Above: Union Theological Seminary, New York, New York, 1910
Photograph copyrighted by Irving Underhill
Image Source = Library of Congress
Reproduction Number = LC-USZ62-74646
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HENRY SLOANE COFFIN (JANUARY 5, 1877-NOVEMBER 25, 1954)
U.S. Presbyterian Minister, Theologian, and Hymn Translator
uncle of
WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN, JR. (JUNE 1, 1924-APRIL 12, 2006)
U.S. Presbyterian Minister and Social Activist
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A FAMILY STORY
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If there is one characteristic more than others that contemporary public worship needs to recapture, it is the awe before the surpassing great and gracious God.
–Henry Sloane Coffin
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God is to me that creative force, behind and in the universal, who manifests Himself as energy, as life, as order, as beauty, as thought, as conscience, as love.
–Henry Sloane Coffin
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There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world.
–William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
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It is one thing to say with the prophet Amos, “Let justice roll down like mighty waters,” and quite another to work out the irrigation system.
–William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
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With this post I replace two former posts with which I had become dissatisfied. By telling the stories of Henry Sloane Coffin and William Sloane Coffin, Jr., together I also emphasize connections and relationships, one of my purposes in renovating my Ecumenical Calendar of Saints’ Days and Holy Days. The Coffins, uncle and nephew, were prophetic figures who incurred much condemnation by fundamentalist Christians during their lifetimes.
Both Coffins continue to incur much condemnation by fundamentalist Christians, as a simple Internet search reveals.
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Above: Henry Sloane Coffin
Image in the Public Domain
Henry Sloane Coffin, born in New York City on January 5, 1877, came from a prominent family. The family firm, W. & J. Sloane, sold upscale furniture and rugs. It also became involved in real estate development and in low-income housing. Attorney Edmund Coffin, Jr., and Euphemia Coffin had two especially noteworthy sons–Henry Sloane Coffin and William Sloane Coffin, Sr. The latter of these men worked in the family firm, joined the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in 1924, and became the board’s president seven years later.
Above: William Sloane Coffin, Sr. (1879-1933)
Image Source = Library of Congress
Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-ggbain-25374
Henry grew up in New York City, in the lap of privilege and a corresponding sense of social responsibility. He studied at Yale, became a Bonesman, and graduated in 1897. Next our saint studied theology at New College, Edinburgh, Scotland, for two years before returning to the United States and working successfully on two concurrent degree programs–Bachelor of Divinity (Union Theological Seminary, 1900) and Master of Arts (Yale, 1900).
Above: Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, New York
Image creator and copyright holder = Detroit Publishing Company
Image Source = Library of Congress
Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-det-4a11085
Henry was a Presbyterian minister. He, ordained in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in 1900, served as pastor of Bedford Park Presbyterian Church, the Bronx, until 1905, when he transferred to Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City. Our saint, a conscientious pastor and visitor in parishioners’ homes, built up Madison Avenue Church from a struggling congregation to one of the largest in the city during his tenure, which ended in 1926. Starting in 1904 Henry doubled as a part-time Associate Professor of Homiletics and Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary. Finally he accepted an offer to become the President of the seminary in 1926. “Uncle Harry,” as students called him, guided the seminary financially through the Great Depression and hired Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. Among Henry’s greatest accomplishments was helping to avoid a schism (related to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy) in his denomination in the middle 1920s. A minor schism, creating what became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, occurred in 1936, but no major split occurred in the 1920s.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr., born in New York City on June 1, 1924, was a son of William Sloane Coffin, Sr., and Catherine Butterfield Coffin. Our saint, known informally as Bill, lost his father in 1933. The family fortune had declined, and William Sr. had refused to evict low-income tenants who could not afford rent. Catherine took her family into exile in Carmel, California, where they moved into a bungalow and the children attended public schools. In 1937 Uncle Harry began to finance the educations of Bill and his younger sister. Bill began to study at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and Catherine left California. The following year Catherine took Bill to Europe, where he studied classical piano–first in Paris, with Nadia Boulanger, then in Geneva–until June 1940, when World War II forced their return to the United States.
Henry, who received many honorary degrees, was prominent on the Christian and world stage. His image graced the cover of the November 15, 1926, issue of Time magazine. Our saint was also active in ecumenism, working successfully for the creation of the World Council of Churches (1948) and unsuccessfully in the 1940s for the merger of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and The Episcopal Church, then officially the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. Uncle Harry also worked with former U.S. President Herbert Hoover to send provisions to the United Kingdom prior to December 8, 1941, and supported U.S. involvement in World War II.
