The Rev. William Sloane Coffin was a three-name theologian like the great ones: Martin Luther King, Harry Emerson Fosdick and Robert McAfee Brown.The clergyman who fought war, civil rights injustice, poverty and hatred in the tumult of the 20th century, died Wednesday in Vermont at the age of 81. He was a relentless great mind for justice and peace. Against racial injustice and the Vietnam War, he employed the tools of civil disobedience and got arrested. What set him apart was his articulate voice, his quick turn of phrases and his ferocity of purpose. He exuded respect, urgency, clear-sightedness.Coffin, a one-time Yale University classmate and friend of President George H.W. Bush, made a lot of headlines during his 18 years as Yales chaplain and then as the fourth senior pastor (1977-87) of The Riverside Church in New York City. The self-proclaimed Christian revolutionary and one-time civil-rights Freedom Rider came to my Tempe church in March 1989 where he decried the military arms race. That night at University Presbyterian Church, he began by lifting up a thin cast-iron plaque sitting on the inside front of the pulpit, proclaiming, Sir, that we would see Jesus." (John 12:21) For all who spoke there, it was a reminder that their words should seek to reflect Christs message.Oddly one Sunday morning in April 2005, I was chosen to give a laymans sermon in that same pulpit where I reflected on 40 years of journalism and 15 years of religion writing in connection with scripture tied to the Road to Emmaus. As a gift for that sermon, the pastor presented me with Coffins book Credo, a 173-page collection of the written and spoken words of Coffins noble and forceful life. It was touted as the wisdom of an American prophet.Just a few of the gems: All nations make decisions based on self-interest and then defend them in the name of morality. Believers know that while our values are embodied in tradition, our hopes are always located in change. In the United States, grim poverty is a tragedy that great wealth makes a sin. Compassion and justice are companions, not choices. Ninety-eight percent of people in prison in the United States lived in poverty most of their lives. Nearly one of every 150 people in this country is imprisoned, a number no other democracy come close to matching. Not to take sides is effectively to weigh in on the side of the stronger. Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.I dug out the article I wrote for the Tribune about Coffins talk in Tempe. At the time, the Presbyterian pastor was president of Sane/Freeze peace organization (now Peace Action), whose state chapter was Arizona Center to Reverse the Arms Race. He asserted that the superpowers preoccupation with the arms race was draining national treasuries. Oddly, he said the Cold War had eased up and the Soviet Union and the U.S. were now more friendly, but poverty and U.S. urban decay gave the look that an invading army had passed through our cities.Today the whole world lives on the target of World War III. No hamlet on earth lies outside the orbit of conflict. The whole world is a prisoner of itself and awaits the uncertain moment of execution, he said.Those words may seem dated what with the collapse of the the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He asked nations to increase global loyalty by giving up some of their sovereignty and backing off nationalistic interests to protect mankind and the planet. Coffin has many distinctions: He was one of four clergyman permitted in 1979 to visit the U.S. hostages being held in Iran. Cartoonist Gary Trudeau, in his Doonesbury political comic strip, created the liberal character, the Rev. Scot Sloan, based on Coffin. He was first married to a daughter of the legendary classic pianist Arthur Rubinstein. When his only son was killed in a car accident and people used the tired line, "It was Gods will, he responded, God is crying, too. In 2004, Coffin told a Religion and Ethics newsweekly interviewer on PBS, I don’t think you have to be self-conscious about your prayer life. If you can live in wonder and gratitude and with a sense of wanting to respond — responsible means ‘respond-able,’ able to respond ….Ifyou’re able to respond to beauty in nature, you’ll be an environmentalist. If you’re able to respond to human beings’ basic right to peace, you’ll be a peacenik. Its a matter of being full of wonder, thanksgiving and praying for strength to respond to all the wonder and beauty there is in human life.His strength was his courage and spirit, and when they shut down the coffin on Coffin, we’ll realize his voice will resonate through our consciousness for decades to come in that eternal cry for peace and justice.

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