 1977).
Specifically, he proposes that Jesus of Nazareth,

during his earthly ministry, never founded a church.
He suggests, instead, that the church was a later
innovation introduced by Jesus’s disciples. With
this he creates a disconnect between the historical
Jesus and the group of apostles, thereby calling into
question the historical legitimacy of the hierarchical
institution attached to the pope, while providing jus-
tification for the existence of base communities.
In what follows, I provide an analysis of this
component of Boff’s proposal. I have selected this
specific area of his thought for two reasons. The
first is that his portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth and the
early church is fundamental for his articulation of
ecclesiology. Engaging this dimension of his offering
ensures dealing with the core of his argument.46 The
second reason is that, although Boff’s proposal has
been assessed from different perspectives,47 the way
he handles the New Testament has not received due
attention.
Boff takes issue with the claim that “the church
[was] founded once and for all by Jesus” and with
the idea that “the episcopate, the priesthood, and the
46. Boff himself highlights that this component of his proposal is fundamental.
He writes: “The answer [to the question, Did Jesus will any particular institutional
framework for the church at all?] conditions the answers to all the problems that we
have been raising in this book” (Ecclesiogenesis, 46, my emphasis). He also asserts:
“the solution [to the question about the relationship of the historical Jesus to the
institutional church] will help us…base the ecclesiogenesis and reinvention of the
church as we defend it” (ibid., 47).
47. For example, Juan Sepúlveda, “Pfingstbewegung und Befreiungstheologie:
Zwei Manifestationen des Wirkens des Heiligen Geistes für die Erneuerung der
35
Kirche,” Pfingstbewegung und Basisgemeinden in Lateinamerika 39 (2000): 83.
Vol. 16, No. 1
sacraments [are] of divine institution.”48 The specific

question he asks is: “Did Jesus will any particular
institutional framework for [the church] at all?”49 He
also asks this question in the following way, “Did the
historical, pre-Easter Jesus will a church?”50 This,
Boff indicates, is a historical question and the “his-
torical response [to that question] will have
tremendous influence on the systematic
Boff proposes understanding of what the church is and
that Jesus should be.”51
of Nazareth Boff says that the church “is not a cre-
never founded ation of the time of Jesus [during his earthly
a church but ministry], but a creation of the time of the
that the church Spirit [after Easter].”52 The idea that there
was a later is continuity between Jesus’s earthly min-
innovation
istry and the church does not “correctly
introduced
reflec[t] the Gospels.”53 He sees “a breach, a
by Jesus’s
disciples. ‘rupture,’ between Jesus and the church.”54
Boff indicates that Jesus “considered

49. Ibid., 46.
50. Ibid., 47. See also, “Does the foundation of the church belong to the time of
the historical Jesus, or is it a post-Paschal phenomenon?” (49). Boff distinguishes
between the historical Jesus (i.e., pre-Easter Jesus) and the exalted Christ. The his-
torical Jesus is the human Jew who lived in Nazareth during the first century.
The exalted Christ is the (putative) theological picture of Christ that the disciples
articulated after Easter. Their religious experiences after Easter influenced their
theological ideas about Christ. However, Boff argues, the post-Easter Christ is dif-
ferent from the historical pre-Easter Jesus. For an introduction to the “historical
Jesus,” see Helen K. Bond, The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed (London:
T&T Clark, 2012).
51. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 47, 59.
52. Ibid., 49. See also, Boff, “Teología bajo el signo de la transformación,” in Pan-
orama de la teología latinoamericana, 177.
36 53. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 49.
54. Ibid.
himself sent only to Israel” because he thought that

eschatology (the end of the current world and the
inauguration of God’s kingdom) was imminent.55
Jesus, according to Boff’s view, concentrated on the
idea of the kingdom of God, and he never envisioned
the creation of the church.56 Boff claims that “there
is discontinuity, then, between the preaching of the
kingdom and the church. This discontinuity is con-
stituted by Jesus’ death on the cross.”57
For Boff, Jesus’s ministry was restricted to Israel,
since he preached God’s kingdom only to his Jew-
ish people.58 Boff depicts this kingdom as the regime
of God which will destroy current Satanic powers
and will bring the salvation of Israel.59 Although
he claims that God’s kingdom “means a new world
order, where God is all in all,”60 he argued that
Jesus’s universalism was “intensive, not extensive.”61
In other words, Jesus brought salvation for all Israel
(intensive universalism) but did not have a concern
for the Gentile world (extensive universalism): “His
preaching is actually addressed only to the Jews, and
not to a church of Jews and Gentiles. The latter was
not within the scope of his intent.”62
In light of this, Boff argues that the twelve disci-
ples were meant to “symbolize the eschatological
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 49, 54, 55.
57. Ibid., 50, 55.
58. Ibid., 56.
59. Ibid., 51, in dialogue with Rudolf Bultmann.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
37
62. Ibid.
Vol. 16, No. 1
reconstitution of the twelve tribes of Israel” and

that “the importance of the Twelve resides in being
twelve, not in being apostles.”63 Since being sent into
the world on mission is the basis of apostleship, Boff
suggests that the disciples were not sent to the world
during Jesus’s earthly ministry; “only after the resur-
rection was there mission and then the little group
was transformed into apostles.”64 This view helps
Boff explain that the discourses about mission in the
Gospels (e.g., Mt 9–10) are “those of the evangelist,”
not the words of Jesus.65 During Jesus’s earthly min-
istry, “the Twelve…stand in a relationship with all
Israel—and not with a group apart.”66
Although Jesus focused on the preaching of the
arrival of God’s kingdom for his Jewish people and
he selected disciples to represent the restoration of
Israel, Jesus’s ministry was a failure, according to
Boff: “Jesus ‘failed’ of his intent to inaugurate the
reign of God.”67 Far from converting to Jesus’s preach-
ing, the Jews crucified him.68 However, the reign of
God was personalized in Jesus after his resurrection
because “God concretized the kingdom in Jesus’
63. Ibid., 52 (emphasis in original).

