Jim Cooper

Jim Cooper

Rector, Trinity Church, New York City

The Rev. Dr. James Herbert Cooper is the 17th Rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel in the city of New York. Before coming to New York City, the On Faith panelist spent over 30 years as rector of Christ Church in Ponte Vedra, Fla., where he founded $52-million and $82-million nonprofit life-care facilities to assure quality of life and health care for the aging population in the region. Dr. Cooper serves on the Advisory Board for the Anglican Observer to the United Nations, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, Seamen’s Church Institute, St. Margaret’s House and John Heuss House. He has previously led on the board of directors of Florida Association of Homes for the Aging, Christ Church Foundation, Life Care Pastoral Services, FreshMinistries, United Way, Christian Healing Ministries, University of the South and Kanuga. In 2005 Cooper was bestowed an honorary doctorate from the General Theological Seminary in New York City and made Canon of the Cathedral in Jerusalem. He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University, and received his Master of Divinity and his Doctor of Ministry from the Virginia Theological Seminary. He lives in Lower Manhattan with his wife Tay and they have two grown children and two grandsons. Close.

Jim Cooper

Rector, Trinity Church, New York City

The Rev. Dr. James Herbert Cooper is the 17th Rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel in the city of New York. Before coming to New York City, the On Faith panelist spent over 30 years as rector of Christ Church in Ponte Vedra, Fla... more »

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Pastoral and Political

There is perhaps a fuller sense of context than critics of the Archbishop’s recent comments are willing to acknowledge. Not only is the Archbishop addressing the complex socio-political situation in England, but his spiritual guidance extends to parts of the African continent in which tension between Muslims and Christians often leads to mistrust, at the least, and bloodshed at worst. For the Archbishop, this is perhaps as much a pastoral issue as a political one. This is a very difficult balance to hold on a public stage.

As for the accommodation of the Scriptural assertions of any faith tradition in civil law, I believe that would occur only through the course of legislative debate on a given point. The civic debate could well contain elements of the implicit values of various faith traditions, and would succeed or fail based upon the reasonableness of the argument to legislate that given point.

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