Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning, everyone.
Happy New Year. It is good to see you all in this room again.
I'm Thais Carter. I'm a member of the adult education committee.
And it is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the start of our series for January, which we've been doing a few years now, which is our journeys of faith.
And every January, we have the distinct pleasure of getting to hear stories, testimonies from people within our congregation and within our community.
Part of what I love about this series is, you know, I think oftentimes when we kind of have this, like, big concept of, like, the communion of saints, it feels like all of these people who have gone before, which is really important.
But I think it also means the people who we get to do life with and community with today.
And one of the real gifts of the series as it's set up this month is not only is it intergenerational in that we will have members of both the youth ministry and our adult ed stalwarts in the room together, but we'll also hear stories from across generations. I think the working tagline is the greatest generation through Gen Z. But part of what I love is that it's a reminder that there's a lot to learn, both from people who have lived a lot of life and people who have a lot of life happening at them right now.
And so it's going to be a really wonderful month, and I hope that you join us for as much of it as you can.
But today, to kick things off, we have Felipe Paz. If you have been here in any capacity over the last few years, Felipe is a familiar face.
He is a minor celebrity in my home.
Our boys love Felipe, but he is a recent graduate of Princeton Seminary and somebody who has done an incredible amount of work supporting the youth in this community. And so I'm so excited to hear from Felipe this morning. But before we turn things over, please join me in a word of prayer.
God, we are grateful that at the start of a new year, we begin with stories, stories of your faithfulness to us, your faithfulness to this community, and the ways that you are continuing to encourage us to live a life rooted in faith and justice and relationship. God, we thank you for Felipe and his ministry and his witness, and for the story that we get to hear this morning. In your name we pray.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Amen.
Thank you, Thais. Good morning, everyone.
I want to start by saying thank you to all of you, especially the youth.
Hey, Bailey, your kids are awesome. They're all wonderful, wonderful kids.
I've Learned a lot from all of them. And it's truly, truly a privilege to see them grow up, hear their questions and just try to be with them and hear the things they're encountering and how it's different from when I grew up and maybe from when you guys grew up.
I also want to say thank you to all the pastors and all the staff and all the people that make this church run. It's quite an operation sometimes, and the things that happen behind scenes are very, very wonderful. So thank you. Thank you all for this. Thank you to the community, for people that have welcomed me.
I've been helped and supported and encouraged through this church and this community, and I'm really, really thankful for all of that.
And it's an honor to be able to share, because I remember last year, the professors and community members and people that share, and I'm like, wow, I'm not that important or special. I really haven't done much.
But thank you for the opportunity and the responsibility.
So, to start, I want to.
I want to share about two figures. I'm not necessarily going to say a lot. I mean, I'm going to talk about my journey, but thinking about a journey, I feel about. I think about people that guide you through the journey and that are there with you. And these two figures are two of the most important, kind of like guiding people for me so far.
The woman over here, Dr. Karen Heller, she was my first ever theology professor, if you're not counting my mom or my grandma.
I love her. I learned so much from her, and she was incredible.
She is incredible.
The second person is Camilo Torres.
He was a Colombian priest who died in a confrontation with the Colombian army in the 60s.
I did not meet him, unfortunately, but I've been learning a lot from him lately.
It's also very interesting that both of them are Catholic, and I know we're in a room full of Presbyterians. So I was like, this will be really, really interesting to bring out two Catholic figures.
And both of them have been very important for my formation and my journey.
There's way more people that I would love to highlight, family, professors, friends.
But I think for the idea of a journey of faith, they have been very significant.
I also think that faith is a communal process.
My faith has been nurtured by the people that I'm with, by the voices that I have listened to, the education, the knowledge and all the other things that I have received, and the kind of short experience that I have gained in my few years that I've been alive.
So I think we're all in this journey together and we're all trying to make meaning of Jesus, of God's ministry and truly what it means to be alive in this world.
So for me, that has started not too long ago, I think 1997. I was born in Bogota, Colombia.
My mom is a single mom who raised me with the help of my grandparents until I was around 8 or 9.
My grandparents moved here to the United States.
So my mom and I just stay bike in Colombia.
I grew up in a Christian environment.
This is also interesting. Colombia is a very Catholic country.
Very, very Catholic.
We were not Catholic. We were sort of kind of evangelicals.
