Ruth Padilla DeBorst

Ruth Padilla DeBorst is a Latin American evangelical theologian affiliated with the Latin American Theological Fellowship and based in Costa Rica.

Biography Padilla DeBorst was born in Colombia as the eldest daughter of an American mother, Catharine Feser Padilla, and an Ecuadorian father, the theologian René Padilla. She attended high school and university in Argentina, receiving her B.Ed. at the Instituto Nacional Superior en Lenguas Vivas in 1984, an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College in 1987, and a PhD in theology from Boston University in 2016, under the supervision of Dana L. Robert. She is known for being an advocate of integral mission, an evangelical form of liberation theology. She currently lives with her second husband, James Padilla DeBorst, as members of Casa Adobe, an intentional Christian Community in Santo Domingo, Heredia, Costa Rica. They both serve with A Rocha Costa Rica, INFEMIT (The International Fellowship for Mission as Transformation), and the Comunidad de Estudios Teológicos Interdisciplinarios.

In Fall 2022, Padilla DeBorst joined the faculty of Western Theological Seminary as the Richard C. Oudersluys Associate Professor of World Christianity.

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