Cook Citation
May 12, 2009
Passionate educator, exemplary servant leader and folksy Texas Panhandle prophet, you have nurtured countless ministries while enriching Seminary of the Southwest for nearly a quarter century.
Following graduation from our seminary in 1974, you served parishes in Lubbock, St. Louis, Missouri, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina - where your love of Southern writers took root - and returned to campus to teach pastoral theology in 1984. You rejoined Bill Green - this time as a faculty colleague instead of your systematic theology professor - and began a splendid journey of shared witness, faith and humor with the late Will Spong.
Servant leadership is foundational to your teaching as well as your life. The faculty citation read at your retirement party to announce the creation of the Charles James Cook Award in Servant Leadership sums it up well.
"In his life and ministry among us, Charlie has offered a vision of what it means to be a leader through his generosity of spirit and his hospitality of mind, making room for others to learn, to grow and to offer the gifts that God has given them for the common good and the building up of the Body of Christ."
The relationship between faith and books of fiction - especially in the writings of Southern authors like Walker Percy - also informs your teaching.
You celebrate and delight in sharing the joyful link between what is said through fiction and the study of theology and relationship between God and humankind. When you begin a sentence by saying "In the words of the great Southern writer" an epiphany always follows.
Committed to preparing persons for leadership in the church, you carefully matched divinity seminarians with Austin area churches when doing parish field education placements for decades. Scores of seminarians took part in the urban ministries of St. Luke's, Atlanta, and Holy Faith in Los Angeles, during January Terms.
In recognition of all that you have given to Seminary of the Southwest, we delight in awarding you the degree of Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa.
May 12,2009 in Austin, Texas
