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Letters to a Young Doubter
In Letters to a Young Poet , the poet Rainer Maria Rilke advises to "be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves," for gradually, "you will live into the answers." These words have long struck renowned preacher and activist William Sloane Coffin as a wise way to view a growing and evolving life. Thus inspired, Coffin, former university chaplain at Yale, imagined a similar volume of letters.
195 pages, Hardcover
First published July 4, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 22, 2018
When a good friend gifted me this book I had no idea I was receiving a dear mentor with a profound (and often pleasantly provocative) sense of how this world ought to be. Coffin organizes his thoughts into pseudo-letters corresponding with an existentially angsty and yet purely passionate college freshman, a form which I found wonderfully intimate. I was delighted by Coffin's often poetic prose as he mused on a wide range of weighty topics (his thoughts on failure, Jesus of Nazareth, and luxury among my favorite), and I was sincerely devastated when the book ended (because it ended, not because the ending is tragic). I was challenged, I was comforted, and I was coerced to cram a notebook full of quotations from this fiery, friendly former chaplain of the University of Yale. Highly recommended!
January 13, 2014
"Doubts move you forward, not backward, just as long as you doubt out of the love of truth, not out of some pathological need to doubt" (2).
"The unknown is the mind's greatest need, and for it no one thinks to thank God" (Emily Dickinson).
"The Truth must dazzle gradually,/or every man be blind." (Emily Dickinson)
"It's a cold November day here, but the memory lingers on of Vermont's finest hour. A month ago Moses would not have known at which bush to turn aside!" (20).
"Once in college I searched hard for answers. I read the French existentialists--"crisis thinkers"--Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Andre Malraux, and especially Albert Camus, all professed atheists. Also I steeped myself in Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich, all profound theologians. My mind went toward the atheists, but my heart was pulled toward the theologians. Both had a tragic sense of life, both knew what hell was all about, but in the depths of it the theologians found a heaven that made more sense out of everything, much as light gives meaning to darkness" (36-37).
"But a heart full of love has a limbering effect on the mind. Faith is no substitute for thinking; it should help make good thinking possible. In fact, love calls for the utmost in clear-sightedness, all of which I later found out was well understood by Roman Catholics, who called prudence the first of the four cardinal virtues. Prudentia really means 'damn good thinking'" (39-40).
"And the stories don't all have to be literally true. 'A myth,' said Thomas Mann, 'is a truth that is, and always will be, no matter how much we try to say it was.' The truth of a myth is not literally true, only eternally so" (64).
"The trouble with the usual notion of 'Christian obedience' is that it represents a childhood model of living. Fearing confusion, a child naturally wants supervision and direction. A child wants a superior power to provide order and and direct his destiny--and so do childish adults. But let's face that desire and call it what it is, namely, a temptation to disobedience. For we are called to obey not God's power, but God's love. God wants not submission to his power, but in return for his love, our own" (70).
"And gratitude, not obedience, is the primary religious emotion. Duty calls only when gratitude fails to prompt" (78).
"Sin is rending the bond of love, and its punishment is experiencing the bond of love rent. Read Crime and Punishment . . . [it] almost singlehandedly converted me to Christianity . . . . Raskolnikov . . . is a name carefully chosen. In Russian a raskolnik can mean either a split personality or a heretic. The novel could have been as easily entitled Orthodoxy and Heresy" (82).
" . . . war, like most necessary evils, is more evil than necessary" (94).
"And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until at last the gods tire of blood and create a race that can understand" (Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra).
"War is a coward's escape from the problems of peace" (Thomas Mann).
"...Jesus asks, 'Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight.'
In those days the rich bought animals to sacrifice while the poor could afford only sparrows. Sparrows went two for a penny, and if you bought two pennies' worth, a fifth was thrown in.
