Acknowledging the
Conscience of a Nation
By CLYDE HABERMAN,
NYTimes on the Web, April 18, 2006
New York City -- On
Christianity's most sacred day, when the infinite possibilities of renewal are
affirmed, death cast its tireless shadow across Riverside Church.
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Dr. Coffin |
Even on a joyous Easter morning, some
churchgoers had to find their tentative way through the early stages of grief.
Death had spared them no more than it does anyone else. From his pulpit,
the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., Riverside's senior minister, read a short list of
such people, those who had been close to Sue Julien and to Henry Maddicks, to
Sheila Everett and to Eleanor Hyatt, all gone now.
Those names, with full respect, probably meant little to most of the hundreds of
worshipers who filled the church. The list of the dead contained one other
name, though. Surely, almost everyone there recognized it: the Rev.
William Sloane Coffin Jr.
He had been Dr. Forbes's predecessor as senior minister of the
interdenominational church. But those sitting in the pews on Sunday knew
that he was more than that. He was also once the chaplain at Yale
University. But he was more than that, too.
He was a national conscience.
Not everyone agreed with Dr. Coffin, that is for sure. But there is no
denying that his was a clarion voice in the land. It shaped opinions
across two generations, from his appeals for racial justice to his calls for
nuclear disarmament, from his protests to end the war in Vietnam to his pleas
that the war in Iraq not even begin.
He was a man, Dr. Forbes told the Easter worshipers, who believed in "lifting up
the mandate of the kingdom of God for peace, justice and compassion."
Dr. Coffin died in Vermont last week. He was 81. There will be a
funeral service at Riverside Church on Thursday. His life will no doubt be
replayed at length.
But it was impossible for Easter Sunday to pass with no acknowledgment of his
death from the pulpit.
The Rev. R. Scott Colglazier, a Riverside minister, praised Dr. Coffin for "his
eloquence of word, his insight of mind, his joyfulness of spirit and his
courageous embrace of life." Dr. Forbes quoted Joseph C. Hough Jr., the
president of Union Theological Seminary, just around the corner from the church.
"Bill was one of God's chosen prophets," Mr. Hough said, adding words that could
apply to many whose lives are given to dissent: "He was a great patriot
who loved his country too much to leave it alone." Dr. Coffin himself
described his frequent attacks on America's policies as amounting to "a lovers'
quarrel."
In a way, his death underlined striking differences between the antiwar protests
of the Vietnam era and those of today.
Almost every movement, whether it is deemed just or wrongheaded, needs
recognizable leaders to gain strength and to grow. The Vietnam years had
no shortage of such people, from moral forces like Dr. Coffin and the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. to court jesters of the Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin
variety.
Who's there now for opponents of the Iraq war? Cindy Sheehan?
Somehow, it doesn't seem quite the same.
ANOTHER difference, more substantive, involves attitudes toward military
conscription. Dr. Coffin encouraged young men to resist the draft.
In the late 1960's, he was put on trial, along with other national figures,
including Dr. Benjamin Spock, the child-rearing guru. They were convicted
of conspiracy charges, though the verdicts were overturned on appeal.
Today, in the age of the all-volunteer military, some prefer the logic of
officials like Representative Charles B. Rangel, the Manhattan Democrat who has
proposed restoring the draft as an antiwar tactic. The congressman reasons
that those in Washington who make life-and-death decisions might think extra
hard before putting their own children's hides on the line.
This was not a view of the draft that Dr. Coffin shared. But the results
of volunteerism hardly thrilled him, either.
It is difficult to imagine that he would have been happy to see one particular
group of names that appeared below his on a "prayer list" distributed at
Riverside's Easter service. These were the names of 12 young men and
women. They appeared under the heading "Called to active military
service."
The way things are going, some of them may be headed soon enough for the last
war that William Sloane Coffin opposed.
E-mail:
haberman@nytimes.com
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