William Sloane Coffin: controversial, yes, but a hero to a generation of faith leaders
New York, April 13, 2006 -- The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who died yesterday at 81, "was no ordinary man and he leaves no ordinary hole," said the general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA.
"To my generation, he was a hero," said the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar last night.
Recalling Coffin's assertion to his former Yale student and Watergate conspirator Jeb Stuart Magruder that he had "lost his moral compass," Edgar said, "That is what Bill Coffin was for many of us: our moral compass."
Edgar recalled Coffin's long career as a civil rights leader, peace activist, pastor and ecumenist. Coffin died at his home in Vermont reportedly from congestive heart failure. He had been receiving hospice care.
From 1977 to 1987, Coffin was pastor of The Riverside Church in Manhattan. The church is directly across the street from The Interchurch Center that houses the National Council of Churches New York office, and Coffin was pastor and friend to many NCC staff. In 1979, when U.S. embassy personnel were taken hostage by radical students in Iran, Coffin and NCC President M. William Howard led a delegation to Teheran to conduct Christmas services for the hostages.
"Bill never lost an opportunity to witness for peace," Edgar said.
The NCC is providing an opportunity for those wishing to contribute to a book of condolences to Virginia Randolph Witson, Coffin?s widow. Visit the NCC home page at www.councilofchurches.org and follow instructions.
The full text of Edgar's statement follows:
William Sloane Coffin Jr. was no ordinary man and he leaves no ordinary hole. He was full of mystifying contrasts that made him endlessly fascinating and difficult to describe. He was a CIA agent who became an international peace activist. He was a scion of old money, but he made his life with the ordinary. He was a legendary liberal but a life-long friend of George H.W. Bush. He could be righteously angry at injustice or war mongering, but masked it behind a Cheshire cat grin. He could be prophetically stern, but riotously funny. He could intone profound theological insights, but sweeten them with his working class New York accent.
To my generation, Bill Coffin was a hero. When he was chaplain of Yale University in the sixties, he organized freedom rides in the South and by 1967 was leading students in civil disobedience against the Vietnam War. When one of his students ? the future pastor, Jeb Stuart Magruder ? became entangled in Watergate, Bill told him he had lost his moral compass. That is what Bill Coffin was for many of us: our moral compass. He once said, ?God loves you the way you are, but he knows you can do better.?
Bill never lost an opportunity to witness for peace. In 1979, during the Iran hostage crisis, he and National Council of Churches President M. William Howard led an NCC delegation to Iran to bring Christmas worship to the U.S. hostages.
He was pastor of Riverside Church from 1977 to 1987. People who worshipped at Riverside in those years say his most memorable sermon may have been the Sunday after his son was killed in an automobile accident. He rejected the notion that his son?s death, or any other tragedy, was God?s will. ?God,? he said, ?is crying, too.? When Bill left Riverside, it was to become president of SANE/FREEZE (now Peace Action), the largest peace and justice organization in the United States.
Bill Coffin led a full and remarkable life, and he would not want us to think of his death as premature or tragic. But that doesn?t make it any easier to think of a world without him. We can allow ourselves a few tears. And we remember, in our grief, Bill?s assurance that God is crying, too.
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Editors note: Other tributes may be found on the NCC News website at http://www.ncccusa.org/news/060412coffin.html
Contact NCC News: Daniel Webster, 212-870-2252.