It’s an interesting change from researching high-flying economics to the daily challenges of church work. But Ben Cooper, assistant minister at St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, finds that this background provides him with a fascinating perspective on the gospel. EN spoke to Ben to discover how he’s been coping with the joys and pressures of life there.
EN: In your new book, Just Love, you observe that you ‘grew up in an atmosphere of scepticism about most things’. How has this affected you and how did you become a Christian?
BC: In some ways I’m glad I grew up in that environment — it’s led me to question things rather than just accept them at face value. But questioning things can go too far. You just end up dismissing everything. I dismissed Christianity with hardly a thought, for example. I was happy to call myself an atheist. If at the age of 24, God hadn’t challenged me, that’s exactly where I would still be.
