Crossposted at Sacred Space: Reflections from the religious left
Yesterday I did a search for news stories about William Sloane Coffin…basically because I wanted to see if he was still around. A few years ago, I wanted to write to him and tell him how inspired I was by his book The Heart is a Little to the Left. Hard to believe that I could get to my 30s and not know that there was a “Christian left” dedicated to social justice and grounded in Biblical tradition. But for me it was quite an epiphany. A woman who goes to my church knows him through a family member, and I wrote her asking if she could help me get a letter to him. She replied, no, because he is very frail and near death. So, I didn’t push, but inside I thought, “Well, that being the case, writing to him *now* rather than later would be a good idea, no?”
Well, he’s still around, and even doing the occasional interview and book signing, because, oh yeah, he’s still *writing books*. Alas, he doesn’t leave New England, so if one of you does make it to one of his book signings, would you be a dear and convey my appreciation and warmest regards to him?
Some excerpts from his most recent interview:
William Sloane Coffin says it was almost three years ago when doctors gave him six months to live. So why is the 81-year-old Vermont cleric turned “Doonesbury” character around promoting his new book, “Letters to a Young Doubter”?
He always has listened to a higher authority.
“Hope reflects the state of your soul rather than the circumstances surrounding your days,” the retired Presbyterian minister writes in a hardcover now arriving in stores. “Praise God and your soul gets stronger.”
Speaking out also seems to fortify the firebrand. Forget that he was diagnosed with chronic cardiac problems in 2003 after a series of strokes. Sermonizing on everything from the Iraq war (which he opposes) to gay marriage (which he supports), he’s still strong of heart.
“I didn’t think I could write any more, but my editor said, ‘You still have another book,'” Coffin says at his Strafford home. “I said, ‘I’m supposed to be dead now.’ She said, ‘I’m not impressed.'”
Heh. 😉
I especially like this part…
Consider, Coffin writes, “President Bush’s messianic militarism, a divinely ordained form of cleansing violence, and all in the name of a Jesus Christ who is the mirror opposite of the Jesus of the four Gospels.”
“Osama bin Laden believes in faith-based violence; Bush believes in faith-based violence,” the minister says in an interview. “Osama believes it’s redemptive violence — he’s going to take out the bad guy; Bush believes it’s redemptive violence — we’re going to rid the world of evil. You have to watch it — you become like the enemy you hate.”
Some may consider Coffin a heretic, but the minister says he began honing his message as a U.S. Army liaison to French and Russian forces during World War II.
“I considered World War II a necessary evil, and I think I still do,” he writes. “However, I now realize, particularly in the nuclear age, that war, like most necessary evils, is far more evil than necessary.”
“How can the president call Iran, Iraq and North Korea ‘the axis of evil’ when the whole of humanity suffers infinitely more from environmental degradation, pandemic poverty and a world awash with weapons?” he continues in his book. “We must agree to be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force. … We don’t have to lead the world; we have to join it.”
Here’s the part that addresses public appearances–one passed, but one is still coming up:
Although happily retired in a town of 1,085 people (it’s 15 unpaved miles north of the junction of interstates 89 and 91), Coffin remains a player in national publishing. Westminster John Knox Press released “Credo,” a collection of excerpts from his sermons and speeches, to surprising success in 2003. It has similar hopes for his new book, for which the author will limit his public appearances to the Norwich Bookstore in Norwich on Aug. 3 at 7 p.m. and the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester on Aug. 27 at 7 p.m.
“Although if Oprah calls …” he says.
In the meantime, Coffin will continue to sermonize from his armchair pulpit. One day he’s talking with a reporter for a local paper, the next he’s welcoming the Los Angeles Times. His concerns are the same ones he spoke about after Yale: world hunger, homelessness and human rights as minister of New York City’s Riverside Church and peace as former leader of the SANE/FREEZE nuclear weapons freeze campaign.
“I’m an old man in a hurry,” he says. “I used to think the basic wisdom of the American people will come forth. I’ve waited quite a long time now. I may have been a little bit unduly optimistic.”
Then again, Coffin still finds hope in his heart.
“You ask about my health,” he writes in his new book. “I have known better days but none happier. My spirits are high and everything else is commentary.”
You can find the full article here.