I wasn't very aware of what that meant or what it means right now, but that was like my family's faith at that point, from, I think, 1997 to probably 2014.
That was not really kind of like my faith. This was just something I was doing with my family. We'll go to church.
My mom worked at church for many years.
My grandparents work at a different church.
My cousins play in the worship team.
It was kind of like a family business.
So it was just part of that environment.
I also went to a Presbyterian school, which is really interesting because it was not so much a religious school.
It was more like name and history, because it was founded by a Presbyterian mission long, long time ago in Bogota. But I didn't learn anything about Presbyterian faith or Presbyterian tradition at that school. My education was awesome. I enjoyed learning those 12 years I was there. That's a long time to be in a single campus.
But that's just how we do things in Colombia. You just move around the school. You don't jump from one school to another. So I was there for a long time, and I was ready to graduate.
And that happened in 2014. I was done with high school. I think I was 16.
We don't have 12th grade in Colombia. So you do 11th grade and then you're out to college.
And that's a fun time for me.
I started college at the National University of Columbia, and I was majoring in sociology, and was during this time that I encountered Camilo Torres.
These are different murals that were painted in different areas of the university.
The biggest one is this one, where this is the library, the main library, and it's located in, like, a giant plaza. The National University is one of the biggest locations, or like that location is one of the biggest one.
And you will see that all the time. Like, I saw this picture and this kind of murals for, like, two years every Time I walked into the university, I'll just pass it, go to my sociology classes, and I knew who Camilo Torres was. He's kind of, like, well known.
It's not the way I will describe him, but his reputation is known. And outside of the university and some small circles of priests in Colombia, he's not a good figure.
People look at him and say, he is not someone you should look up to. He was a priest. He ended up fighting against the Colombian government.
He joined guerrilla in the 60s, a guerrilla that to this day still operating and is very, very detrimental to the country, to the region.
So his figure is very problematic to this day.
I knew that when I was studying and I just passed by, and it was kind of like, oh, well, he's there. He's famous at the university.
This is also right next to his picture here.
There is a giant face of Che Guevara. This plaza is known as Plaza Che.
But at this university, because it's public, he's a hero. He's a figure in Che Guevara. He's also someone who most people from the left and most people studying humanities know who they are. The other side of the university, where all the hard sciences are, engineering, medicine, physics, they don't have any murals or pictures of any of these people. It's only. Only on the other side, which is very interesting.
So one thing that I was always very curious, especially with this graffiti or mural, is the transition, because here you can see Camilo as a priest, then he goes into more of an activist, and then you see him as a fighter, as a guerrillaro.
Back then, in 2014, 2015, I was very curious about this transition and that space, that gap in between these two roles of priest and guerrilligero. I was like, I don't understand how, like, a priest will end up fighting the government. Like, in my head, priests are more like religious figures. They're not really fighting anyone.
So that was very interesting to me, that space. And I was just kind of, like, curious. But I passed it, and I was studying sociology. So we were learning about Colombian society, the world, modernity, all these really, really good things.
There's two years of a really good education that I'm extremely thankful for.
I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for those two years there learning.
And during those two years, I was also.
I had the opportunity to start exploring my faith in sociology.
There is always kind of like, this scientific understanding of religion.
There is no place for faith in this kind of, like, scientific understanding. And the way they talk about religion is very kind of like, well, it's made up and, you know, like, people are trying to find meaning, and it's been used to control other people.
And I was kind of like, I actually agree with this. Like, I see the point. But at the same time, that was not my experience with my family. That was not my experience growing up with a church community.
And I was curious because I felt that there was something powerful about religion. And looking at this mural every day, I was like, there's no way a priest is going to end up being a guerrillero if there is no relationship between sociology and theology.
But I was like, I don't know.
We'll find out, I guess.
And in my upbringing, I knew, and it was very important for my family to make sure I understood that loving one's enemy and loving everyone and being in community with those who suffer was very important for us. And in Colombia, we had this very immediate relationship with, like, violence and very problematic things that affect most communities.
So growing up, I saw my family trying to live this out. My grandparents, they help with this ministry that had lunch and breakfast, I think, for homeless people in Colombia for many years. And they were constantly going out.
And I remember grandpa sometimes would just find someone in the street and be like, hey, you want to come home? And we have a meal for you. And I remember kind of like my mom being like, who's this person that's at home? And it's kind of like, oh, grandpa just found him in the street and things like that. I remember hearing about my mom doing some missionary work in a remote area.
