From Dissent to Divinity School

How does a young acolyte of the secular left find his way to divinity school? There are times when, walking to my "Introduction to the New Testament" class in the cold Chicago morning, I ask myself that question. Part of what makes it difficult to answer is that the path leading me to the University of Chicago Divinity School began in an experience I don't find easy to communicate. Talking about how I got here is awkward for someone of my thoroughly secular upbringing and education. The term that best captures what I experienced is, however, a religious one: conversion. Mine was a peculiar form of conversion; I didn't convert to any religion in particular. My sacred text was not the Bible or the Upanishads—it was William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience