WIST

We don’t have to be “successful,” only valuable. We don’t have to make money, only a difference, and particularly in the lives society counts least and puts last.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2001)
Full text.

Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2004)

We must guard against being too individualistic and elitist in our understanding of spirituality. Some Christians talk endlessly about the importance of one’s interior life and how to develop it more fully, forgetting that Christ is born to bring hope and joy also to whole communities of people — the exiles, the deported, the tortured, the silenced.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2004)

It is bad religion to deify doctrines and creeds. While indispensable to religious life, doctrines and creeds are only so as signposts. Love alone is the hitching post. Doctrines, let’s not forget, supported slavery and apartheid; some still support keeping women in their places and gays and lesbians in limbo. Moreover, doctrines can divide while compassion can only unite. In other words, religious folk, all our lives, have both to recover tradition and to recover from it.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2004)

True, we have to hate evil; else we’re sentimental. But if we hate evil more than we love the good, we become damn good haters, and of those the world already has too many.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2004)

There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2004)

If we hate ourselves, we can never love others, for love is the gift of oneself. How will you make a gift of that which you hate?

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 1 (2004)

Full text.

Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
Credo, ch. 2 (2001)

Full text.

It is not Scripture that creates hostility to homosexuality, but rather hostility to homosexuality that prompts certain Christians to retain a few passages from an otherwise discarded law code. The problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages, but rather how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
The Courage to Love (1982)

The temptation to moralize is strong; it is emotionally satisfying to have enemies rather than problems, to seek out culprits rather than the flaws in the system. God knows it is emotionally satisfying to be righteous with that righteousness that nourishes itself on the blood of sinners. But God also knows that what is emotionally satisfying can be spiritually devastating.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (b. 1924) American Protestant social activist
The Courage to Love (1982)