64. Ibid., 52. Boff also applies this view to Peter. Boff considers that the promise
found in Matthew 16:18 (“you are ‘Rock,’ and on this rock I will build my church”),
“did not originate with Jesus” but was a later addition by the author of the Gospel
of Matthew (52–53).
65. Ibid., 52.
66. Ibid. Boff continues, “They [i.e., the Twelve] share in Christ’s task of preaching
the kingdom, but their function is that of ‘multipliers,’ to help this message reach
more parts of Israel” (emphasis mine).
38 67. Ibid., 55, see also 49, 59.
68. Ibid., 56.
person.”69 Therefore, followers of the risen Christ

become the church. The apostles, after resurrection,
are to be credited for the creation of a mission to
the Gentiles.70 Boff argues that they took inspiration
from the Holy Spirit after the resurrection but did
not find clues of a Gentile mission during Jesus’s
earthly ministry.71 Therefore, the apostles, not Jesus,
founded the church.72
Boff’s reconstruction of the origins of the church
has important implications for his larger project of
ecclesiogenesis. He proposes that the institutional
church should not function over the communities of
lay people, “monopolizing all services and powers.”73
Instead, it should function within them, “inte-
grating duties instead of accumulating them, For Boff,
respecting the various charisms and leading the church
them to the oneness of one and the same today should
body.” For Boff, faithfulness to tradition
74 be free to
means imitating the example of the apostles: innovate and
create new
“To preserve tradition means to do as the first
ecclesiological
Christians did.” In other words, the church
75
models, or
today should be free to innovate and create abandon
new ecclesiological models, or abandon pre- previous ones.
vious ones.76
69. Ibid., 55. Also see Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation The-
ology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), 76.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid. Boff also says, “The church was born of a decision of the apostles under
the impulse of the Spirit” (ibid., 58).
73. Ibid., 60.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
39
76. Ibid.
Vol. 16, No. 1
An analysis of this fundamental dimension of Boff’s

proposal (his use of the Synoptic Gospels) from an
evangelical perspective should highlight first its pos-
itive elements. The most remarkable is the idea that
laypeople can gather around God’s Word without sig-
nificant intervention from the official church. His
proposal that Christian communities should be char-
acterized by the fellowship of all members in a
participatory model and his suggestion that modern
Christian communities are free to innovate in light of
their specific contextual needs is valuable,
especially taking into account that he writes
Boff’s ideas
from within the Roman Catholic Church.
come very
These ideas come very close to the empha-
close to the
emphasis on sis on the priesthood of all believers in
the priesthood Protestant theology.
77
of all believers However, the way Boff handles the

in Protestant Gospels requires deeper analysis. On the
theology. practical side, it is very difficult to imagine
that members of base communities in Latin
America (many of them with low levels of educa-
tion and living in rural areas)78 would make a sharp
distinction between the teachings of the historical
Jesus and the teaching of the Synoptic Gospels. A
77. On this point, see Karlfried Froehlich, “Luther on Vocation,” in Harvesting

Martin Luther’s Reflections on Theology, Ethics, and the Church, ed. Timothy J.
Wengert (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 121–33. The Vatican Congregation
on Faith even denounced base communities as “Protestant.” See Erhard S. Gersten-
berger, “Latin America,” The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture, ed.
John F. A. Sawyer (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 2012), 219.
78. Andrew Dawson, “The Origins and Character of the Base Ecclesial Commu-
40 nity: A Brazilian Perspective,” in Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology,
109–128.
plain reading of these texts would certainly point

to similarities and differences between them, but
it is doubtful that such a reading would lead to the
conclusion that Jesus’s teachings during his earthly
ministry were very different from the disciples’ later
interpretations of them. It remains possible that
some scholars could lead the discussions of a base
community so that its members could reach such
conclusions. But then base communities would
require significant intervention from a new kind of
“priest,” namely, people with a special knowledge
about layers of tradition in the final form of the
Synoptic Gospels. This new “academic priesthood”
goes against the very nature of base communities,
in which all the members explore Scripture with-
out significant intervention from the official Roman
Catholic Church.
Furthermore, the way Boff handles the Gospels
elevates the interpreter to the position of authority.
In Boff’s proposal, the reader of the New Testament
seems to have the final word about which sections
of the Gospel are an accurate representation of the
historical Jesus and which are to be regarded as later
theological developments of the Evangelists. This
should not be the case. The Gospel writers likely
based their accounts on eyewitness testimony.79
79. Cf. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness
Testimony, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 7: “The Gospels were writ-
ten within living memory of the events they recount. Mark’s Gospel was written
well within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses, while the other three canon-
ical Gospels were written in the period when living eyewitnesses were becoming
scarce, exactly at the point in time when their testimony would perish with them
41
were it not put in writing.”
Vol. 16, No. 1
Take, for example, Luke 1:1–4, where the Evange-

list claims that he “investigated everything from the
beginning” in order to “write an orderly account”
that is based on the information “handed down to
us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses
and servants of the word.” This does not mean that
the Gospels are free from the interpretations of the
Evangelists. On the contrary, they provide expla-
nations of the stories about Jesus in order to elicit
faith in the reader (see Jn 20:30–31). However, they
usually signal those places where they provide
interpretations of Jesus’s teachings. For example,
Matthew usually interprets that certain events in
Jesus’s life were intended to “fulfill” Scripture. The
killing of children by Herod, for example, is inter-
preted as the fulfilment of a prophecy from Jeremiah
(Mt 2:16–18; Jer 31:15). Since there is evidence that
the Evangelists distinguished between the traditions
they were conveying and their own interpretations
at specific points in the Gospel, modern readers of
the Gospels should be cautious when attributing to
the Evangelists theological innovations elsewhere in
their texts.
Another point in Boff’s proposal that requires
close consideration is his idea that Jesus’s ministry
was exclusively focused on Judaism and that the
Gentile mission was a later innovation of the disci-
ples after the resurrection. This point is critical for
Boff because, without mission to the Gentiles, there
is no church. In other words, the church was cre-
42 ated by the disciples after the resurrection when
they encountered Jewish opposition to their gospel