Bill Coffin went to war. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, in 1942, began studies at Yale Music School, then received his military draft notice in 1943. For fur years he served in the U.S. Army, ending up in military intelligence. Next our saint returned to Yale, joined the Skull and Bones Society (of which friend and classmate George Herbert Walker Bush was also a member), and graduated in 1949. The Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) recruited Coffin at Yale, but he initially chose theology instead. In 1949 he matriculated at Union Theological Seminary yet left for the C.I.A. the following year, shortly after the beginning of the Korean War. At the C.I.A. Coffin taught Soviet émigrés the arts of spycraft. Our saint left the agency over Eisenhower-era C.I.A. coups against democratically elected governments, however. He graduated from Yale Divinity School, became a Presbyterian minister, and married actress Eva Rubenstein in 1956.
Uncle Harry retired from Union Theological Seminary in 1945 then toured the Orient and studied missionary work there. He died, aged 77 years, on November 25, 1954, at Salisbury, Connecticut. His wife, Dorothy Prentice Eells (married in 1906; died in 1983) and two children (Ruth and David) survived him.
Henry translated hymn stanzas and wrote books. In 1916 he translated the following stanza of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”:
O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife, and discord cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
In 1910, in Hymns of the Kingdom of God, which Henry co-edited, he included the following stanza of “God Himself is With Us”:
Thou pervadest all things:
Let thy radiant beauty
Light mine eyes to see my duty.
As the tender flowers
Eagerly unfold them,
To the sunlight calmly hold them,
So let me quietly
In thy rays imbue me;
Let thy light shine through me.
Our saint’s books included the following:
- The Creed of Jesus and Other Sermons (1907),
- Social Aspects of the Cross (1911),
- University Sermons (1911),
- The Christian and the Church (1912),
- Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking (1915),
- The Ten Commandments: With a Christian Application to the Present Conditions (1915),
- In a Day of Social Rebuilding: Lectures on the Ministry of the Church (1918),
- A More Christian Industrial Order (1920),
- Portraits of Jesus Christ (1926),
- What is There in Religion? (1926),
- What to Preach (1926),
- The Meaning of the Cross (1931),
- What Men Are Asking (1933),
- God’s Turn: A Collection of Sermons (1934),
- Religion Yesterday and Today (1940), and
- A Half-Century of Union Theological Seminary, 1896-1945 (1954).
William Sloane Coffin, Jr., became a social activist. Unfortunately, stresses associated with his quest for social justice ended his first two marriages (in 1968 and 1975). In 1956-1957 our saint filled the one-year appointment as chaplain at Phillips Academy. In 1957 he became the chaplain at Williams College. There our saint’s support for civil rights (especially in relation to the events in Little Rock, Arkansas) and criticism of fraternities created controversy. One fraternity brother went so far as to shoot out Coffin’s living room window in anger. From 1958 to 1975 our saint served as the chaplain at Yale University. At Yale Coffin became involved in the Freedom Rides in the South, opposed the Vietnam War, and supported young men who refused to cooperate with the military draft. For his nonviolent anti-draft activities Coffin faced federal charges, went on trial, and became a convict. Later an appeals court overturned the conviction and the government dropped the charges.
To oppose government-sponsored violence nonviolently can place one is legal jeopardy, unfortunately.
Coffin served as the senior pastor of The Riverside Church, New York City, from 1977 to 1987. He opposed Apartheid, lobbied for nuclear disarmament, and spoke out in favor of gay rights–when the latter was a marginal position, even on the Left. He resigned in 1987 to work on the nuclear disarmament issue full-time.
Our saint was quite active during much of this retirement. From 1989 to 1992 he led SANE/FREEZE, dedicated to disarmament and a freeze on atomic weapons. Then he and third wife Virginia Randolph Wilson (married in 1984) moved to Vermont. Coffin continued to travel and speak on a variety of topics, including his opposition to the Iraq War. At the end of his life our saint suffered a series of strokes. He died, surrounded by family, on April 12, 2006. He was 81 years old.
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Henry Sloane Coffin and William Sloane Coffin faced different challenges. Both of them responded to those issues in front of them in accordance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the prophets’ call to social justice, as they understood those high standards. They were controversial in their times. They were probably correct more often than not.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MAY 30, 2017 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF APOLO KIVEBULAYA, APOSTLE TO THE PYGMIES
THE FEAST OF JOACHIM NEANDER, GERMAN REFORMED MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF JOSEPHINE BUTLER, WORKER AMONG WOMEN
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Holy and righteous God, you created us in your image.
Grant us grace to contend fearlessly against evil and make no peace with oppression.
Help us, like your servants Henry Sloane Coffin and William Sloane Coffin, Jr.,
to work for justice among people and nations, to the glory f your name,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Hosea 2:18-23
Psalm 94:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Luke 6:20-36
–Adapted from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 60
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SUNDRY THOUGHTS 
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