And we were very connected with missionaries here in the United States because my uncle marry one of their daughters. So it was part of the family relationship.
And through that relationship here in. Oops, sorry.
In 2015, I was able to come here to the United States for the first time.
I came here to visit my grandparents and my uncle and my cousins, and it was a very lovely opportunity. Was the first time I saw snow, and that blew my mind. I was like, yes, I'm in. I want that for sure.
We were in Washington, in Yakima. That's where they live. And it was like an awesome time. I was like, yes, I'm in fast forward. In 2017, I moved to the United States to continue my education, to keep majoring in sociology. So I transferred to Whitworth University University.
And from 2017 to 2020 is when Karen Heller comes into my journey.
I learned so much from her.
There were a lot of Things that I was learning that now looking back, I'm like, oh, my goodness.
She was giving me, giving all of us a lot of information that is crucial to the way I see the world now.
She used to say during class she had like three PhDs.
She is the most devoted person I know.
And she will say, squeeze me like a lemon and she'll say it. She was like, I have so much knowledge that I want to share with you guys that, like, please ask me questions. I'm happy to share.
And I really, really appreciate all the things I was able to learn from her.
Like I said, she was my first theology professor.
This was my introduction to formal theology, biblical studies, text criticism, Hebrew, Greek, gender studies, feminism.
And she opened up a whole world of interpretation that I didn't know was possible.
Like I said, my faith was not really something that I explore on my own growing up, but she showed me a way of doing theology and reading the Bible that I was like, oh, my goodness, this is really, really interesting.
And this was something that for me was just a requirement because when you transfer, you don't pick your first semester classes. They pick those classes for you and Whitworth.
You have to take one theology, biblical class. Related.
And they signed me up for Gospel of Luke.
So I end up. That's how I ended up in her class.
I did not pick this by any means.
And this was also like the.
This was my first semester.
So it was a crazy time to try to figure out how to do class in English, how to be an immigrant, how to be an international student.
So there was a lot going on for me that semester.
And her class was next level.
Like I said, she was giving us Hebrew, Greek, different interpretations.
It was not an introductory class, even though you can take it as an introductory class. But she was not teaching it like that.
I thought I was struggling that semester.
So she sent me an email and she said, can you please come over? I want to talk to you about a minor and just see how you're doing in class.
To be honest with you, I had no idea what a minor was.
And because Columbia culture, you respect your elders.
So I said, of course I'm going to go there.
I don't really remember much of our conversation.
I do know that by the end of it, I had signed off to do a minor in theology, women theology and gender studies.
I was like, sure, I don't really know what this is.
No idea, no idea.
And that was from 2017 to 2020.
I was able to learn about theology in a way that I really didn't know was a thing.
And it was very.
It was a nice, nice way to kind of like, transition through college for me because I ended up double majoring in theology and sociology. But because I had so many transfer credits for my previous two years, I was able to take just theology classes for a long time. And I didn't know you have to take them in order.
So I was just taking the stuff that she told me, you have to take this.
And it was all the classes that she was teaching.
So I was her student for a long time.
And then at the end my senior year, I had to take, like, Intro to Theology and like, Old Testament and New Testament. And I was like, oh, this.
It was.
It worked out.
And I was. I was having a really good time at college. It really felt like summer camp, which is interesting. Coming from Colombia was a different set of experiences for me.
And right at the end, 2020, I think we all know how it was a challenging year for all of us.
I graduated well, graduated. We didn't have a graduation, and I was done with my studies. So I had to either go to Colombia or keep studying or working. So I got a permit, I got a job or applied for a job.
And there's only. I only applied for one place because that was the only thing that was open.
And they said, yeah, we'll take you.
And it was with a Christian ministry working in Lake Tahoe, California.
And they offer me a ski pass.
They were like, we'll pay you. We will help you out with your visa process. And you also get this ski pass for one of the best resorts in the country. And I was like, yes, I'm in.
No questions asked. Which, looking back, not great. I should have asked more questions.
But the theology and the learning that I was able to acquire during those years, including the year of 2020-2021, helped me see that there is a connection between theology and sociology.
And that's where the figure of Camilo Torres kind of like, came back to me in a way of like, oh, I think I see why he did what he did. I understand that faith now. Or I think I'm trying to understand that faith, because with Dr. Heller, we learn about queer theology, we learn about feminist lines of interpretation.