and, consequently, decided to preach to Gentiles.
For Boff, this innovation (preaching to the Gen-
tiles) means that the example of the apostles should
inspire new ecclesiological models and experiments
in Latin America. By creating new ecclesiological
models, Boff argues, Christians are not betraying
early Christianity but following its example of inno-
vation in light of contextual circumstances.
There is no doubt that Jesus directed his message
primarily to Jews (see Mt 19:28). However, not all
the evidence supports the contention that the dis-
ciples’ mission to the Gentiles was only an
innovation that coexisted with Jesus’s exclusive
preaching to Jews. It makes better sense to suggest
that the disciples’ Gentile mission was somehow
shaped by Jesus’s “enduring impact” during
his earthly ministry.80
In
Judaism during Jesus’s time was divided preaching to
into several groups. On the one hand, some the Gentiles,
groups such as the Pharisees regarded them- the apostles
selves as “the righteous.” This meant that were taking
all those who did not fulfill the law on their the next
terms were regarded as “sinners.” Thus, the natural step
term “sinners” denoted “Jews who practised in continuity
their Judaism differently from the writer’s with Jesus’s
earthly
faction. They were ‘sinners’. . .but only from
ministry.
a sectarian viewpoint, and only as judged
80. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
43
2011), 98.
Vol. 16, No. 1
by the sectarians’ interpretation of the law.”81 On

the other hand, Jesus was remembered as direct-
ing his mission to “sinners” (Mk 2:17) and sharing
the table with them. He was seen by his detractors
as a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax col-
lectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19; Lk 7:34). Jesus’s
association with those regarded as “sinners” might
suggest that he saw God’s grace open to even those
deemed to be excluded from the covenant.82 It is
plausible, then, that knowledge of Jesus’s mission
led the apostles to conclude that God’s grace is not
restricted to those who fulfill the law.83 In preach-
ing to the Gentiles, the apostles were not actually
innovating and departing from Jesus’s mission, as
Boff suggests. They were taking the next natural
step in continuity with Jesus’s earthly ministry.
Furthermore, it remains plausible that Jesus actu-
ally had contact with non-Jewish people during his
earthly ministry. There is evidence that Gentiles used
to visit Jerusalem during Jesus’s time. The existence
of two warning inscriptions written in Greek to pre-
vent Gentiles from entering the inner precincts of the
Jewish temple would indicate that some non-Jews
used to visit Jerusalem.84 During Jesus’s time, Jerusa-
lem was a “metropolis of international, world-wide
significance, a great ‘attraction.’”85 This context may
81. Ibid., 100.

82. Ibid., 101.
83. Ibid., 104.
84. Martin Hengel, The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ
44 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003), 9.
85. Ibid., 11.
help explain why the “synoptic tradition presup-

poses without further ado” that Jesus was capable of
having conversations in Greek.86 We find him talking
to a captain from Capernaum, Pilate, and the Syro-
Phoenician woman, none of which presumably spoke
Aramaic. Furthermore, Galilee, the place where Jesus
carried out most of his earthly ministry, offered many
opportunities for contact with non-Jews.87 Therefore,
the portrayal of Jesus’s contact with Gentiles in the
Gospels should be taken as historically plausible
instead of only as a later theological elaboration by
the Evangelists.
In searching for an ecclesiology for the
church in Latin America, Boff used the Boff
Synoptic Gospels to articulate his proposal. contests
For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church the idea of
in Latin America has claimed that there is continuity
continuity between Jesus, the disciples, and between
Jesus, the
the Church in Rome. Therefore, the form,
disciples, and
theology, and mission of the Church in
the Church
Latin America should be a reproduction of in Rome by
the Church in Rome. Boff contests this idea attempting
by attempting to disconnect Jesus from the to disconnect
early church.88 However, as has been shown Jesus from
above, this specific, but fundamental, aspect the early
of his proposal is problematic. church.
86. Ibid., 17.

87. Ibid.
88. Elsewhere, Boff asserts, “A theology that is founded in the incarnation results
fatally in the institution, which is power; and the power is inhabited by a demon
that only wants more power.” See his “Teología bajo el signo de la transformación,”
45
175.
Vol. 16, No. 1
René Padilla: Holistic Ecclesiology
René Padilla was born in 1932 in an evangelical fam-

ily of modest financial means. In 1953 he traveled to
the United States where he completed undergradu-
ate and graduate degrees at Wheaton College. Later
he earned a PhD in New Testament from the Univer-
sity of Manchester. In 1959 he traveled throughout
Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru as the
regional secretary of the International Fellowship of
Evangelical Students. After many conversations with
university students he became aware of the need
to engage the specific contextual challenges of the
church in Latin America. Later, he presented a paper
at the First International Congress on World Evan-
gelization held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974,
where he suggested that the gospel should relate to
culture and that evangelization should be linked to
social responsibility. Since then, he has articulated a
“holistic mission” (misión integral) which seeks to be
faithful to God’s revelation in Jesus and relevant to
Latin American culture.89
Padilla is well known for proposing that the
church’s mission should be integral or holistic. This
means “a mission that maintains the unity between
justification by faith and the struggle for justice,
between faith and works, between spiritual needs
and material and physical needs, and between the
89. This biographical information is taken from C. René Padilla, “Siervo de la

