Why I went to seminary: A senators theological education
Long before I ever sat in Senate hearing rooms listening to the testimony of witnesses, I sat in lecture halls at Yale Divinity School listening to professors dissect the Pauline letters. My path from law student to divinity student to U.S. senator may not have been the most conventional, but divinity school changed me, and it changed how I see what I do in the U.S. Senate.
I have felt a calling to ministry my entire life. As a youth I was active in my church and youth group and as a volunteer. My parents also put their faith into action. I grew up watching my dad teach Sunday school and volunteer with a prison ministry group—even hosting a convicted felon on furlough weekends at our home, much to our neighbors’ dismay. My mom committed her time to work at a church program serving homeless and battered women.
Following college, I spent a year in Washington writing and researching issues related to apartheid and South Africa. Tired of the abstract nature of think-tank work, I felt an urge to put my faith into action. I traveled to Kenya and South Africa with Plowshares Institute, a faith-based global engagement group, and stayed on for four months afterward. I volunteered with the South African Council of Churches and got to work with many inspiring leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I also served with a powerfully faithful woman in Kenya, Zipporah Kamau, who was launching an orphanage outside Nairobi.
