NATIONAL HISPANIC
HERITAGE MONTH
In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Redeemer East Harlem will highlight the life and ministry of key Hispanic Christian leaders who are important to Hispanic and Hispanic American history.
The following resources are a mere sample of many Hispanic leaders, theologians, and historians. Our hope is to encourage you to learn the many ways Hispanic Christian leaders are shaping our church today.
Get to know Hispanic Christian Theologians & Leaders (there are many who could be included, so please seek out more!): ​
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​Orlando E. Costas (Born 1942 - Died 1987) Costas became a major figure in the Latin American Theological Fellowship and the Lausanne movement, advocating for a holistic mission that brought together evangelism with social activism. In 1976, he completed his Th.D. at the Free University of Amsterdam, writing on "Theology of the Crossroads in Contemporary Latin America: Missiology in Mainline Protestantism, 1969-1974" under Johannes Verkuyl. He later taught at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Theological School.
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Article by Pastor Justin that centers the work of Costas: "We Need Conversion"
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The Church and Its Mission: A Shattering Critique from the Third World
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C. René Padilla (Born 1932 – Died 2021) was an Ecuadorian evangelical theologian and missiologist known for coining the term misión integral (Integral/holistic mission) in the 1970s to articulate Christianity's dual priority in evangelism and social activism. He popularized this term in Latin American evangelicalism through the Latin American Theological Fellowship and through the global evangelical Lausanne Conference of 1974.
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​Manuel Ortiz (Born 1938 - Died 2017) was a Puerto Rican, East Harlemite who became a pastor, professor, and writer. Ortiz was best known for teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary for 20 years. He was also known for planting and pastoring the urban and multiethnic congregation Spirit and Truth Fellowship, a multiethnic church in Philadelphia. Ortiz had a lifelong passion for urban ministry and was involved in founding several churches and schools in Puerto Rico, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
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​Justo L. González (Born 1937 - present) is a retired Cuban-American historical theologian. He is the author of the three-volume History of Christian Thought and is considered an influential contributor to Latin American Theology. Gonzalez attended United Seminary in Cuba and also attended Yale University, where he became the youngest to be awarded the historical theology doctorate. Over the past thirty years, he has focused on developing programs for the theological education of Hispanics, and he has received four honorary doctorates.
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Alexia Salvatierra is a Lutheran Pastor with over 35 years of experience in community ministry, including church-based service and community development programs, congregational and community organizing, and legislative advocacy. She has been a national leader working in areas of poverty and immigration for over 20 years, including co-founding the national Evangelical Immigration Table (a broad coalition of moderate and conservative evangelical leaders and institutions advocating for immigration reform). Salvatierra founded multiple programs and organizations, in the US and overseas. These included a gang prevention program for at-risk immigrant youth in Fresno, a community computer center, an intergenerational community garden where the elderly taught at-risk youth to grow produce in Oakland, homeless leaders and congregation members providing emergency services in the streets of Santa Cruz, and migrant farmworker camps in Watsonville. She is currently working as Assistant Professor of Integral Mission and Global Transformation at Fuller Theological Seminary.
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Eldin Villafane (Born 1940 - present) is a Puerto Rican, lifelong community advocate, social ethicist, passionate teacher of social justice, and writer. Dr. Villafane has served as director of Gordon-Conwell’s Campus for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME) in Boston and then served as the Associate Dean for Urban and Multicultural Affairs. He spent his time there preparing the school and church leadership for the ever-increasing urban and multicultural world. He served as the Minister of Education at Iglesia Cristiana Juan 3:16 in the Bronx and was the founder and president of La Comunidad of Hispanic American Scholars of Theology and Religion. He was recently named one of the “Top Hispanic Evangelical Scholars” by the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and received an Esperanza Spirit lifetime Award for “outstanding and dedicated ministerial service.” His areas of expertise are Hispanic Studies, Urban Ministries, Pentecostalism, and Justice. He continues to be active in areas that involve civic engagement, church, academic boards, and committees.
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​Elizabeth Hernandez, D.Min. is the co-founder of The Place of Refuge. From 2004 to 2015, she served as our agency’s first Executive Director. Alongside other local faith-leaders, she served until 2016 as a member of the Faith-Advisory Board for the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. She remains active through her writing, training and by continuing to share her invaluable wisdom on organizational leadership and counseling survivors of trauma as a consultant for numerous urban faith-based organizations, including Refuge.
Dr. Hernandez was the 2010 Orlando E. Costas Holistic Ministries with Compassion Award recipient from Palmer Theological Seminary for her success in making a difference in the lives of many in the mental health field.
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Osvaldo Padilla is an evangelical New Testament scholar. Born in the Dominican Republic, he immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. He has a B.A. from the Moody Bible Institute, an M.A. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from the University of Aberdeen. He was the Assistant Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is now Assistant Professor of New Testament at Beeson Divinity School.
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David E. Briones (PhD, Durham) is associate professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia)
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Leopoldo A. Sánchez M. (PhD, Concordia) is the Werner R. H. and Elizabeth R. Krause Professor of Hispanic Ministries, professor of systematic theology, and director of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.
Christine A. Colón (PhD, University of California at Davis) is professor of English at Wheaton College.