46 Palabra,” in Hacia una teología evangélica latinoamericana, ed. C. René Padilla
(Miami: Caribe, 1984), 113–20.
personal and the social dimensions of the gospel.”90

His ideas are very influential among certain sec-
tors of Protestant and evangelical churches in Latin
America and beyond.
For Padilla, holistic mission is the mission of the
church oriented toward the needs of human beings,
including not only their need for God’s love but also
their need for food, protection, and dignity.91 Holistic
mission is also concerned with shaping Christians to
show solidarity with their neighbors and to pursue
justice and peace.92 Those engaged in holistic mis-
sion, Padilla argues, should seek the transformation
of every dimension of human life in order for peo-
ple to enjoy the fullness of life that God intended for
his creation.93 Padilla’s mission is holistic because it
is concerned with the spiritual and material, phys-
ical and psychological, personal and social, private
and public dimensions of people.94 For Padilla, the
gospel is intended to positively affect every area of
human life.95
90. C. René Padilla, “Evangelical Theology in Latin American Contexts,” in The

Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, ed. Timothy Larsen and Daniel J.
Treier (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007), 269.
91. C. René Padilla, “Hacia una definición de la misión integral,” en El proyecto
de Dios y las necesidades humanas: Más modelos de ministerio integral en América
Latina, ed. C. René Padilla and Tetsunao Yamamori (Buenos Aires: Kairós, 2000),
30. For a description of the historical development of the concept of “holistic mis-
sion,” see James A. Gehman, “Definición de la misión integral e implicaciones para
la hermenéutica bíblica,” Kairós 45 (2009): 109–33.
92. Padilla, “Hacia una definición de la misión integral,” 30.
93. Ibid., 31.
94. C. René Padilla, Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 1–44.
95. C. René Padilla, “Introduction: An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission,” in The
47
Local Church, Agent of Transformation, 29.
Vol. 16, No. 1
In the area of ecclesiology, Padilla uses the New

Testament to propose a church model that can serve
a holistic (integral) mission.96 Although Padilla has
shown sympathy for Boff’s ecclesiological proposal,97
I will show that there is a fundamental difference
between the ways these two scholars approach the
New Testament. First, I will review Padilla’s pro-
posal in conversation with the aforementioned
description of Boff’s approach to the Synoptic Gos-
pels, showing where they do and do not line up. I
will focus specifically on Padilla’s use of
the New Testament in his pioneering essay
Padilla uses
“An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission.”98
the New
Testament Second, I will provide some critique of
to propose a Padilla’s ideas. My criticisms of Padilla are
church model far less extensive than those I offered for
that can serve Boff as I largely agree with his proposal.
a holistic In his articulation of ecclesiology, Padilla
mission. argues for a holistic ecclesiology that has,
at its center, the fulfillment of a holistic
mission. He suggests that only a church that has
a holistic ecclesiology is able to make a positive
impact in its community and is capable of trans-
forming society. Padilla’s holistic ecclesiology has
three intertwining characteristics: 1) the confession
of Jesus as Lord, 2) discipleship in community, and
3) the priestly role of believers in relationship to the
world.
96. Padilla, Local Church, Agent, 19–49.

97. Ibid., 44. See also C. René Padilla, “La nueva eclesiología en América Latina,”
48 Boletín Teológico 18, no. 24 (1986): 201–26.
98. Padilla, Local Church, Agent, 19–49.
For Padilla, the first and fundamental characteris-

tic is commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord of all. On
the one hand, he sees this confession as tied to the
Greek version of the Old Testament, where Yahweh,
the God of the Old Testament, was referred to as
Lord. On the other hand, he also sees this confession
as a protest against the first-century Roman imperial
cult with its emphasis on the absolute authority of
the Roman emperor.99 Padilla also suggests that Jesus
himself, after the resurrection, proclaimed his lord-
ship over the world and sent his disciples to engage
humanity with the gospel (Mt 28:18–19). For Padilla,
the church that confesses that Jesus is Lord over
all creation has a mission that concerns all aspects
of life: for example, economics, politics, culture,
society, ecology, and community. For Padilla, Chris-
tology—the acknowledgment that Jesus is Lord over
all the earth—is the basis of holistic ecclesiology.100
Although both Padilla and Boff agree that the mis-
sion of the church concerns all dimensions of human
life in their particular contexts, the way they
approach the New Testament is different. On the one
hand, Boff suggests that the church was not part of
the historical Jesus’s intentions and was only a cre-
ation of the apostles after Easter. Boff further argues
that Jesus’s crucifixion demonstrated his failure in
preaching to his Jewish people and that his disciples
needed to create a church by preaching to the Gen-
tiles. On the other hand, Padilla contends that Jesus’s
99. Ibid., 22–23.

49
100. Ibid., 21–26.
Vol. 16, No. 1
commission to his disciples in Matthew 28:18–19 is

linked to his lordship over all creation: “All author-
ity in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples.” Clearly, Padilla
does not attribute the creation of the church to the
disciples but to the risen Lord who commissioned
them after the resurrection.
In his reading of the New Testament, Padilla
finds that the second characteristic of a holistic
ecclesiology is discipleship. He observes in sev-
eral New Testament texts that following
Jesus means a process of transformation
Padilla does
not attribute (Ro 10:12–15),101 so that the disciple is one
the creation of who follows Jesus’s example and obeys his
the church to teachings (Ac 2:42; Ro 6:17; Gal 1:8–9).
the disciples Based on those observations, he proposes
but to the risen that “holistic disciples” should live as
Lord. Jesus lived, i.e., by loving God, loving their
neighbors, serving others, showing solidar-
ity with the poor, and being committed to the truth
(Mk 10:43–45; Lk 14:25–33; Jn 13:35). However,
Padilla also observes in the New Testament that
discipleship is not a lonely business. He finds that
the disciple is part of a Christian community where
he or she finds God’s grace.102 For him, the holistic
church is actually a new humanity. Its testimony is
incarnational—that is, it becomes real in the world
just as God’s Word became flesh and dwelt among us
(Jn 1:14). The church embodies God’s word and is a
50 101. Ibid., 28–33.