We talk about how white supremacy has influenced theology, how racism has influenced theology and the world, sexism, xenophobia, and so forth. Like, we learned all of this in my undergrad, and those were things that I was seeing already in sociology. That's kind of like what you talk about, because you're studying the world and you see the problems in the society. You talk about poverty, you. You talk about class, you talk about gender.
But I saw the connections between all of that talk and how you can live a faithful life and follow Christ. And I was like, oh, interesting.
I didn't super know that back then. I was kind of like, the thought was kind of forming.
And then in 2021, I ended up in two different seminaries.
Before I came here, I went to Fuller for a short while because again, international student complications. I had to be in school before I can transfer here.
And I somehow was already enrolled at Fuller because of training, so it was easy to move. Plus, he was in California. So I did two quarters at Fuller.
And again, the decision was kind of like, I either go back to Colombia because my permit had expired, or I go to seminary because I'm already enrolled and I could be a student. And I was like, well, easy. I'm already enrolled. Might as well be a student.
That couple of months at Fuller, I was like, applying to move here to Princeton.
But I also realized, like, oh, yeah, seminary is something I want to do. Like, this will help me be faithful to God.
And it's something that I'm.
That I enjoy. So I was like, yeah, perfect. I'll move.
I will move there.
So I move here.
And that was also when I was welcomed by you all here at this church, 2021.
And this has been a very lovely and an opportunity for me to grow in my faith and in my understanding of what church community does.
I will say this is kind of like my first church that I, like, willingly decided to go to instead of, like, the church that my parents go to or like, my uncle is a pastor or like, my grandparents are working at.
This was kind of like, I had a lot of agency and, like, I actually want to go there.
I did a lot of church exploring when I was in Pasadena, but I felt not really. I knew I was moving, but here was like, that difference of I want to go to church there.
So back to Camilo.
This process of arriving back to Camilo Torres was very.
I wasn't really looking.
I just walked into a class.
Professor Dr. Mark Taylor was teaching a class on Gustavo Gutierrez. I wasn't taking the class, but I just kind of like, stopped by, and I was like, Dr. Taylor, quick question. Do you know who Camilo Torres is? He was like, yeah, yeah, of course. And I was like, how much about him do you talk during class? And he's like, not really.
Not that much. It's about Gustavo Gutierrez.
And the connection there is that Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the main, if not the founder of liberation theology in South America, in his book, he talks about Camilo Torres very briefly and in the introduction, and he says kind of like, don't do that.
What he did, not what I'm doing.
Don't follow that route.
And I remember reading that and being like, that's interesting, because they're kind of like going for the same thing. The goal is liberation, different paths.
So Dr. Taylor was like, oh, that's interesting. You should. You should look into that, do some research and make your thing. And I was like, okay, sure, why not?
That sounds very, very, very, very cool.
I came across this image.
It was the COVID of one of the books I was reading my last semester. And I remember seeing the title, Christ Guerrijero, which I was like, that's funny. You know, it's like, interesting.
But I didn't really read more about it, about the COVID because I, like, I was doing my own research on Camilo Torres and I was working on my class and doing. I started to learn more about liberation theology and Gustavo Gutierrez and Vatican II and the context of the time and all that kind of work.
And then when I was putting the slides together, I went back into this picture to find out that it is inspired in Camilo Torres.
The person who created this poster is making reference to Camilo Torres and Che Guevara and how both getting this image of Christ as a guerrilla, which is for South American context, is kind of like a very, I don't know, out of the picture, rebellious thing to do that I was like, that is really cool. And I see how that makes sense.
So back to the timeline. This was around here that I was thinking about it in 2024. 2024.
That was also the year where the Palestinian encampment started just over there.
That was a year that my theology, my understanding of theology and my practice and my kind of, like, search for what does it mean to do theology and study and learn about Christ and ministry was like, very touched by the encampment and what was happening there.
I was able to learn and see solidarity just by being there.
I showed up one day and I started serving coffee.
And I don't know, 20 something days later, I was there just serving coffee and helping with the meals. And it was a tremendous opportunity to learn about the Palestinian cause, the Nakba, the genocide, and see the solidarity of, like, many, many students that said, this is wrong.
And there were people of diverse faith backgrounds. We had Muslim students, we had Jewish students.