God cares for that fifth sparrow, the one tossed in! Nature is made the symbol of God's supernatural mercy. It is with an unbounded, unfathomable love that God loves every last human being on the face of the earth from the Pope to the loneliest wino. 'Do not be afraid,' adds Jesus, 'you are of more value than many sparrows.' And God's love doesn't seek value; it creates it" (95-96).
"What would it be like to have God tell you who you are?" (96).
"The founding pastor of Riverside Church in New York once wrote, 'The world has tried in two ways to get rid of Jesus: first by crucifying him, and second by worshipping him.' Jesus doesn't ask us to worship him. He said, 'Follow me'" (97).
"And 'The Lord gave' was a statement against which all the spears of human pride have to be hurled and shattered" (108-109).
"But evil has an irremedial stubborness about it. It has to be recognized, and that always includes recognizing our own complicity in it. (Said Augustine, 'Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside of yourself.') It has to be constrained, but never, I think, can it be eliminated. The pacifists I most admire are those who recognize that the mystery of evil is beyond their solution" (131).
"The primary reward for human toil is not what you get for it, but what you become by it" (British philosopher John Ruskin quoted on page 140).
"Remember that the greatest perils to the planet arise not from the poor and ignorant for whom education is the answer; they are caused by the well-educated for whom self-interest is the problem" (145).
"I concluded that the humanities for too many students were but cultural icing on an economic cake, especially when 'enrich thyself' is the country's prevailing ethos" (145).
"...put yourself in the way of the big things of which real living consists" (148).
"You have to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty" (150).
"As the Buddhists say, you can't stop certain thoughts from coming to mind, but you don't have to invite them to tea" (163).
"That Love is all there is,/Is all we know of Love" (Emily Dickinson quoted on page 185).
"The unknown is the mind's greatest need, and for it no one thinks to thank God" (Emily Dickinson).
"The Truth must dazzle gradually,/or every man be blind." (Emily Dickinson)
"It's a cold November day here, but the memory lingers on of Vermont's finest hour. A month ago Moses would not have known at which bush to turn aside!" (20).
"Once in college I searched hard for answers. I read the French existentialists--"crisis thinkers"--Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Andre Malraux, and especially Albert Camus, all professed atheists. Also I steeped myself in Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich, all profound theologians. My mind went toward the atheists, but my heart was pulled toward the theologians. Both had a tragic sense of life, both knew what hell was all about, but in the depths of it the theologians found a heaven that made more sense out of everything, much as light gives meaning to darkness" (36-37).
"But a heart full of love has a limbering effect on the mind. Faith is no substitute for thinking; it should help make good thinking possible. In fact, love calls for the utmost in clear-sightedness, all of which I later found out was well understood by Roman Catholics, who called prudence the first of the four cardinal virtues. Prudentia really means 'damn good thinking'" (39-40).
"And the stories don't all have to be literally true. 'A myth,' said Thomas Mann, 'is a truth that is, and always will be, no matter how much we try to say it was.' The truth of a myth is not literally true, only eternally so" (64).
"The trouble with the usual notion of 'Christian obedience' is that it represents a childhood model of living. Fearing confusion, a child naturally wants supervision and direction. A child wants a superior power to provide order and and direct his destiny--and so do childish adults. But let's face that desire and call it what it is, namely, a temptation to disobedience. For we are called to obey not God's power, but God's love. God wants not submission to his power, but in return for his love, our own" (70).
"And gratitude, not obedience, is the primary religious emotion. Duty calls only when gratitude fails to prompt" (78).
"Sin is rending the bond of love, and its punishment is experiencing the bond of love rent. Read Crime and Punishment . . . [it] almost singlehandedly converted me to Christianity . . . . Raskolnikov . . . is a name carefully chosen. In Russian a raskolnik can mean either a split personality or a heretic. The novel could have been as easily entitled Orthodoxy and Heresy" (82).
" . . . war, like most necessary evils, is more evil than necessary" (94).
"And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until at last the gods tire of blood and create a race that can understand" (Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra).
