Credo

By William Sloane Coffin

William Sloane Coffin challenged the nation with his passionate calls for social justice. In this best-seller, Coffin gives a powerful record of his remarkable public life, offering his inspiring words on issues ranging from charity and justice to politics and the meaning of faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Dec 31, 2004
• ISBN: 9781611644593

William Sloane Coffin

William Sloane Coffin served as chaplain of Yale University and Williams College, was senior minister of Riverside Church, and is President Emeritus of SANE/FREEZE: Campaign for Global Security. He became famous while at Yale in the 1960s for his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was jailed as a civil rights Freedom Rider, indicted by the U.S. government in the Benjamin Spock conspiracy trial, and has been immortalized as Rev. Sloan in the Doonesbury comic strip. Both Union Theological Seminary in New York and Yale University have established scholarships in his honor.Included in his works are Credo and A Passion for the Possible, both available from WJK.

Book preview

Preface

Credo—I believe—best translates I have given my heart to. However imperfectly, I have given my heart to the teaching and example of Christ, which, among many other things, informs my understanding of faiths other than Christianity.

Certainly religions are different. Still most seek to fulfill the same function; that is, they strive to convert people from self-preoccupation to the wholehearted giving of oneself in love for God and for others. To love God by loving neighbor is an impulse equally at the heart of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It therefore makes eminent sense in today’s fractured world for religious people to move from truth-claiming to the function truth plays.

Moreover, when we consider how, on a whole range of questions—from the number of sacraments to the ordination of women, pacifism, abortion, and homosexuality—Christians cannot arrive at universal agreement, then we have to be impressed by a divine incomprehensibility so vast that no human being dare speak for the Almighty. As St. Paul asks, For who has known the mind of God? To learn from one another and to work together towards common goals of justice and peace—this surely is what suffering humanity has every right to expect of believers of all faiths.

The idea for this book came from publisher Davis Perkins, who asked editor Stephanie Egnotovich to look over a lifetime of sermons and my unpublished speeches, then to excerpt from them paragraphs and sentences to be organized into rough categories. Stephanie basically did the work; I had only to add a little bit here, delete a little bit there. Seldom has an author owed so much to an editor.

The book is designed to be read slowly and in no particular order. The separate paragraphs reflect conclusions I have reached during a lifetime of continuous education. Now that my years appear to be hastening to their end, I want to acknowledge how much I owe my many, many teachers. Believe me, a totally original idea is a remarkable rarity!

Finally, I like to believe that I am an American patriot who loves his country enough to address her flaws. Today these are many, and all preachers worth their salt need fearlessly to insist that God ‘n’ country is not one word.

—WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN

Faith, Hope, Love

And now faith, hope, and love abide,

these three; and the

greatest of these is love.

—1 Cor. 13:13

Jesus thou art all compassion

Pure unbounded love thou art

Visit us with thy salvation

Enter every trembling heart.

—Charles Wesley

Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. Descartes too was mistaken; Cogito ergo sum—I think therefore I am? Nonsense. Amo ergo sum—I love therefore I am. Or, as with unconscious eloquence St. Paul wrote, Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I believe that. I believe it is better not to live than not to love.

Make love your aim, not biblical inerrancy, nor purity nor obedience to holiness codes. Make love your aim, for

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels—musicians, poets, preachers, you are being addressed;

and though I … understand all mysteries, and all knowledge—professors, your turn,

and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor—radicals take note;

and though I give my body to be burned—the very stuff of heroism;

and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3 KJV).

I doubt if in any other scriptures of the world there is a more radical statement of ethics. If we fail in love, we fail in all things

Reviews for Credo

[wordygirl39 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the very best books in my library. Coffin's words will last forever.