366 - The Courage to Love

The Courage to Love
By William Sloane Coffin
San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1982. 100 pp. $9.95.

Here we have a brief and thoughtful collection of sermons on contemporary social and moral issues, such as abortion, the Christian calling, the Moral Majority, communism, the arms race, homosexuality, and the quest for personal fulfillment. All are done with remarkable compassion for opposing viewpoints.

The author, the well-known minister of Riverside Church in New York, believes that the uncertainties of our age have caused fear to displace Christian love, paralyzing the church and causing it to grasp at temporal power, power over individuals and institutions. "Burn Out" results as the powerful discover that last decade's rock has become this year's quicksand. As permanence becomes impossible, increased frustration and power-grasping result. Coffin Urges, first, that the church become more inclusive of problems and problematic persons, as love through tolerance forces a dialogue which disperses fear and makes the church more "response-able." Second, believers are urged to see themselves as a pilgrim people who deal with contemporary ambiguities while journeying, in the shadow of the Cross, to a better place. Christ's pilgrims will not be unnerved by the inevitable uncertainties of the time, nor has their sacrificial love any need of temporal power or the false securities which foster "Burn Out."

This is a provocative and sensitive work which will be valued by pastor, teacher, and layperson alike.

Bertram Gordon Watkins
King's Community American Baptist Church
Cherry Hill, N.J.