[Dialogue] A Genius of a Man, He Believed in Hope

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Monday, April 24, 2006 by the Boston <http://www.boston.com>
Globe 

A Genius of a Man, He Believed in Hope 

by James Carroll

 

''William Sloane Coffin dies at 81," The New York Times headline read last
week. A subhead defined him as ''A preacher on behalf of the poor to the
most prominent." 

The Globe headline read, ''CIA agent became beacon of antiwar movement."

Even these quick references caught the genius of the man, and, as I
collected my thoughts in preparing to speak at a memorial service, I saw
what had made him great. There was tension in the headlines -- poor versus
prominent, CIA versus antiwar -- and such tension gave structure to his
life. A first white man to stand with blacks in the civil rights movement. A
patrician who was tribune of the nobodies. A patriot who had served his
country nobly, but was suddenly in disobedient dissent. A critical thinker
with a simple faith. Bill embodied in his biography the possibility that the
divisions of life can be brought into resolution.

What made Bill Coffin famous was his rhetorical flair. His genius for the
energetic sound bite was the solution to every reporter's deadline problem.

''It's not enough to pray for peace. Work for justice!"

''War is a coward's escape from the problems of peace."

''We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force."

Such language was a reflection of the choices that defined him -- the
dynamic of ''versus" again. This is the rhetoric of irony, a bringing
together of polarities to see how the tensions of life and the various
levels of meaning can be brought to resolution. Irony of this sort is the
essence of humor, which is why those who knew Bill Coffin, or ever heard him
speak, remember, above all, his great rolling laughter.

Irony depends on an exquisite balance of language and ideas both, opposites
held in tension with each other not to split them apart, but to propose a
new kind of unity. In the choices he made, and in the language he used, Bill
Coffin held up the possibility of hope. He proclaimed by his preaching and
his living that the human heart is not doomed to break, however cracked it
is by war, by injustice, or even by the sorrows, say, of a child who dies
too young.

By his preaching and living, Bill Coffin told us that the divisions of the
human heart can be brought into unexpected harmony. This, of course, always
assumes that ''the heart is a little to the left." That book title of his,
derived from the Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camarra, is the perfect example
of the free and freeing mind of Bill Coffin, a sly but gentle jibe at
right-wingers, reminding them that the human body itself suggests we are all
meant to be liberals.

A man of paradox and hope. For all of the political power that accrued to
Bill, through his civil rights and antiwar celebrity, it was his religious
conviction that most defined him. Peace and justice were his absolute
values. But, by his own account, he had those values not from his privileged
background, nor from his beloved America, nor from Yale. To the
mystification and even consternation of many, Bill Coffin defined himself by
Jesus. And what did Bill love about Jesus, if not the paradox? The
contradictions that added up to hope. Jesus, the peasant nobody who is Lord
of the universe. Jesus, the victim who is victorious. Jesus, who can say,
''My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?" while also saying, ''Into Your
hands." With that habitual rhetorical flair of his, Bill said, ''I don't
know what is waiting for me after death, but I do know Who." I first met
Bill Coffin 40 years ago, when I was a seminarian. He gave me a new idea of
what the ministry could be. In large part because of him, I became a college
chaplain -- and then, however timidly, a war resister. Once, I found myself
in a jail cell next to his after a demonstration. Through a long and -- to
me -- terrible night, Bill led the cellblock in choruses from Handel's
''Messiah." Even now, when I hear its sweetest refrain -- ''Comfort ye!" --
I hear his resonant voice. I am consoled and emboldened by both.

Through the decades, Bill faithfully maintained his commitments. He was a
firm critic of the unnecessary war in Iraq, and he never stopped decrying
America's unbroken bondage to nuclear weapons. But with his unfailing
generosity of spirit, he never stopped embodying the hope that oppositions,
even of the kind that still divide his beloved America, can be overcome. 

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. His most recent book
is "Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805077030/commondreams-20/ref=nosim
/> ."

C 2006 The Boston Globe

###

 

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