The Witherspoon Fellowship has had similar success, placing its graduates in the White House, Congress, the State Department and legislatures nationwide. The fellowship brings 42 college students to Washington each year to study theology and politics -- and to work at the conservative Family Research Council, which lobbies on such social issues as abortion and same-sex marriage.
Such programs share a commitment to developing leaders who read the Bible as a blueprint.
As Kennedy put it: "If we leave it to man to decide what's good and evil, there will be chaos."
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"I'm sure there are people who won't appreciate the fact that this class goes on here in the Capitol," Myal Greene said one recent evening.
He glanced around the stately dining room, reserved for the institute by a member of Congress. (House regulations allow private groups to hold events in the Capitol as long as they are noncommercial, nonpolitical and do not discriminate based on race, creed, color or national origin.)
To Greene, there could hardly be a more appropriate location. He considers his private faith and his public duty inseparable.
Greene, the deputy press secretary for a Republican congressman from Florida, signed up for the Statesmanship Institute in part because he felt his Christian ethics were under constant assault -- from lobbyists offering him free steak dinners, from friends urging him to network over beers.
The seminars proved a revelation. In one, Greene learned that ministers ran many of America's earliest schools. He hadn't thought much about education policy before that class. Now he plans to fight for history lessons on the Founding Fathers' faith, science lessons drawn from the Book of Genesis and public school prayer.
"It's one thing to have a [biblically inspired] position on one or two issues," said Greene, 26, who was wearing a wristband printed with the slogan "Jesus Is My Homie." "This class has you look deeper. It gives you an intellectual consistency."
On this night, the topic was bioethics. As the students unwrapped deli sandwiches and brownies, prominent bioethicist Nigel M. deS. Cameron praised them for thinking about the "great questions of the day" through the prism of faith.
Too often, he added -- to a few startled looks -- "Christians are not noted for using their brains."
