William Sloane Coffin
Dr.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (born
June 1,
1924) is a radical clergyman and long time peace activist. The Reverend Coffin served as Chaplain of
Yale University during the
Vietnam War. He was in early opposition to the war and became famous for his anti-war activities. After serving as senior minister of
New York's Riverside Church, he became president of the SANE/FREEZE campaign for global security, the largest peace and justice organization in the United States. Coffin was prosecuted for conspiracy along with Dr.
Benjamin Spock and convicted in June of
1968. Coffin lost his son in a mountain-climbing accident.
Note: the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, merged with the Nuclear Freeze group The Freeze in the 1980s and was renamed SANE/FREEZE; it was renamed Peace Action in 1993. William Sloane Coffin's name is spelled "Sloane" with an "e".
Quotes
William Sloane Coffin: After 9/11, the U.S. government should have vowed "to see justice done, but by the force of law only, never by the law of force."
"It's too bad that one has to conceive of sports as being the only arena where risks are, [for] all of life is risk exercise. That's the only way to live more freely, and more interestingly."
"The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love."
Books
- Credo Westminster John Knox Press, December 2003, ISBN 0664227074
- The Heart Is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality Dartmouth College, 1st edition, October 1999, ISBN 0874519586
External links