April 2006 - Bill Coffin

The Reverend Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. 1924-2006

The Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin—prophet, preacher, conscientious objector, chaplain, activist, and friend—died Wednesday of Holy Week at age 81. We knew he was not well, in hospice, and yet the loss feels overwhelming. At the same time, our gratitude for his magnificent life wells up like the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus, which he insisted on leading every Easter service at Yale's Battell Chapel.

Bill Coffin used the following benediction in memory of the anti-war activist, Allard Lowenstein: "God bless you, Al, you sure blessed us." No words could be more fitting for him, now: "God bless you, Bill, you sure blessed us." He blessed our lives and changed us forever. On a simple, personal note, Bill Coffin changed my mind.

He changed my mind about what it means to be a Christian. He had a conscience, and for more than 40 years he challenged this nation's conscience with his passionate calls for peace, social justice, civil rights, and an end to nuclear proliferation.

Bill changed my mind about my vocation in life. He planted the seed that grew into my seeking ordination to the priesthood, when in 1975 he suggested that I apply for a Rockefeller Grant for a Trial Year in Seminary.

He changed my mind about preachers. He constantly quoted prophets and poets and drew images with his own words that were so true and powerful that they would take your breath away. From his sermon at the memorial service for his son, Alex, he gave me words that I repeat at almost every memorial service or funeral, especially after violent deaths. He said, "It was not the will of God that Alex die. When the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first to break."

Bill changed my mind about ministers taking life and themselves too seriously. I saw him preach. I saw him sing. I saw him laughing with his friends. I saw his joy. He once said, "It is in being loved and in loving that we find life's deepest meaning...the highest purpose of the Christian faith is to make people loving—by choice. And the first fruit of love is the joy of meaning and fulfillment."

Many times in the past years, he had been told he did not have long to live, but he survived to finish his book Credo, a compilation of many of his best insights and passages from his sermons. He also founded an organization of clergy opposed to nuclear proliferation.

Last year I attended a celebration at Yale in his honor. Managing to rise from his wheelchair and stand at the podium he looked out at the adoring crowd and proclaimed, "I thought I had defied my doctors when they told me I did not have long to live, but now as I look out at you all, I am convinced I have died and gone to heaven!" Now, surely he is in heaven. But I am not so sure that heaven for Bill Coffin means "resting in peace." At least not until the world is at peace, the world he loved and with which he had so many lovers' quarrels.

If The Beatitudes Society were to offer an award to one who has incarnated the Beatitudes in this life and who has sought to turn the world upside down, Bill Coffin would certainly be a finalist!

A few years ago, James Carroll wrote of Coffin's message, "...What a gospel it was. The world he described was upside-down; the church on the side of the poor; the powerful at risk for losing everything; the disenfranchised as sole custodians of moral legitimacy. Coffin, in his passionate sermon…was perhaps the first person from which you heard that defining question: Whose side are you on?"

Speaking at the 75th Birthday Celebration held in honor of Billby Protestants for the Common Good in honor of Bill, children's advocate Marian Wright Edelman said "Shur' nuf, God was showing off when he made Bill Coffin!"

I pray that each one of you has a Bill Coffin in your life. If you do, I would love to know. Please write and tell me the story.

The Dawn has come for Bill. But for us, it is the dawning of another day and there is work to be done.

I pray that The Beatitudes Society will help to strengthen all who seek to do that work.

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