102. Ibid., 33–43.
witness of God’s purposes for the whole of creation.

Thus, Padilla proposes that the paradigm for the
church’s mission is Jesus’s life, ministry, death, res-
urrection, and exaltation (Mt 10:22, 24–25; Ac 2:36;
1Co 15:25, 56–57; Eph 1:19–20).
Here, again, Padilla’s approach to the New Testa-
ment (in articulating ecclesiology) differs from the
one offered by Boff. The Brazilian thinker claims
that Jesus did not will a church. His earthly ministry
was a failure demonstrated by his crucifixion at the
hands of those he wanted to convert to his message.
From Boff’s perspective, Jesus was unsuccessful in
inaugurating God’s kingdom on earth. Padilla, how-
ever, sees Jesus’s life, ministry, and even his death
as paradigmatic for the church’s mission. Far from
regarding Jesus’s crucifixion as a failure, Padilla indi-
cates that it should be an important component of
the church’s message. He bases this idea on 1 Corin-
thians 1:23: “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling
block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”103
The third component of holistic ecclesiology that
Padilla finds in his reading of the New Testament is
that the Christian community plays a priestly role as
intermediary between God and the world.104 Padilla
finds that through gifts and ministries, the Holy Spirit
empowers the church to perform transformative acts
in society (1Co 12:4; Eph 4:11–12). These transfor-
mations reflect God’s purposes for human life and
for his whole creation. For Padilla, each member of
103. Ibid., 36.

51
104. Ibid., 43–49.
Vol. 16, No. 1
the church should use his or her gifts to advance the

transformation of this world. There should not be
a sharp distinction between clergy and laity. Every
Christian should be actively involved in the mission
of the church.105
This is the point where Boff’s ecclesiogenesis and
Padilla’s holistic ecclesiology intersect. Padilla and
Boff conclude that each follower of Jesus is
Padilla and empowered by the Spirit to engage in the
Boff conclude transformation of society. Therefore,
that each Padilla and Boff advocate that the mission
follower of the church is the privilege and responsi-
of Jesus is bility of every single Christian whether he
empowered by
or she is called layperson or institutional
the Spirit to
leader. This idea is congruent with the doc-
engage in the
transformation trinal stance of Protestant Reformers such
of society. as Luther and Calvin, who highlighted the
priesthood of all believers.
Padilla and Boff clearly handle the New Testa-
ment texts in different ways. Padilla finds continuity
between the historical Jesus and the church after
Easter, while Boff finds discontinuity between them.
Furthermore, Padilla approaches the Gospels in their
final form and reads them as reliable evidence for
the historical Jesus. This, I think, is the way many
lay Christians in Latin America would read the New
Testament, without making a distinction between
what Jesus taught and what the Evangelists wrote.
52
105. Ibid., 45.
At least two components of Padilla’s proposal,

however, invite deeper analysis. The first compo-
nent is his idea of discipleship. From an evangelical
perspective, I fully agree with the claim that each
Christian should imitate Jesus’s mission on earth.
Padilla helpfully provides examples of instances
where Christians should imitate Jesus as they seek
to transform society. However, it is not clear in
Padilla’s thought whether the imitation of Jesus has
theological limitations. An obvious example, which
is controversial in current Latin American ecclesi-
ology, is whether each disciple of Jesus should also
perform miraculous actions such as healings and
exorcisms. Given that Padilla’s reflections were
intended to be general and limited, this should not
be taken as a criticism of his proposal on the whole
but an invitation to further reflection in light of his
suggestive description of discipleship.
Another component of his proposal that merits fur-
ther thought has to do with the highly debated issue
about the core of New Testament theology. Scholars
have proposed various options: salvation, revelation,
God, eschatology, Christology.106 Padilla has clearly
embraced Christology as the core of the New Testa-
ment. Specifically, he has argued that the lordship of
Jesus is the center of the New Testament which pro-
vides the foundation for a holistic ecclesiology. There
is no doubt that this idea is essential in Paul’s letters
106. David Wenhan, “Appendix: Unity and Diversity in the New Testament,” in A
Theology of the New Testament, George Eldon Ladd (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1993), 684–719; Frank Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and
53
Synthetic Approach (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 34–40.
Vol. 16, No. 1
and in Revelation. However, it is not immediately

clear whether the lordship of Jesus is the cornerstone
of other New Testament texts, such as James. Again,
Padilla’s articulation of ecclesiology is restricted to
a pioneer article, and we should not demand from
him developed attention to all the dimensions of
his proposal. However, further research that follows
Padilla’s initial thought should provide more justifi-
cation for the selection of the lordship of Jesus as the
core of a Latin American ecclesiology that is based
on the New Testament.
Closely related to this last point, one should also
further consider Padilla’s implicit suggestion that
there is agreement among New Testament authors
on how the different elements that make up their
ecclesiologies fit together and that there is a unity
to New Testament ecclesiology as a whole. Padilla
finds that this apparent unity is best expressed with
the label holistic ecclesiology. However, this implicit
claim should be addressed explicitly in future devel-
opments of Padilla’s pioneering proposal. There is
unity of thought across the New Testament. How-
ever, this unity should not be considered homogeny
or stretched beyond what can be seen from the New
Testament itself.107 Likewise, while there are dimen-
sions, perspectives, and contributions from each
New Testament book on the topic of ecclesiology,
107. Frank J. Matera, New Testament Theology: Exploring Diversity and Unity (Lou-
isville: Westminster John Knox, 2007); D. A. Carson, “Unity and Diversity in the
54 New Testament: The Possibility of Systematic Theology,” in Scripture and Truth,
ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983).
this diversity should not necessarily oppose a holis-

