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Ecuadorian doctor of New Testament, C. René Padilla,is an author and teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On top of traveling throughout Latin America with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, he has served as the secretary of publications for the Latin America Theological Fraternity. In 1976 he helped found the Kairós Foundation. Equipping Christians to live responsibly in regard to economic globalization is a driving force in Padilla’s ministry.

Q: What is the Kairós Foundation? We are a community of ministries focused on leadership formation for the local church. We built the Kairós Center where we have theological and educational conferences, marriage enrichment retreats, workshops for pastors and youth leaders, and training for family counselors. A theological education program is geared especially to lay people, both professionals and people with little formal education. Our publishing house, Ediciones Kairós, publishes books for the whole of Latin America.

We also train local churches in wholistic mission, helping them evaluate their neighborhood’s felt needs and respond according to the church’s financial and human resources. Their responses have included transforming church buildings into community centers, tutoring children, helping manual laborers buy tools, teaching unemployed women marketable skills, providing psychological and spiritual help to recovering drug addicts and feeding people—always sharing the good news in both word and action.

Q: Do you see Kairós as a response to globalization? We really have to respond to globalization locally. The negative repercussions of globalization are mainly affecting the poor, and some of the ministries that we’ve developed are linked with the problem of poverty. For instance, we encourage professionals in our theological training to become involved in alleviating poverty and wrestling with issues of justice and peace.

Q: How else is globalization evident in Argentina? Almost 5 million children and teenagers live below the poverty line. About 60 percent of the entire population lives in poverty. Argentina is a very clear example of the effects of capitalist globalization, of how corporate interests have emptied the country. We’ve seen here what happens worldwide—a transnational aristocracy of wealthy and politically powerful people emerges over and against masses of poor and deprived people who’re unable to satisfy their basic needs.

Q: Why aren’t Christians responding more to this problem? A social and political ethic is almost totally absent among us, a sad comment on Christians’ neglect of this situation. We can’t even take for granted that Christians in general agree that the questions of social and economic justice are relevant to the church in today’s world!

You can say, “Well, the kingdom of God is in the future, someday we shall see the manifestation of justice, and all we can do now is just wait.” I don’t agree with that. I believe that Jesus Christ came, and that makes a difference and should make a difference in the way we look at the world’s problems. We may not be able to solve these problems, but certainly we have to act responsibly in society. The least one would expect of people who claim to believe in a God of love and justice is an effort to articulate, in light of Scripture, a vision of a better world—a more just society, more coherent with what God intends for humankind.

Q: What role should the church play? There are no easy answers, and the church, of course, cannot solve all of the problems. I think in the whole of Latin America the church is awakening to social responsibility. Many churches are trying to find ways to respond to the problems of unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, education and lack of housing. But many of the churches themselves are very poor and need to be helped. Yet even in poverty churches can often do a great deal if they recognize that this is part of their ministry. Some of the poorest churches in Buenos Aires offer after-school help and meals to children, or cook lunch every day for the elderly who have been impoverished by the country’s economic collapse.

Certainly we can’t fulfill our role in the world unless we are aware of the issues. We have to try to exercise our influence to make sure that our witness is not just in words, but that we really show that God is a God of love and justice. Globalization has a dehumanizing form. The starting point for a Christian response is to acknowledge seriously that our life and mission are rooted in the life and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then we carry out that response with prayer in the Spirit.

Gretchen Gaither,a senior at Wheaton College, is a freelance writer focused on Latin American publishing.