Why
I went to seminary
A senator’s 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.
When I returned to the United
States, I joined the Coalition for the Homeless in New York, which was led by a
crusading lawyer, Bob Hayes, and traveled across the country working in
homeless shelters and with homeless advocates.
In all these experiences, I was
exposed to impressive leaders and advocates who used their skills and training,
whether as pastors or attorneys, to make a difference in the world and to serve
with those who were oppressed or marginalized. I could tell there were limits
to how much of a difference I could make without some formal training. The
advocates I most admired were well educated and deeply grounded in their
professions.
I had always wrestled with competing
interests in law and religion. In 1988, law won out, and I enrolled at Yale Law
School. While volunteering in the law clinic during fall semester of my first
year, I became friendly with another law student who was also taking classes at
the divinity school. He told me about one particular class with Sister Margaret
Farley that he said would change my life: “This class is amazing. You have to
come once and give it a try.”
The next semester I audited her
class on Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. Sister Farley was absolutely
riveting. I had no formal training in the theological roots of the Reformation
or the Christian faith, but ancient texts became deeply engaging for me because
of her talented teaching.
After Sister Farley’s class, I was
hooked. I took another class the next semester, and another the following
semester. Finally, the dean of admissions at the divinity school, who was a
member of my congregation in New Haven, came up to me at church one Sunday and
said, “You know, we do let lawyers go to the div school.” I looked at him and
said, “What are you talking about?” He told me I could actually be admitted and
take a degree at the divinity school; I’d just have to fill out some paperwork.
After years of struggling between what felt like entirely different paths, I
realized I didn’t have to choose.
My decision to pursue a divinity
degree surprised and even alienated a lot of my friends in the law school. My
group of friends was very progressive, very accepting of everyone—everyone
except, I learned, people of faith. A number of them stopped talking to me, and
some acted like I had lost my mind. They were dismissive of divinity as a
serious field of study. It was one of the first times I experienced some
genuine intolerance as a person of faith, particularly from friends in the
progressive community. It was a difficult and eye-opening experience.
Despite some resistance, I never
doubted my choice. The next two years of my life were incredibly formative.
After starting divinity school, I helped form a prayer group with a number of
other law students who were also committed Christians, and it became a dominant
feature in my social life. Although I had better formal instruction in the
discipline, details, and doctrine of faith at the divinity school, I actually
experienced my spiritual formation through interactions with my law school
peers. They came from a broad range of cultural and political backgrounds—some
were very conservative and some were progressive—but they were all struggling
with the culture of law school and the same kinds of questions about our
purpose. Why be a lawyer? Why be involved in service? Our discussions
challenged my thinking and strengthened my faith.
If there’s one thing, more than any
other, that came out of my formal training in scriptural analysis, it was a
focus on humility—an insistence on humility—in asserting you know the will of
God and understand the word of God.
One of the best things about Yale
Divinity School is that there were people in my classes from a wide range of
faith traditions. Eight of us might look at the same passage and interpret it
eight different ways. Divinity school gave us the chance to debate our
competing viewpoints and challenge each other’s assertions. Hearing about how
differently various Christian traditions had read and applied the same texts
over time taught me an important lesson in humility.
Some of my most meaningful learning
in divinity school happened through service outside of the classroom. New
Haven, like many American cities, is a study in contrasts. Outside the
sprawling courtyards and Gothic facades of the Yale campus is a community that
has long been plagued by violence and poverty. I could have confined my
experiences to the insulated campus community at Yale, but my upbringing and
values demanded otherwise. Even before attending the divinity school, I was
actively involved in the housing and homelessness clinic at the law school,
helping a group of students successfully sue the governor of Connecticut on
behalf of 1,200 homeless families.
Divinity school gave me the
opportunity to connect my interest in service to the traditions and obligations
of my faith. One of my most memorable experiences was organizing an enactment
of the Stations of the Cross in the New Haven community just after the start of
the first Gulf War. I was serving at the time as a pastoral intern with the
Downtown Cooperative Ministry, an interfaith alliance of a dozen churches,
synagogues, and social service ministries. The war had begun abroad, and at
home, New Haven ranked among the poorest cities in the nation. With so much
suffering around us, this was a chance to take an ancient Catholic devotional
tradition and make it real and meaningful to the community.
We gathered a group of 50 people and
performed the stations at churches and at shelters and soup kitchens across the
city that served the homeless. It was a powerful, public demonstration—a
large-scale witness for justice and peace that was rooted in the suffering of
Christ.
I think there’s a broad
misconception out there—and I came to divinity school believing it—that only
those with unshakably firm conviction and profound faith belong in ministry. My
divinity school training taught me that, in fact, the opposite is true. In
order to be an effective preacher and faith leader, you’ve got to question. I
came out of school more convinced than ever that doubt is essential to
faith—that without doubt it’s not faith; it’s a dogmatic belief that can become
extremism. The whole essence—the definition—of faith rests on a foundation of
doubt, and if it rests on a foundation of doubt and questioning, then that
demands of us humility as we interpret the text and serve in the world.
Divinity school taught me that, at
its core, a life of faith is a life grounded in service and humility. I’ve
taken those values with me as my career has progressed from county government
to the U.S. Senate. I hope they are evident in every decision I make as a
member of Congress.
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