The Heart Is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality - Hardcover

Coffin, William Sloane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874519586 ISBN 13: 9780874519587

Publisher: Dartmouth College, 1999

Synopsis

ON SELFISHNESS:
"There is no smaller package in the world that that of a person all wrapped up in himself."

ON TOLERANCE:
"Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without."

"An abundance of wisdom in an economy of words" by a leading activist preacher.

William Sloane Coffin offers here a powerful antidote to the politics of the religious right with a clarion call to passive intellectuals and dispirited liberals to reenter the fray with an unabashedly Christian view of social justice. Refusing to cede the battlefield of morality to conservatives, he argues that "compassion demands confrontation," as he considers such topics as homophobia, diversity, nuclear weapons, and civil discourse.

No stranger to controversy, Coffin became famous while chaplain at Yale in the 1960s for his active opposition to the Vietnam War. Jailed as a civil rights "Freedom Rider," indicted by the government in the Benjamin Spock conspiracy trial, he attained popular immortality as Reverend Sloan in the Doonesbury comic strip. Now in his 70s and retired as pastor of New York's Riverside Church, Coffin has lost neither his fire nor his wit. The seven pieces collected here are peppered with memorable aphorisms and pithy, political one-liners meant to turn bitterness to anger and anger to action. "I stress anger because the country as a whole is despiritualized by moral lassitude," he writes. "Having gotten used to genocidal weapons, are we now going to get used to starving children?"

Unafraid to call himself a Christian, Coffin reclaims Jesus and the Bible from religious fundamentalists in his call for liberalism and justice. The "simplicity, beauty, and difficulty of Jesus' message" informs much of Coffin's thinking as he strives to restore spirituality to intellectual life. Politics and religion, long taboo at polite dinner parties, are powerfully reunited here.

About this title

About the Authors

WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN served for 18 years as chaplain of Yale University, was senior minister of Riverside Church, and is president emeritus of SANE/FREEZE: Campaign for Global Security. His books include Once to Every Man: An Autobiography, The Courage to Love, Living the Truth in a World of Illusions, and A Passion for the Possible.

WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN (1924-2006) served for 18 years as chaplain of Yale University, was senior minister of Riverside Church, and was president emeritus of SANE/FREEZE: Campaign for Global Security. His books include Once to Every Man: An Autobiography, The Courage to Love, Living the Truth in a World of Illusions, and A Passion for the Possible.

Reviews

This slim volume gathers together seven essays by Coffin, former chaplain at Yale and pastor of New York's Riverside Church. For Coffin, politics and religion are inseparable, and the constant theme of these essays is the need for social justice. Quoting Brazilian Archbishop Camara, Coffin reminds readers that `` `the heart is a little to [the] left.' You don't have to give socialist answers, but you do have to press socialist questions.'' In ``The Warhorse,'' the antinuclear activist makes nuclear disarmament, an issue that faded from most people's radar screens years ago, seem not only relevant but feasible. The crown jewel of the collection is ``The Politics of Compassion,'' a rousing jeremiad on behalf of the poor. Its unfortunate that many on the Christian right, who would be challenged and stretched by Coffin's political message, will be put off by some of his theological ax-grinding. His glib dismissal of scriptural authority, for example, is irrelevant to his larger vision and is guaranteed to be off-putting to orthodox readers. In the Bible, Joel prophesied that ``Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.'' This book makes clear why Coffin is one of America's most valuable visionaries and dreamers. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In the civil rights and antiwar movements, in 18 years as Yale University's chaplain, and long service as president of SANE/FREEZE, Coffin has been a clergyman even atheists respect, a voice of conscience whose passion for justice ensures that his sermons speak to a wide range of believers and nonbelievers. This slim volume gathers seven speeches and sermons Coffin delivered at various universities or churches (including Riverside Church in New York, where he was senior minister). As he did a quarter century ago, Coffin engages in issues facing the nation, such as the interaction between the spiritual and the secular, the "politics of compassion," homophobia, the nature of biblical authority, and military spending. Christ's message of love, Coffin maintains, demands action in the world: real compassion requires confronting those who oppress others, and the central component of civility is not simply good manners but actively caring for others. It is to that difficult but rewarding form of Christian witness that Coffin calls readers. Mary Carroll

This short, readable work represents seven sermons and speeches delivered primarily to university audiences by controversial activist preacher Coffin (former chaplain at Yale University and senior minister of New York City's Riverside Church). By his own admission, he's an old man in a hurry: at times strident, at others just plain earnest. He comes down strongly on the side of social justice, championing notions like nuclear abolition, compassion for the homeless and disenfranchised, and the democratization of the American market economy. Not merely political, Coffin takes a strong stand against religious zealotry; the Bible, he claims, serves as a signpost, not a hitching post. Biblical literalists, he argues, sacrifice their intellect while holding to the self-delusional security of their fundamentalist creeds. Passionate, sometimes angry, yet never defeatist, Coffin reads as vibrantly and dynamically as he has lived. His confrontational tone serves as a challenge to anyone willing to engage this old moral warrior. Recommended for American religion and history collections.ASandra Collins, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Lib.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dartmouth College
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874519586
• ISBN 13: 9780874519587
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 93