We had very few seminarians, very few Christians.
But it was a beautiful opportunity to see that connection between theology and activism and liberation.
And that's where, again, I went back to this image of Jesus, because it still puzzles me that he's carrying a gun.
Camilo Torres died trying to recover a gun.
He was in a fight with the government, with the army, but he was just trying to get a gun.
He didn't shot anyone.
This was his first combat experience.
This was two months after he joined DE Guerrilla.
He had been doing incredible work as a priest. He founded the sociology department that I was part of.
He had this newspaper where he united a lot of different groups of Colombian society.
And he was calling for revolution.
For Camilo Torres, the Christian imperative is to be a revolutionary.
And it's all very puzzling to me because this idea of violence and nonviolence and reform or revolution is something that I see very present in theology and in my faith journey.
So, yeah, I think my time is up.
I didn't cover what I wanted to cover, but this is. This is now 2026. This is where we are.
So, yeah, thanks for listening. Sorry if it was a little kind of like, scramble.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Can we get a round of applause for Felipe?
We do have time for questions, so if you'd like to ask Felipe a question, I will run the mic to you. Do not start talking until I bring the microphone to you. Otherwise, the recording will not catch it.
Thank you so much, Felipe.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: We were talking a little bit beforehand. I don't know if this is the.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Right moment, but I would really love.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: To hear you talk about what's going.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: To happen to Colombia now that the United States is intervening.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that. So it is something that I was thinking about that when I prepared this, and it was kind of like a very heavy. It's very heavy in my mind, in my heart, pretty much. Since they moved the ships and closed airspace, I was like, they're going to attack.
And this is something I've read, because this was also the context of Camilo.
The Cuban Revolution had just happened, and the revolution was in kind of like Che Guevara was still alive, Fidel Castro was in Cuba, and the US intervention in Latin America and South America was peaked.
But I've only read about it, and now it's like, oh, it's happening, and it's happening worse than what it was in the 60s and the 70s.
Colombia is in a interesting spot.
I don't necessarily know.
The president was saying that they want peace and they want to make sure the region stays stable.
Colombia has never really seen peace.
We've been fighting against each other for many, many years. The egregious is a huge factor. Drugs are a huge factor.
Narco terrorism is a thing that does happen in Colombia, and it has been a thing for many years. I mean, I guess you guys know who Pablo Escobar was. The things that he did, the way he had control over the government.
But the violence that we've seen in Colombia is terrible, and the country is trying to move into a different understanding of society.
The president we have now is the first leftist president. He was a guerrija member for a different guerija, the M19.
And people, I honestly, it's kind of like a miracle that he's president right now, because Colombia has always been controlled by the US and by the right side of the government, and their policy is to kill everyone.
We have seen mass displacement of communities. We have seen these paramilitary groups that just wipe out entire communities.
And the way they do politics is through fear sometimes saying that you study figures that were at or are part of guerrillas in Colombia that will get you in jail. Like one of my professors, he was jailed because he was doing research people. Right after I moved here, the police were detaining sociology students from my department and beat them up because they were studying sociology at that department, which a lot of people that started the guerrigus started at this university, at this faculty.
Camilo was one of them.
So Colombia is in an interesting spot.
The president is almost out.
The new transition.
The right is really trying to put a president who will not be from the left.
But there's a big push and things are improving in terms of conditions. But I don't think we're not independent to make those calls. Unfortunately, there is a lot of power that comes from holes like this.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: Time for one more question.
What's next for you, Felipe?
[00:40:25] Speaker B: I'm similar to over here and over here.
I'm in between.
I keep doing school or I go back to Columbia.
Right now I have a permit to work, but it's only good for a year, so I got till September.
I'm applying to schools to see if I can do research about Camilo Torres.
That's a line of scholarship that I want to pursue.
But, yeah, it depends.
If I get into a program here in the States, I will be able to stay. Otherwise, I have to return back to Colombia. There's no really options for me.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: So I want to point out it is 10:15. We're not cutting Felipe off early. I swear that clock is wrong.
But he's going to hang out. And so if you have more questions for Felipe, you can hang out. And I hope that you join us next week where we have a real newcomer.
Dave Davis is going to be giving his journey of faith.
So all the things you thought you knew about Dave, come and find out the full story. But, Felipe, thank you so much for kicking off the series and we hope to see you all next week.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.