tic ecclesiology.
The Theological Contribution

of the Gospel of John
I seek now to join the Boff-Padilla conversation by

focusing on the Gospel of John. This text is necessar-
ily omitted from Boff’s proposal due to his deliberate
endorsement of research on the historical Jesus that
focuses almost exclusively on the Synoptic
Gospels.108 The Gospel of John is also
neglected in Padilla’s holistic ecclesiology The Gospel
of John is
perhaps due to his preference for Pauline
omitted from
thought.109 Boff’s proposal
I do not attempt to use the Gospel of and neglected
John to adjudicate the relative merits of in Padilla’s
these two Latin American thinkers’ pro- holistic
posals but to enrich or advance the insights ecclesiology.
108. The texts employed by Boff are: Mt 5:39; 8:16–17, 27–30, 9:35; 10:5–6, 23;
11:5; 12:28; 13:16; 16:18–19; 18:17–18; 19:28; 21:1–14; 24:42–44, 50; 25:13; Mk
1:15; 3:14, 16, 27; 4:10; 6:7–35; 9:1, 35; 10:5–6, 31, 32; 11:11; 13:30, 32; 14:10–17;
15:24, 34; Lk 2:10; 9:21; 10:23; 11:20; 13:27; 17:21, 26–30; 22:15–19, 29, 30, 32, 34;
24:34; Ac 15:28; 24:5, 14; 1Co 15:5, 28; Rev 21:14. The only reference to the Gospel
of John is found in Boff, Ecclesiogenesis: “[Peter] guides and directs [the church]
(Jn. 21:15-17)” (52–53).
109. The texts used by Padilla in his main argument are: Mt 5:45, 48; 10:22, 24–25;
28:16–20; Mk 10:45; 10:43–45; Lk 14:25–33; Ac 1:6–8; 2:36, 41–47; 9:14, 21; 22:16;
Ro 6:17; 10:9–10; 1Co 1:2, 23; 2:2; 8:4–6; 11:23; 12:3, 4, 7–11, 28–30; 13:12; 15:25,
56–58; 2Co 4:5; 5:18–19, 21; Gal 1:8–9; 3:8; Eph 1:10, 19–22; 2:14–16; 3:18–19;
4:11–13; Php 1:27–29; 2:6–11; Col 2:6–8; 2Ti 2:22; 1Pe 5:2–3. Padilla refers to Jn
13:15; 13:35; 14:6; 20:21 (“Introduction: An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission,” 31,
55
32, 33, 35).
Vol. 16, No. 1
already found in Boff and Padilla. The main reason

for choosing the Gospel of John as a dialogue partner
is that this text offers rich resources for ecclesiology.
Several scholars have noticed that this Gospel was
written for the benefit of communities of early Chris-
tians who were living in the diaspora at the end of the
first century CE—communities which were shaping
their identities in distinction from early heresies and
apostasy.110 First, I will attempt to provide further
support to Boff’s and Padilla’s ideas on the role of
laypeople in the mission of the church and their crit-
icisms of the use of power by hierarchical structures.
Second, I seek to enrich the theological discussion
about the church’s connection to the Spirit (Boff)
and Christ (Padilla) by highlighting Johannine ideas
about divine community. Third, I hope to advance
the discussion by suggesting that the ad intra
(inward-facing) dimensions of the church’s mission
should complement Boff’s and Padilla’s emphasis on
the church’s engagement with the world.
Boff correctly stresses that the church is the fel-
lowship of all members and challenges the dominant
idea, found in the history of the Catholic Church in
Latin America, that the bishops and priests have
ecclesial power over laypeople. For him, institutional
leaders are not given preference over the laity. Each
110. Johan Ferreira, Johannine Ecclesiology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998);

R. Alan Culpepper, “The Quest for the Church in the Gospel of John,” Interpreta-
tion 63 (2009): 341–54; Andrew J. Byers, Ecclesiology and Theosis in the Gospel
of John (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017); Francis J. Moloney, “John 18:15–27: A
56 Johannine View of the Church,” in The Gospel of John: Text and Context (Leiden:
Brill, 2005), 313–29.
member of a Christian community can have access

to God and is called to serve the world. Similarly,
Padilla highlights that through gifts and ministries
the Spirit empowers each member of the church to
transform society.
These findings are further supported by the Gospel
of John. According to this text, Jesus selects a spe-
cific group of people to be his followers (Jn 1:35–51).
However, they are not established as a rigid structure
that should control the work of the Spirit and should
exercise authority over laypeople. On the contrary,
Jesus asks them to “wash one another’s feet” (Jn
13:14) in order to demonstrate that following him
means sacrificial service for the sake of others. Fur-
thermore, there are several examples in the Gospel
of John where people engage in mission to the world
without the supervision of the twelve apostles.111 A
case in point is the Samaritan woman (Jn 4). After a
private conversation in which Jesus offers her water
for eternal life (4:10, 13–14), she goes back to her
town and invites people to consider whether Jesus is
the Christ (4:29). Due to her testimony, many Samar-
itans believe in Jesus (4:39) and recognize that he
111. The diversity of people attracted to Jesus in the Gospel of John is noteworthy.
The Johannine Jesus indicates: “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all
people to myself” (12:32, emphasis added). Indeed, we find significant diversity
among the people who approach Jesus in the Gospel of John: for example, disci-
ples of John the Baptist (1:37), a true Israelite such as Nathanael (1:47), a ruler of
the Jews (3:1), a woman from Samaria (4:7), a royal official (4:46), a former blind
man (9:35), a family from the village of Bethany (11:1–3), Greek pilgrims in Jerusa-
lem (12:20), the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea (19:38), and fishermen from Galilee
(21:1–2). This is not surprising because the Word was actively involved in the
creation of everything that exists (1:3, 10), and Jesus’s mission, as portrayed in the
57
Gospel of John, concerns the whole world (3:16; 12:44–50).
Vol. 16, No. 1
is “the Savior of the world” (4:42). In this story, the

