The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a peace activist and former visiting professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School, died April 12 at his Vermont home. He was 81.
Coffin had been in declining health with heart problems, according to news reports.
Coffin, an ordained Presbyterian minister, was active in the civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War during his tenure as chaplain of Yale University from 1957 to 1975. He was convicted of conspiracy to encourage draft evasion, but the verdict was overturned on appeal.
Cartoonist Garry Trudeau used Sloane as one of the inspirations for the Rev. Sloan character in his Doonesbury comic strip.
Sloane was pastor of Riverside Church in New York City from 1976 to 1987. He used the pulpit at the church already reputed for social activism to promote nuclear disarmament, spotlight the problems of the poor and challenge the use of military and political power by the United States.
From 1991 to 1995 he was the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
“We will miss Bill Coffin’s amazing personal warmth, sense of humor and love of poetry and aphorisms,” said James Hudnut-Beumler, dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School and one of the authors of The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York.
“Coffin expounded theology with a sense of timing and aptness that is found mostly in genuinely funny comedians.”
Hudnut-Beumler said Coffin remained focused on the future even as he knew his health was failing.
“He picked up the phone and called people like me to make sure we made the next generation of religious leaders was paying attention to the impending nuclear arms crisis in which we find ourselves,” Hudnut-Beumler said. “We are grateful for Bill Coffin’s life and witness. We should all live so well.”
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 343-1271
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu