false 976854 1 ON SELFISHNESS: <br>"There is no smaller package in the world that that of a person all wrapped up in himself."<br><br>ON TOLERANCE: <br>"Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without."<br><br>"An abundance of wisdom in an economy of words" by a leading activist preacher.<br><br>William Sloane Coffin offers here a powerful antidote to the politics of the religious right with a clarion call to passive intellectuals and dispirited liberals to reenter the fray with an unabashedly Christian view of social justice. Refusing to cede the battlefield of morality to conservatives, he argues that "compassion demands confrontation," as he considers such topics as homophobia, diversity, nuclear weapons, and civil discourse.<br><br>No stranger to controversy, Coffin became famous while chaplain at Yale in the 1960s for his active opposition to the Vietnam War. Jailed as a civil rights "Freedom Rider," indicted by the government in the Benjamin Spock conspiracy trial, he attained popular immortality as Reverend Sloan in the Doonesbury comic strip. Now in his 70s and retired as pastor of New York's Riverside Church, Coffin has lost neither his fire nor his wit. The seven pieces collected here are peppered with memorable aphorisms and pithy, political one-liners meant to turn bitterness to anger and anger to action. "I stress anger because the country as a whole is despiritualized by moral lassitude," he writes. "Having gotten used to genocidal weapons, are we now going to get used to starving children?"<br><br>Unafraid to call himself a Christian, Coffin reclaims Jesus and the Bible from religious fundamentalists in his call for liberalism and justice. The "simplicity, beauty, and difficulty of Jesus' message" informs much of Coffin's thinking as he strives to restore spirituality to intellectual life. Politics and religion, long taboo at polite dinner parties, are powerfully reunited here. 961750 1 10 1999 The Heart Is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality total:14|5:7|4:5|3:1|2:1| 14 60 29 5 4 0 false false Tue Nov 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 17 14:14:30 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 25 04:01:17 -0800 2008 1 5 0 false false Sat Jan 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 22 09:00:02 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 10 11:11:14 -0800 2009 5 2 false false Sat Jan 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Dec 26 10:01:38 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 29 15:52:04 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed Oct 22 17:29:34 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 17:30:21 -0700 2008 3 5 0 false false Wed Oct 24 16:36:42 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 24 16:37:20 -0700 2007 0 0 false false Sat Oct 31 11:39:43 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 11:39:43 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Sep 26 16:15:07 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 26 16:15:25 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Tue Aug 04 18:22:57 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 18:22:57 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed May 13 14:55:33 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 14:55:39 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat May 02 12:42:01 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 12:42:01 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Apr 25 19:35:59 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 19:35:59 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Mar 27 23:38:09 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 27 23:38:09 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 17:53:51 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 18:01:26 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jun 04 07:31:08 -0700 2009 Fri Jan 23 06:55:20 -0800 2009 Thu Jun 04 07:31:08 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jan 21 06:32:22 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 06:32:28 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jan 18 06:10:48 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 06:10:48 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jan 14 09:31:03 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 09:31:03 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jan 05 11:12:51 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 11:13:03 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Dec 30 16:55:51 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 16:55:54 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sun Dec 28 12:53:56 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 12:54:02 -0800 2008