Samaritan woman engages in mission in her town
(4:28–30, 35–37)112 without the intervention or super-
vision of the apostles (4:27). The Gospel of John does
not envision a Christian community without leader-
ship. However, it stresses that the mark of Christian
leadership should be sacrificial service for the sake
of other disciples.
Boff also finds a close link between the Spirit and
the church. He argues that the disciples created the
church after Easter under the guidance of
the Spirit. Padilla, however, stresses the
The Gospel link between Christology and ecclesiology.
of John does For him, the risen Lord commanded his
not envision disciples to go into the world and engage
a Christian the spiritual and material dimensions of
community
society with the Gospel. Although earlier I
without
expressed some hesitations about Boff’s use
leadership
but stresses of the Synoptic Gospels, his emphasis on
that the mark the role of the Spirit in the church is valu-
of Christian able. Theologically, the church cannot exist
leadership independently of the Spirit (Boff) or dis-
should be connected from the risen Lord (Padilla).
sacrificial The particular theological contribution of
service. the Gospel of John to this discussion is the
claim that the community of disciples
shares in the divine community of love. On the one
hand, this Gospel indicates that the Spirit will lead
112. Further explanations of the missiological aspects of John 4 are found in

58 Teresa Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission: A Contextual Study of John 4:1–42
(Tübingen: Mohr, 1988).
the disciples in their mission to the world (Jn 14:15–

31) and that the risen Lord commanded his disciples
to engage humanity with the forgiveness of sins
(20:21–23). The Spirit allows the disciples to be sent
into the world in order to offer God’s salvation to
humanity: “‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending
you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said,
‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (20:21–22, emphasis
added). On the other hand, the disciples are more
than the instruments of the Spirit in the
world or God’s priests for their neighbors. Boff and
They are primarily members of the divine Padilla
community. This divine community begins highlighted the
with the shared loved between the Father outward-facing
and the Son (3:35; 10:17; 13:3; 14:31; 17:24, dimensions
26) and is extended to the group of disci- of church
ples. Those who embrace Jesus as the mission, which
revelation of God become united with the are also found
in John.
Father and the Son. From the perspective
of the Gospel of John, this divine commu-
nity is the foundation of the mission of Jesus’s
disciples. After his farewell discourses, Jesus prays
that “all of them may be one, Father, just as you are
in me and I am in you. May they also be in us” (17:21,
emphasis added).113 Thus, the community of disci-
ples belongs to the unique divine identity. This
implies that God cannot be properly understood
without reference to his relationship to his disciples.
113. Byers has argued that the phrase “that they may be one, as we are one” in John
17:21 “expresses an ecclesiology of divine association as the Johannine believers,
at odds with their religious heritage, are coordinated with the ‘one’ God of Israel”
59
(Ecclesiology and Theosis, 240).
Vol. 16, No. 1
In order to respond to the contextual needs of

Latin America, Boff and Padilla highlighted the ad
extra (outward-facing) dimensions of church mis-
sion. This idea is also found in the Gospel of John.
Jesus is shown praying to his Father and saying: “I
have sent them into the world” (17:18). However,
the emphasis in the Gospel of John is found in the
ad intra dimension of mission. The new command
in this Gospel is for disciples to love one another
(13:31–35). This idea is repeated three times in John
13:34–35, “Love one another” (v. 34); “you must love
one another” (v. 34); “if you love one another” (v.
35).114 In the middle of a world that is hostile to God
and his purposes (15:18), the disciples should over-
come divisions among themselves and, instead, they
should work together, united in love, for the sake
of the same world that opposes them. The result of
obeying the new command is primarily theological:
the Father himself will come and abide and make his
home with those who love each other (14:23). This
emphasis is unique to the Gospel of John. The Syn-
optic Gospels highlight love for enemies (Mt 5:44; Lk
6:27–36), but the fourth Gospel stresses the funda-
mental place of mutual love in the mission of Jesus’s
disciples for the sake of the world.
These three theological emphases found in the Gos-
pel of John have the potential to advance discussions
114. This idea is repeated again in 15:12 and 15:17 (cf. 17:26). The love motif is
prominent in the Gospel of John. For a classic study of this topic, see A. Feuillet, Le
mystère de l’amour divin dans la théologie johannique (Paris: Gabalda, 1972). For a
60 more recent treatment of this topic, see Sjef van Tilborg, Imaginative Love in John
(Leiden: Brill, 1993).
about Latin American ecclesiology. It might be the

case that the many “faces” of the Latin American
church can better fulfill their mission to the world if
they first look at each other in order to show divine
love in the midst of denominational divi-
sions. It might also be the case that in order The fourth
to overcome what some observers have Gospel
called an “ecclesiological identity crisis,”115 stresses the
the many faces of the Latin American church fundamental
should devote time and energy to engage the place of
ad intra dimensions of the church’s mis- mutual love
sion. This will not only advance the church’s in the mission
mission in the Latin American context but, of Jesus’s
ultimately, will honor the same God who disciples for
the sake of the
has extended his divine community to all
world.
those who follow Jesus.
Conclusion
In this article, I have offered an analysis of the Latin

