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KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia-Pastor Luis L. Pantoja, Jr., 63, an early professor at Criswell College, died Sept. 6 after suffering a heart attack while attending a spiritual retreat in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Southern Baptist leader Richard Land called Pantoja “one of the most important leaders of Evangelicalism in all of Asia.”
A private service is planned for the family, followed by a memorial service at Greenhills Christian Fellowship in Pasig City, Philippines, where Pantoja served as pastor of the largest evangelical church. Survivors include his wife, Liwayway Pantoja, son Calvin Wesley Pantoja and his wife, Sharon, two granddaughters, and brothers Luis Daniel, Noel, Joshua and Benjamin; and sisters Lucy Pantoja, Linda Talaguit, Edna Pantoja, Beulah Hobson. The elder son Luel preceded his father in death in 1989.
In lieu of flowers, friends and families are asked to contribute to the Luis Pantoja Foundation which will be established to support biblical and theological scholars in various evangelical academic institutions.
Land, who serves as president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and a trustee of Criswell College, grieved the loss of “a truly gifted and dedicated servant of our Savior,” having taught at the same time as Pantoja at the Dallas-based school.
In addition to being born 15 days apart, Land shared many experiences in common with Pantoja. “We were both doctoral students struggling to juggle dissertation writing, teaching, and parenting young children at the same time during those busy years while contemporaries at the fledgling Criswell College in the mid to late ’70s,” he told the TEXAN.
“Luis was a delightful colleague, always full of good humor, and a ready laugh.” Land recalled the manner in which the Pantojas bore the heartache of the death of their eldest son, Luel, from a brain tumor “with grace and faith.”
ERLC Vice President for Public Policy and Research Barrett Duke described Pantoja as “one of my favorite professors and mentors who also quickly became a good friend.”
“A loving husband and father in the home, a spirited competitor on the racquetball court, and a rigorous intellectual in the classroom, Luis showed me what a full and balanced Christian life looked like. His passion for Jesus, godly life, and dedicated mind have deeply impacted me through the ensuing decades,” Duke added. “The power of his life and ministry lives on through each person he has so indelibly touched.”
As senior pastor in retirement of Greenhills Christian Fellowship in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, one of the fastest-growing commercial centers in the Philippines, Pantoja kept missions before the largest Filipino congregation, establishing 15 satellites, then launching a church in Toronto in 2007 and in Vancouver earlier this year. Begun in San Juan in 1978 by leaders of the Conservative Baptist Association, the main campus of the church now meets in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, and has over 7,000 worshippers. Pantoja became pastor there in 1993.
After receiving his B.Th. from Febias College in Manila, Pantoja completed the M.Div. at Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, and both the S.T.M. and Th.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary. In addition to teaching theology at Criswell College, Pantoja was dean of admissions and records. He served as an adjunct professor of Northwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Vancouver, pastored Grace International Baptist Church in Vancouver, Filipino-American Baptist Church in Dallas and Immanuel Baptist Church in Laguna, Philippines. He served as president of the Conservative Baptist Association of the Philippines from 1997-2005.
He wrote Wisdom for the Whys: Messages on Ecclesiastes, co-edited Scattered: The Filipino Global Presence and We Believe, a collection of sermons on Baptist doctrine published by Criswell College on the Baptist Faith & Message, edited The Church at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of W. A. Criswell, and served as a contributing editor of the Believers’ Study Bible.
Pantoja chaired the Philippine Evangelical Theological Research Association since 1996 and was a member of the International Board of Directors for Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Pantoja
