William Sloane Coffin Honored
Those Who Knew Him Best Share Reflections, Memories
Thursday, April 13, 2006
One of the great prophetic leaders of American history, Coffin took on great personal risk to inspire a generation of students and clergy to ask what was right, not what was popular, and to imagine the world that was possible rather than accept the world we observed.
With his courage, wit, ministry and tireless campaigning, he drew a non-negotiable moral line in the sand on issues of justice, human dignity, poverty, and peace. From joining the Freedom Riders to providing sanctuary for victims of the Central American wars, he called America back to her highest values. He epitomized a generation in which Christianity was a force for justice and peace in America – not always easy to hear, but always true to Christ’s call.
In his final years, Coffin was blessed to witness and support a resurgence of a progressive interfaith movement in this country. He was literally and figuratively a giant in the prophetic movement, whose legacy continues to inspire many to spread Christ’s call for love, compassion, and peace.
Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar
Friends with Coffin since 1968, Edgar was with him as recently as February. “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.’�
An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, Rev. Bob Edgar is general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the leading U.S. organization in the movement for Christian unity.
Congressman John Lewis
Born the son of sharecroppers in 1940, John Lewis was first elected to the House of Representatives (D-GA) in 1986. His work in the early and mid '60s as a civil rights leader and Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) nearly cost him his life at the hands of angry white mobs and club wielding state troopers. At the age of 23, he was recognized as one the six primary leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and was an organizer and a keynote speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, D.C.
Rev. Jim Forbes
The Riverside Church, Senior Minister
Rev. Dr. James Alexander Forbes, Jr. was installed as the fifth Senior Minister of The Riverside Church on June 1, 1989. The Riverside Church is an interdenominational, interracial, and international church built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1927. The 2,400-member church is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ. Forbes is the first African-American to serve as Senior Minister of one of the largest multicultural congregations in the nation. He is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches and the Original United Holy Church of America.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Friends with Coffin since the draft resistance days of the 1960’s, Coffin arranged for Waskow to lead a "Shalom Seder" at Riverside Church in the 1980’s. “What can we say? He was brave, bright, committed, and joyful. I learned from him, while I was still a secular activist, what it could mean to be prophetically committed. When God's opening came to me, Bill's teaching was a great part of what I was able to bring.�
Since 1969, Rabbi Arthur Waskow has been one of the leading creators of theory, practice, and institutions for the movement for Jewish renewal. Rabbi Waskow directs the Shalom Center in Philadelphia is the author of many books.
Cora Weiss
Cora Weiss was one of Coffin’s closest allies in struggles for peace and social justice. Weiss and Coffin were honored at The Riverside Church on the 20th anniversary of their founding of the Riverside Disarmament Program, which she directed for 10 years.
President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, Cora Weiss has been well known as a peace activist since the early ‘60’s, when she was a co-founder of Women Strike for Peace which played a major role in bringing about the end of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. She was a leader in the anti-Vietnam war movement, organized demonstrations, including the largest one on November 15, 1969 in Washington, DC.
Faith in Public Life strengthens the effectiveness, collaboration, and reach of faith movements that share a call to pursue justice and the common good.