American church’s search for ecclesiological iden-
tity. Specifically, I have attempted to demonstrate
the centrality of the New Testament in the ecclesi-
ological articulations of two influential thinkers:
Leonardo Boff and René Padilla. Although writing
from two different religious convictions, both theo-
logians are responding to the lack of ecclesiological
development in Latin America. Also, although both
61
115. See Costas, El protestantismo en América Latina hoy, 45.
Vol. 16, No. 1
arrive at similar conclusions about the role of the

church in the world, this analysis has uncovered that
they approach the biblical texts differently. In order
to enrich the Boff-Padilla conversation, I focused
on a text that is neglected in their proposals. I have
probed the theological contributions of the Gospel of
John in order to speak to the nature and mission of
the church.
The above survey of the history of the Latin Amer-
ican church has reminded us that the Bible was
largely used by some interpreters to justify violence
and oppression during the evangelization of indige-
nous peoples. Boff, however, attempted to read the
New Testament in order to liberate laypeople from
the imposition of church authorities. Similarly,
Padilla used the New Testament to emphasize the
priestly role of believers in relationship to the world.
The Gospel of John provides further support to Boff’s
and Padilla’s theological emphases on the role of lay-
people in the mission of the church by portraying
characters such as the Samaritan woman engaging
in mission without the supervision or intervention
of the twelve disciples.
The church in Latin America has had various
views about the role of its leaders. At some point,
the Roman Catholic Church concentrated almost
the totality of ecclesial power in the hands of bish-
ops and priests. Protestant leaders, however, saw
their role as primarily spiritual, i.e., preaching a
gospel of individual conversion. Boff responded to
62
that context by legitimizing the existence of base
communities, where a participatory church model

ensures that ecclesial power is distributed among the
members of the Christian community. Padilla
responded to the history of the Protestant church in
Latin America by articulating a holistic ecclesiology
that stresses the social dimensions of the church’s
mission. The Gospel of John enhances Boff’s
and Padilla’s insights by depicting Jesus in The many
the dramatic position of a servant, washing “faces” of the
his disciples’ feet and commanding them to Latin American
imitate his example of sacrificial service. church might
Today, Christianity in Latin America has better fulfill
many “faces.” Boff provided theological their mission
articulation to legitimize base commu- to the world if
they first look
nities, an important “face” of the Roman
at each other in
Catholic Church, and highlighted their order to show
role in seeking the transformation of the divine love in
world. Similarly, Padilla addressed the the middle of
evangelical “face” of Protestantism in Latin denominational
America, putting the ad extra dimension of divisions
mission in a prominent place. Their pro- and the
posals might be advanced by focusing on “ecclesiological
the Johannine emphasis on divine commu- identity crisis.”
nity. Since, according to the Gospel of John,
the successful fulfilment of the disciples’ mission in
the world is founded in their unity with the Father,
an urgent task in the mission of the Latin American
church is a dialogue among its many “faces.” This ad
intra dimension of church mission should require,
on the one hand, thoughtful interaction with the
distinctive voice of each canonical book and, on the 63
Vol. 16, No. 1
other hand, the critical appropriation of contributions

from Latin American thinkers writing from different
theological persuasions. Both Boff and Padilla have
demonstrated that a consideration of the past (the
origins of the church) has important implications for
the identity of the modern Latin American church.
While it is likely that debates about the mission
and nature of the church in Latin America will con-
tinue, appropriate approaches to the New Testament
should occupy a fundamental place in those future
debates.
64
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The Use of The New Testament in Latin American Ecclesiologies: Critique and Dialogue Between The Proposals of Leonardo Boff and René Padilla

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The Use of The New Testament in Latin American Ecclesiologies: Critique and Dialogue Between The Proposals of Leonardo Boff and René Padilla

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The Use of the New

Testament in Latin American

Carlos Raúl Sosa Siliezar

C hristianity in Latin America today has a diverse

1. This is an expanded and significantly revised version of “Ecclesiology in Latin

Vol. 16, No. 1

experienced unprecedented growth in Latin America

2. Christian Lalive d’Epinay, “The Pentecostal ‘Conquista’ in Chile,” Ecumenical

Journal of Latin American Theology

He wrote his ecclesiological proposal from a Roman

Vol. 16, No. 1

Latin American Ecclesiology

The Roman Catholic Church

6. Mario A. Rodríguez León, “Invasion and Evangelization in the Sixteenth Cen-

Journal of Latin American Theology

the gospel in the new world. Some scholars, such as

Vol. 16, No. 1

Although the majority of the Americas eventually

Journal of Latin American Theology

the traditional ecclesiology from the Roman Cath-

Vol. 16, No. 1

the Spirit (pneumatology), the future (eschatology),

The Protestant Church

20. For examples of articulations of Christian doctrine from a liberation per-

Journal of Latin American Theology

mainly unsuccessful in their attempts to colonize

22. Guillermo Cook, “Protestant Mission and Evangelization in Latin America: An

Vol. 16, No. 1

and social context, hampered by an ecclesiology

26. Prien, Christianity in Latin America, 365.

Journal of Latin American Theology

concerned with the “spiritual conversion” of peo-

31. Jean-Pierre Bastian, Historia del protestantismo en América Latina (Mexico

Vol. 16, No. 1

“an important deficiency in Latin American evangel-

Boff and Padilla: Review and Critique

The ecclesiological articulations offered by Boff

Journal of Latin American Theology

Padilla’s holistic ecclesiology seeks to respond to

Leonardo Boff: Ecclesiogenesis

Leonardo Boff was born in Concordia, Brazil in

Vol. 16, No. 1

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (for-

Journal of Latin American Theology

interventions from the Roman Catholic hierarchical

Vol. 16, No. 1

ecclesiology, that is, a new set of theological reflec-

42. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 46.

Journal of Latin American Theology

Specifically, he proposes that Jesus of Nazareth,

Vol. 16, No. 1

sacraments [are] of divine institution.”48 The specific

48. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 45.

Journal of Latin American Theology

himself sent only to Israel” because he thought that

Vol. 16, No. 1

reconstitution of the twelve tribes of Israel” and

63. Ibid., 52 (emphasis in original).

Journal of Latin American Theology

person.”69 Therefore, followers of the risen Christ

Vol. 16, No. 1

An analysis of this fundamental dimension of Boff’s

of all believers However, the way Boff handles the