For the Living of These Days

October 5, 1930, was a big day for Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City. It was the first worship service in Riverside’s new church building, one of the most magnificent structures in the United States. 

Although I have attended a Sunday service at Riverside only once, and that was probably around 30 years ago, I still remember being greatly impressed by the size and beauty of the building—as well as by the service itself.

(Sometime I’d like to tell you the story of how I rented a bicycle and peddled through Central Park and then through Harlem on my way to Riverside, near the bank of the beautiful Hudson River.)

Pastor Fosdick wrote a hymn for that dedication service, which was 85 years ago today. Here is the second verse of that hymn, “God of Grace and God of Glory,” which I assume many of you have sung:

Lo! the hosts of evil round us

scorn the Christ, assail his ways!

From the fears that long have bound us

free our hearts to faith and praise.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

for the living of these days,

for the living of these days.

Fosdick, who was born on May 24, 1878, was one of the most influential pastors of the first half of the 1900s. Martin Luther King, Jr., characterized him as “the greatest preacher of the twentieth century.”

In 1922 Fosdick preached a sermon for which he is still widely known: “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” He was one of the first vocal opponents of Christian fundamentalism—and was a primary target of the fundamentalists.

But Fosdick was also an opponent of liberalism, back when it was called “modernism.” In 1935 one of the most significant sermons he preached at Riverside Church was “The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism.”

While rejecting both fundamentalism and extreme liberalism, Fosdick was an advocate of the Social Gospel. Two years before the dedication of the new church building, Fosdick declared that a church

"that pretends to care for the souls of people but is not interested in the slums that damn them, the city government that corrupts them, the economic order that cripples them, and international relationships that, leading to peace or war, determine the spiritual destiny of innumerable souls’’ would receive divine condemnation (Hope of the World, p. 25).

Fosdick died on October 5, 1969, on the 39th anniversary of that notable first Sunday at Riverside Church, where he served as pastor until 1946.

One of Fosdick’s successors was William Sloane Coffin, who was the Senior Minister at Riverside from 1977 to 1987. (See my blog article about him here.) On Oct. 5, 1980, Coffin preached at the 50th anniversary of Riverside Church. Near the end of that sermon he declared, 

“Dearly beloved parishioners, we have no choice, we must work for the redistribution of wealth. We must abridge our luxuries for the sake of others’ necessities, in this city, in this land, and in the world” (The Collected Sermons of William Sloan Coffin: The Riverside Years, 2008, I:358).

Wealth had long been an issue at Riverside, for the new edifice, whose construction began in 1927, was largely funded by business magnate John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The dedication of that magnificent building, though, was almost a year following the beginning of the Great Depression.

So the powerful words of prayer in Fosdick’s hymn had great meaning in 1930: “Give us courage, give us wisdom, for the living of these days.” 

That’s still a good prayer for us today.

Coffin Speaks from His Coffin

William Sloane Coffin, Jr., was senior pastor of historic Riverside Church in New York City for a decade in the 1970’s and ’80s. Many, though, remember him primarily because of his earlier activities at Yale where he was a very vocal civil rights and antiwar advocate.

After his death in April 2006, the New York Times referred to Coffin as “a civil rights and antiwar campaigner who sought to inspire and encourage an idealistic and rebellious generation of college students in the 1960’s from his position as chaplain of Yale University.”

Coffin was born ninety years ago, on June 1, 1924, into a wealthy and elite family of New York City. He originally planned a career as a concert pianist and in 1942 enrolled in Yale University’s School of Music.

But those were war years, so in 1943 he enlisted in the Army. Then in the early 1950s he spent three years working for the CIA. But he grew increasingly disillusioned with the role of the CIA—and the United States—in international affairs.

The year 1956 was a big one for Coffin: he graduated from Yale Divinity School, was ordained a Presbyterian minister, and married Eva Rubinstein, the daughter of pianist Arthur Rubinstein. (His marriage to Eva ended in divorce in 1968.)

In 1958 he became the chaplain at Yale, a position he held until 1975. Then, Coffin began his highly influential ministry at Riverside Church in November 1977, where he remained through the end of 1987.

Two years after his death, Coffin’s Riverside sermons were published in two large volumes under the title “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin: The Riverside Years” (2008).

I probably won’t read them all, but since the middle of last month I have been reading one of Coffin’s sermons each day. Even though some were preached more than 35 years ago, Coffin’s sermons speak to me today. 

Coffin’s message for 11/13/77 (his second sermon as pastor at Riverside) was “It’s Easier to Be Guilty,” based on Mark 6:25-34. He avers, "God’s love casts out fear. The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is fear. So faith means courage."

Then a little later in the same sermon: “The trick in life is to die young as late as possible” (p. 9).

The following week he declared that “while love seeks the truth, fear seeks safety. And fear distorts the truth, not by exaggerating the ills of the world, which would be difficult, but by underestimating our ability to deal with them” (p. 11).

On 2/5/78 Coffin’s sermon was “On Changing Water to Wine.” I was surprised to find that 36 years ago he publicly said, 

I know exemplary Christians who happen to be gay. Are they to be attacked for something over which they had so little choice? Before rushing in with easy judgments, it would seem to behoove those of us who are not gay to listen very carefully to what our fellow Christians who are have to say about the matter (p. 41).

In addition, as the New York Times article says, Coffin “used his ministry [at Riverside Church] to draw attention to the plight of the poor, to question American political and military power, to encourage interfaith understanding, and to campaign for nuclear disarmament.”

Referring to Abel, the writer of Hebrews declared, “. . . he died, but through his faith he still speaks” (11:4, NRSV). Can’t the same be said for WSC? Through his faith, and his published sermons, he still speaks—from his coffin, as it were.