William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006):
A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
All of life is the exercise of risk.
Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.
Christians have to listen to the world as well as to the Word- to science, to history, to what reason and our own experience tell us. We do not honor the higher truth we find in Christ by ignoring truths found elsewhere.
Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.
Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.
For Christians, the problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that condemn it, but how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.
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.
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
I'm not okay, you're not okay, and that's okay.
If your heart is full of fear, you won't seek truth; you'll seek security.
In our time all it takes for evil to flourish is for a few good men to be a little wrong and have a great deal of power, and for the vast majority of their fellow citizens to remain indifferent.
In short, Pentecost makes it clear that nothing is so fatal to Christianity as indifference.
It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp?
Of God's love we can say two things: it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God's love doesn't seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.
Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race. Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never.
People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both.
So don't let money tell you who you are. Don't let power tell you who your are. Don't let enemies and- for God's sake- don't let your sins tell you who you are. Don't prove yourself. That's taken care of. All we have to do is express ourselves. It's difficult, but we're a lot more alive in pain than in complacency.
The goal of the Christian life is not to save your soul but to transcend yourself, to vindicate the human struggle of which all of us are a part, to keep hope advancing.
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.
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
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.
There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.
Violence always ends up calling on lies to defend it, just as lies call on violence to defend them.
We have sold our birthright of freedom and justice for a mess of national security
When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention.
When we live at each other's mercy, we had better learn to be merciful.
Categories: Quotes of the day, Religion, William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
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