03-In-Person Faith on Tiptoe: Cultivating Christian Hope
May/Summer Course | Available
For his friends in Rome St. Paul prays: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” (Romans 15.13) He teaches them lessons in how to practice this Christian virtue and presents them models who did so amid beleaguering circumstances (cf. “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” 4.18). In this course Chaplain Cooper presents several features of Christian hope, and also discusses with participants how to practice it — how to live hope-shaped lives today.
Subject: religion
Dale “Coop” Cooper is a beloved long-time figure at Calvin University, known for his many years as university chaplain and as a religion professor. Since joining the faculty in 1976, he has taught religion courses, mentored students through programs such as the Jubilee Fellows, and invested deeply in prison education through his teaching at the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility. Throughout his career, he has been guided by a simple, enduring aim: to live faithfully as Jesus’ disciple for the world to see.
Dale Cooper
Dale Cooper, leader, is a resource specialist for liturgical spirituality at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. For 30 years, he made his mark on the Calvin community, both in religion department classrooms and as the college’s chaplain. He has served as pastoral mentor in the Jubilee Fellows Program in the Congregational and Ministry Studies department. When he was 3 years old, his mother contracted polio and never left the iron lung to which she was confined; Cooper’s dad quit his job as an onion farmer and spent the next 39 years at her side. The experience shaped his life. Reflecting on a career as a pastor of college students, he said, “Perhaps, probably, God used those circumstances in my family’s life so that I could minister to others.”