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I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin -
Truth is always in danger of being sacrificed on the altars of good taste and social stability.
William Sloane Coffin
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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.
William Sloane Coffin -
It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.
William Sloane Coffin -
We put our best foot forward, but it's the other one that needs the attention.
William Sloane Coffin -
There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
William Sloane Coffin -
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
William Sloane Coffin -
I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.
William Sloane Coffin
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Faith handles the ultimate incongruities of life, humor handles the more immediate ones.
William Sloane Coffin -
Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.
William Sloane Coffin -
The war against Iraq is as disastrous as it is unnecessary; perhaps in terms of its wisdom, purpose and motives, the worst war in American history... Our military men and women...were not called to defend America but rather to attack Iraq. They were not called to die for, but rather to kill for, their country. What more unpatriotic thing could we have asked of our sons and daughters...?
William Sloane Coffin -
Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.
William Sloane Coffin -
If your heart is full of fear, you won't seek truth; you'll seek security. If a heart is full of love, it will have a limbering effect on the mind.
William Sloane Coffin -
Jesus is both a mirror to our humanity and a window to divinity, a window revealing as much of God as is given mortal eyes to see. When Christians see Christ empowering the weak, scorning the powerful, healing the wounded, and judging their tormentors, we are seeing transparently the power of God at work.
William Sloane Coffin
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We have sold our birthright of freedom and justice for a mess of national security.
William Sloane Coffin -
We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
William Sloane Coffin -
We call on all members of America's religious communities, as a testament of our common faith, to join Faithful Security, and to take action immediately to break faith with nuclear weapons.
William Sloane Coffin -
Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.
William Sloane Coffin -
It's too bad that one has to conceive of sports as being the only arena where risks are, [for] all of life is risk exercise. That's the only way to live more freely, and more interestingly.
William Sloane Coffin -
When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention.
William Sloane Coffin
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Fear destroys intimacy. It distances us from each other; or makes us cling to each other, which is the death of freedom.... Only love can create intimacy, and freedom too, for when all hearts are one, nothing else has to be one--neither clothes nor age; neither sex nor sexual preference; race nor mind-set.
William Sloane Coffin -
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.
William Sloane Coffin -
In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions.
William Sloane Coffin -
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.
William Sloane Coffin