William Sloane Coffin Jr.: A Holy Impatience

By Warren Goldstein

Book Overview

A magnet for controversy, the media, and followers, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. was the premier voice of northern religious liberalism for more than a quarter-century, and a worthy heir to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. From his pulpits at Yale University and, later, New York City's Riverside Church, Coffin focused national attention on civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement, disarmament, and gay rights. This revealing biography--based on unparalleled access to family papers and candid interviews with Coffin, his colleagues, family, friends, lovers, and wives--tells for the first time the remarkable story of Coffin's life.

An army and CIA veteran before assuming the post of Yale University chaplain at the youthful age of 33, Coffin gained notoriety as a leader of a dangerous civil rights Freedom Ride in 1961, as a defendant in the "Boston Five" trial of draft resisters in 1969, and as the preeminent voice of liberal religious dissent into the 1980s. This book encompasses Coffin's turbulent private life as well as his flamboyant, joyful public career, while dramatically illuminating the larger social movements that consumed his days and defined his times.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300111541
• ISBN13: 9780300111545
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Fine portrait of a remarkable person

This is the third biography I've read about a person whom I know well, and I must say that of the three, it succeeds the most at bringing its subject to life. It reads like a long visit with this extraordinary man, and it's filled with much detail about the rich life he's lived. I have one major issue with this book. WSC's decade as Senior Minister of Riverside Church in New York was perhaps the high point of his life. His life-affirming and thought-provoking preachng reached its widest audience from Riverside's pulpit. As pastor and friend, to me and many others, he had a great and wide-reaching influence. Twenty years later I still quote him and talk about him. In the course of his tenure there, Bill met and worked with perhaps the most diverse and challenging group of people he'd ever dealt with in his life, in the congregation, among the lay leadership, and on the large staff. I admired his enthusiastic response to this challenge: he embraced it wholeheartedly and fearlessly, always willing to stretch his mind and heart, while maintaining his integrity as a person committed to some very controversial causes, with which some people at Riverside most decidedly did NOT agree. In spite of this, the author seems to give this rich period of Bill's life only a quick once over. It's as if by this point in the book he lost interest in his subject and distanced himself from the project. As a result, he gives only a bare-bones picture of what this most important period in William's life was like, and how Bill responded to it. What's worse, he seems to have used only ONE person as a source for information about WSC's tenure at Riverside, thereby cheating the reader of seeing how, in his 50s and 60s, a very strong-minded individual was able to embrace and nurture new ideas and people with experiences vastly different than his own. As a "classic" baby boomer suspicious of persons of Bill's generation, and one from a decidedly non-privileged background, I was constantly delighted by his openness, lack of rigidity, his completely uncensored sense of humor and by his real gift for friendship, which to my mind, along with his musicality, was (and is) his greatest gift.

For God, For Country and For Yale (in the right order)

In one of Paul's letters (I think it's Timothy), Paul speaks of "fighting the good fight"-- and Coffin has fought the good fight his entire life. Coffin's passion, courage, empathy and ability to inspire are cherished by all who have had the privilege of knowing him (as I have). For those old enough to remember the 1960s, this book will rekindle the embers of your idealism; for those too young, it will provide a primer in how to speak truth to power and translate faith into action. This is essential reading for all who seek to keep alive the tradition of dissent that holds our government accountable to the principles it was founded on, and deliver a thunderous "No" to both injustice at home and the ongoing horror in Iraq.