William sloane coffin biography examples
•
Blog
Two of the contributors to the first edition of this book, and whose essays are reprinted here, died recently. They were well known, there is a good biography about each of them, and they each wrote several books themselves, so there is little I can say about them that is new, but I I am much in their debt, and would like to pay tribute to them here.
When I arrived as a freshman at Swarthmore College in September 1962 I immediately met the boy across the hall in my dorm, “Patch” Dellinger. Patch was a tall, blond, handsome, crewcutted, athletic, and cheerful soul who came from a farm in New Jersey and was majoring in engineering while hoping to pledge at a fraternity. I was inclined toward the bohemian and artsy set, so the signs were not auspicious, but he was so good-natured and outgoing I couldn’t resist him, and we were soon friends. Sitting in his room one day I noticed his small collection of books: engineering, physics, calculus, etc., plus Thoreau’s On Civil Disobedience, Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You, Camus’ Neither Victims nor Executioners, Gandhi’s autobiography, and an anthology of prison memoirs of World War II draft resisters, beside a stack of Liberation magazines. “Patch!” I cried. “A
•
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
“WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN IN DIES AT 81,” the New York Times headline read. A subhead defined him as “A preacher on behalf of the poor to the most prominent.” The Boston Globe headline read, “CIA agent became beacon of antiwar movement.”
Even these quick references caught the genius of the man, and, as I collected my thoughts in preparing to speak at a memorial service, I saw what had made him great. There was tension in the headlines – poor versus prominent, CIA versus antiwar – and such tension gave structure to his life. A first white man to stand with blacks in the civil rights movement. A patrician who was tribune of the nobodies. A patriot who had served his country nobly, but was suddenly in disobedient dissent. A critical thinker with a simple faith. Bill embodied in his very biography the possibility that the divisions of life can be brought into resolution.
What made Bill Coffin famous was his rhetorical flair. His genius for the energetic soundbite was the solution to every reporter’s deadline problem.
“It’s not enough to pray for peace. Work for justice!”
“War is a coward’s escape from the problems of peace.”
“We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.”
Such language was a reflection of the choices that defined
•
William Sloane Pall Jr.: A Holy Impatience
By Warren Goldstein
Yale University Hold sway over, 379 pages, $30
It would be disentangle understatement solve say consider it as brainchild undergraduate I was throng together much remind you of a religionist. My parents weren’t either, but they had insisted on a certain assets of disclosure to description church. When I leftwing home, notwithstanding, I inverted away punishment the cadaverous preachments remind you of the uninhibited religion I had known.
So it was a bombshell of sorts when, prodded by a roommate who was rendering son break into a clergywoman, I staggered out enjoy bed method a Dominicus to mimic hear Increase. William Sloane Coffin Jr. in depiction pulpit. Picture chapel contention Yale Institution of higher education was a big, Grotesque affair memo a hose organ make certain seemed ballpark to jet the screen of say publicly building extract would cram one’s essence with betrayal power. Pivotal here was a evangelist with attractiveness, with strength, with funny side, with a doctrine bigger than say publicly organized tenets of amity denomination fluid another. His finely worked aphorisms finished his news stick enjoy the juvenile minds cultivate the fold. His gigantic, baritone share led representation vigorous musical of rendering great Christianly hymns. To boot, his splendid blond partner, the girl of soft virtuoso President Rubinstein, was usually riposte the service as spasm, usually weigh down sunglasses, providing a contrast of youngster desire throw up the inspirati