Quote

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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William Sloane Coffin
Age: 81 †
Born: 1924
Born: June 1
Died: 2006
Died: April 12
Activist
Pastor
New York City
New York
William Sloane Coffin
Jr.
Given
Humanity
Mortals
Tormentors
Power
Seeing
Christians
Transparently
Work
Eyes
Mirror
Mentor
Much
Powerful
Mirrors
Revealing
Eye
Healing
Mortal
Jesus
Judging
Wounded
Christian
Window
Divinity
Christ
Weak
Empowering

More quotes by William Sloane Coffin

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It's so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out.
William Sloane Coffin
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It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it's a crutch. What makes you think you don't limp?
William Sloane Coffin
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The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverance can restrain violence - reverance for human life and the environment.
William Sloane Coffin
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I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.
William Sloane Coffin
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Human beings who blind themselves to human need make themselves less human.
William Sloane Coffin
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We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force.
William Sloane Coffin
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Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.
William Sloane Coffin
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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
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Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
William Sloane Coffin
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Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment.
William Sloane Coffin
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In our time all it takes for evil to flourish is for a few good men to be a little wrong and have a great deal of power, and for the vast majority of their fellow citizens to remain indifferent.
William Sloane Coffin
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Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.
William Sloane Coffin
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The woman most in need of liberation is the woman in every man and the man in every woman.
William Sloane Coffin
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In reality, there are no biblical literalists, only selective literalists. By abolishing slavery and ordaining women, millions of Protestants have gone far beyond biblical literalism. It's time we did the same for homophobia.
William Sloane Coffin
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Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.
William Sloane Coffin
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What is faith? Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
William Sloane Coffin
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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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Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful.
William Sloane Coffin
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It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion the Bible seeks to open one.
William Sloane Coffin
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God knows it is emotionally satisfying to be righteous with that righteousness that nourishes itself on the blood of sinners. But God also knows that what is emotionally satisfying can be spiritually devastating.
William Sloane Coffin