My Story
Connecting the dots, poco a poco.
Roberto has always been a reluctant leader. A spirit of collaboration and togetherness is the way forward, but society doesn’t always value this.
Born in the mid-1970s, Dr. Roberto grew up in the piney woods of Longview, TX before relocating to San Antonio for their formative years. Having been involved in Texas Baptist churches during young adulthood, he sensed a calling toward the work of the church, but because of the theology of the Southern Baptist Church, they were denied time and time again. In response to the exclusion they experienced, Dr. Roberto began voraciously reading and becoming enthralled with theology.
Brushes with death and life’s biggest questions
Despite suffering a brain aneurysm at age 16, the summer before their senior year in high school, and surviving two full emergency craniotomies, Roberto finished high school on time. He headed off to college in West Texas on a music scholarship but found he had trouble putting down his theology books. He fell in love with the big questions of life and gave up the music scholarship to study philosophy and theology. They transferred to Hardin-Simmons University and became a student at Logsdon School of Theology. There they found kindred spirits in two faculty members as they began their journey to becoming a theologian and ethicist.
An unfolding identity
Having been born to a Mexican woman and an Anglo father, Roberto has always negotiated the in-between spaces. This became especially important during their college years as they navigated being mixed-raced Latinx, queer, and gender nonconforming.
Roberto left Texas in 2001 to study theology and ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary with Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, a Latin American Feminist Theologian. During this time in seminary graduate school, Roberto had multiple coming-outs: queer, Trans, and Latinx. Roberto discovered how the plurality of gender, sexuality, and race called them into being in Chicago. They cut their teeth on radical queer politics and began asking why the LGB(T) movement was so white?
Finding a place to live their calling
Still the reluctant leader, Roberto began working in the anti-violence movement and later, working with crime victims for the Illinois Attorney General. During this three-year break from graduate school prior to doctoral studies, Roberto learned firsthand how pervasive injustice is and began to see clearly that it’s “the water in which we swim.”
By this time in the mid-2000s, Roberto had left the church because of queer and Trans phobia, but still felt that their call in life was to the vocation of theologian. Roberto left their job at the Attorney General’s Office and relocated to study at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, to earn a Ph.D. in Theology and Ethics.
Moving to Colorado was a breath of fresh air, reinforced by the opportunity to study with amazing scholars. The faculty there were inspiring to Roberto because of their pedagogical approaches and interpersonal interactions. He experienced an open invitation to collaboration and togetherness. Roberto began to conceive of social change using the study of religion as a primary tool for envisioning a better world.
Settling into leadership
Roberto finished their Ph.D. in 2015 and moved to the Bay Area to teach in Berkeley, CA. After the 2016 presidential election, Roberto moved home to the American South and launched their academic scholarship as a collaborative project: The Activist Theology Project.
The project later became known as "Our Collective Becoming” and is a collaborative project dedicated to social healing and rooted in public theology initiatives. It used storytelling as the primary method for social change.
Still deeply shaped by the American South, Roberto was forced to leave this region in 2023 for lack of safety. Having relocated to a sanctuary state, and still a reluctant leader, Roberto is seeking to live a life dedicated to prophetic imagination in all they do. He is ordained in the Baptist tradition.
Roberto is a non-binary trans guy. You may see him referenced by his old name on the internet or on podcasts and books. Please use his current name Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza moving forward. Thank you! For more details about their story, watch their TEDx talk.