William Sloane Coffin is known as the most controversial and outspoken liberal Protestant in America for his activism in the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and the nuclear disarmament movement. This surging biography emphasizes this extraordinary Christian's holy impatience with prejudice, injustice, and war, three subjects that many other preachers and religious leaders have not bothered to speak against, preferring instead to hold to the status quo of the institutional churches.
Biographer Warren Goldstein, chair of the department of history at the University of Hartford, outlines Coffin's privileged childhood with his elegant mother and her sophisticated friends, his education overseas, his attendance at Yale, and his life of safety and excellence as a charter member of the Establishment. But he began to question all that when he was exposed to "the other America" championed by Martin Luther King, Jr, who represented the rights of the disenfranchised, the poor, and the African-Americans who lived "on the other side of the social and cultural tracks." Coffin changed the trajectory of his life, playing a prominent role in the "freedom rides" that challenged segregation and the terrible treatment of black people. Suddenly the 37-year-old chaplain at Yale University was a newsmaker. Coffin's charm, masculinity, and multilingual worldliness made him an instant celebrity. Goldstein notes: "As a man who could delight unabashedly in beauty, use the word love in a myriad of contexts, and talk the core talk of Christianity, Coffin projected a more erotic presence than most of his brethren."
Coffin preached civil disobedience in 1967 and was later a defendant in the "Boston Five" trial of draft resisters in 1969. Once he committed to peace, this zealot was willing to go the whole distance. In the 1980s, when he was the senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City, he was a leader in the movement against nuclear weapons. One of his most famous phrases was: "The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love." Coffin also got into trouble during this period at Riverside Church for defending homosexual rights. This issue continues to split congregations and denominations. Coffin was consistently there when it counted.
Members of the waning liberal Protestant denominations, lament the fact that no comparable personality has stepped up to the plate to carry on Coffin's prophetic ministry. Plenty of fundamentalist Christians are regular visitors on primetime news programs and talk shows, but the progressive Christians are no where to be seen. Where are the strong voices, like Coffin, who can speak truth to the powers in Washington and also creatively talk about the good news of the gospel and God's bounteous gifts of love and grace and joy?
William Sloane Coffin Jr.: A Holy Impatience is a rousing biography filled with the passion and the presence of a charismatic preacher and peace activist.
