WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN Biography - Religious Figures & Icons

 
 

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WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN

Name: William Sloane Coffin Jr.                                                     
Born: 1 June 1924                                                                   
Died: 12 April 2006                                                                 
                                                                                   
Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (June 1, 1924 - April 12, 2006) was a liberal       
Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist with international stature. He     
was ordained in the Presbyterian church and later received ministerial standing     
in the United Church of Christ.                                                     
                                                                                   
In his younger days he was a superb athlete, a highly talented pianist, a CIA       
agent, and later chaplain of Yale University, where the influence of Reinhold       
Niebuhr's social philosophy led him to become a leader in the civil-rights and     
peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s.                                             
                                                                                   
He went on to serve as Senior Minister at the Riverside Church in New York City,   
and President of SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), the nation's largest peace and     
justice group, and prominently opposed United States military intervention from     
the Vietnam War to the Iraq War. He was also an ardent supporter of gay rights.