Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre

Born in Cuba months before the Castro Revolution, Miguel A. De La Torre and his family came to the United States as refugees when he was six months old. For a while the U.S. government considered him an “illegal immigrant” asking him to "self-deport" in 1960. He attended Blessed Sacrament School in Queens, New York and was baptized and confirmed by the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, his parents were devotees and priest/priestess of the religion Santería. De La Torre's early childhood was marked by a spiritual hybridity based on his Catholic and Santería faiths and up-bringing. He left Queens, moving to Miami, Florida in his teens.

At the age of ninetee

In his early twenties he became a “born-again” Christian and joined University Baptist Church in Coral Gables, Florida. His real estate firm was a financial success; however, De La Torre dissolved the thirteen-year-old company and attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in order to obtain a Masters in Divinity. During his seminary training he served as pastor to a rural congregation, Goshen Baptist Church in Glen Dean, Kentucky.

De La Torre continued his theological training and obtained a doctorate from Temple University in social ethics. The focus of his academic pursuit has been ethics within contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class, and gender oppression.

De La Torre taught Christian Ethics atHope College in Holland, MI from 1999 to 2005. In 2005 he wrote a column for the local newspaper, The Holland Sentinel, titled “When the Bible is Used for Hatred.” The article was a satirical piece commenting on Focus on the Family's James Dobson outing of SpongeBob Square Pants. A few days later, Mr. Dobson responded to the article. Due to various circumstances arising from the encounter, Dr. De La Torre resigned his tenure. Since then, he has been serving as the Professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

Since obtaining his doc