You’ve probably heard that hope is the thing with feathers. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the anchor of the soul, and about a dozen other clichés we tell ourselves when life gets messy. But if you sit down with Miguel De La Torre, he might just tell you that hope is a trap.
Kinda jarring, right?
Honestly, Miguel De La Torre isn't here to make you feel comfortable. As a Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology, he has spent decades dismantling the "nice" versions of Christianity that ignore the gritty reality of the marginalized. He's an ordained Southern Baptist minister who writes about Santería. He's a former real estate mogul who walked away from a lucrative Miami business because a Bible verse about a rich young ruler bothered him too much to stay.
The Scholar Who Broke the Rules
Miguel De La Torre is a bit of a phenomenon in the academic world. Most scholars are lucky to publish five or six books in a career. He has published over 50. In 2021, he did something no one else has: he swept the two most prestigious awards in his field—the Martin E. Marty Public Understanding of Religion Award and the Excellence in Teaching Award.
He didn't get there by playing it safe.
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Born in Cuba just months before the revolution, his family fled to New York as refugees when he was an infant. Growing up in a household where Catholic rituals and Santería coexisted, he learned early on that religion isn't just a set of dry doctrines. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s a way to find "la lucha"—the struggle—and navigate a world that wasn't built for you.
Why Miguel De La Torre Wants You to Give Up on Hope
One of his most provocative ideas is found in his book Embracing Hopelessness. It sounds bleak, but stick with me. De La Torre argues that for the truly oppressed—the people dying in the desert or stuck in cycles of systemic poverty—"hope" is often a sedative.
It’s a way for the people in power to say, "Don't worry, things will get better eventually," while doing nothing to change the status quo.
Basically, he thinks hope is a middle-class luxury.
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When you lose hope, you’re left with desperation. And desperation? That’s what actually moves people to act. He points to the "badass" characters in the Bible—people like the Hebrew midwives who lied to Pharaoh to save babies. They didn't wait around hoping for a miracle; they risked their lives to make one happen.
The "Badass" Gospel and Decolonizing Faith
If you’ve read his recent trilogy, which includes Burying White Privilege and Decolonizing Christianity, you know he doesn't mince words. He’s calling for a "Badass Christianity" that rejects the "white, Eurocentric Jesus" who has been used to justify colonization and oppression for centuries.
He's been known to say things that make traditionalists squirm. He’s argued that:
- The arc of the moral universe doesn't just "bend toward justice" on its own; we have to be the ones to bend it.
- Traditional "Euro-Christianity" is often more about maintaining power and privilege than following the actual teachings of Jesus.
- True ethics often requires "ethically cheating" or breaking the rules of a rigged system to ensure the survival of the poor.
It’s a heavy perspective. But for Miguel De La Torre, it’s the only honest one. He’s not interested in a faith that only works when the sun is shining. He wants a faith that can survive a Tuesday in a detention center or a Friday in a food line.
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What Most People Get Wrong About His Work
People see the titles like Liberating Sex or The Politics of Jesús and assume he’s just a political firebrand. That’s a bit of a surface-level take. At his core, he’s a historian and a social scientist. He looks at how power flows through religious language.
He’s also deeply personal. Even though he’s a high-level academic, he still writes "autofiction" and screenplays. He wrote the documentary Trails of Hope and Terror, which explores the immigration crisis through the eyes of those actually crossing the border. He’s not just sitting in an ivory tower in Denver; he’s taking students to the borders and the margins to see what "social ethics" looks like when there isn't enough water to go around.
By 2026, his influence has only grown as the conversation around "decolonizing" everything—from our bookshelves to our beliefs—has hit the mainstream. His latest projects, including work on the liberative theology of José Martí, continue to push the idea that religion should be a tool for liberation, not a leash.
Next Steps for Engaging with These Ideas
If you're ready to look at social justice and faith through a different lens, you don't have to start with a 500-page textbook.
- Audit your own "Hope": Ask yourself if your optimism is based on a belief that things will "just work out," or if it’s backed up by action. If the situation is truly hopeless, what would you do differently today?
- Read from the Margins: Pick up Reading the Bible from the Margins. It’s a classic for a reason. It teaches you how to read familiar stories from the perspective of the outsider rather than the person in power.
- Explore "La Lucha": Think about the areas in your own life or community where you are "struggling." Instead of trying to escape the struggle, look for the spiritual or ethical lessons hidden inside it.
- Check out the Film: Watch Trails of Hope and Terror. It’s a raw look at the human cost of policy and a great introduction to how De La Torre blends scholarship with activism.
The goal isn't necessarily to agree with every radical point he makes. It's to stop settling for easy answers. Miguel De La Torre reminds us that if our ethics don't cost us something, they might not be ethics at all.