"War is a coward's escape from the problems of peace" (Thomas Mann).
"...Jesus asks, 'Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight.'
In those days the rich bought animals to sacrifice while the poor could afford only sparrows. Sparrows went two for a penny, and if you bought two pennies' worth, a fifth was thrown in.
God cares for that fifth sparrow, the one tossed in! Nature is made the symbol of God's supernatural mercy. It is with an unbounded, unfathomable love that God loves every last human being on the face of the earth from the Pope to the loneliest wino. 'Do not be afraid,' adds Jesus, 'you are of more value than many sparrows.' And God's love doesn't seek value; it creates it" (95-96).
"What would it be like to have God tell you who you are?" (96).
"The founding pastor of Riverside Church in New York once wrote, 'The world has tried in two ways to get rid of Jesus: first by crucifying him, and second by worshipping him.' Jesus doesn't ask us to worship him. He said, 'Follow me'" (97).
"And 'The Lord gave' was a statement against which all the spears of human pride have to be hurled and shattered" (108-109).
"But evil has an irremedial stubborness about it. It has to be recognized, and that always includes recognizing our own complicity in it. (Said Augustine, 'Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside of yourself.') It has to be constrained, but never, I think, can it be eliminated. The pacifists I most admire are those who recognize that the mystery of evil is beyond their solution" (131).
"The primary reward for human toil is not what you get for it, but what you become by it" (British philosopher John Ruskin quoted on page 140).
"Remember that the greatest perils to the planet arise not from the poor and ignorant for whom education is the answer; they are caused by the well-educated for whom self-interest is the problem" (145).
"I concluded that the humanities for too many students were but cultural icing on an economic cake, especially when 'enrich thyself' is the country's prevailing ethos" (145).
"...put yourself in the way of the big things of which real living consists" (148).
"You have to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty" (150).
"As the Buddhists say, you can't stop certain thoughts from coming to mind, but you don't have to invite them to tea" (163).
"That Love is all there is,/Is all we know of Love" (Emily Dickinson quoted on page 185).
May 14, 2022
A nice book in the tradition of Letters to a Young Poet: to love the questions and live into the answers. Unfortunately a bit dated in some of the events it alludes to (GW Bush, 9/11), though it focuses on more timeless or timely issues (war, poverty, homophobia). Still, I was thinking about giving it to a teenager but decided that it seemed too dated.
WSC was one of the saints I looked to. He takes positions on theology and the role of the church in the world that I endorse, and he puts them in provocative and inspiring ways. He has the right touch in his imaginary correspondence with a thoughtful, inquisitive college freshman. I just wish someone might re-write this for a contemporary audience, maybe with discussion of issues like racism and climate.
Some lines that struck me:
p. 38 (replying to a pious evangelical "friend" who was after him): "Well, Bill, you'll always be on our prayer list." I couldn't help but ask, "And how does your prayer list differ from your s**t list?"
p. 47: "...what's dangerous is not commercialized but sentimentalized Christmas."
pp. 69-70: "I think most of us would much prefer God to remain God rather than become the frailest among us. We want God to be strong so that we can be weak. But God wants to be weak so that we can be strong."
p. 71: "God provides minimum protection but maximum support..."
p. 97 (quoting Harry Emerson Fosdick): "The world has tried two ways to get rid of Jesus: first by crucifying him, and second by worshipping him." Jesus doesn't ask us to worship him. He said, "Follow me."
p. 134 (quoting a journalist): "The terrorism of suicide bombers is born of despair. There is no military solution to despair."
p. 143: "I'm convinced every first-world student should have a third-world experience...."
p. 149: "In churches, Christ is always in danger of being domesticated. Too many members think of him as a sort of first-world Fred Rogers."
p. 156: "[Some preachers] don't want to jeopardize their congregation's affection for them. A true friend of course is willing to risk his friendship for the sake of his friend, rather than use his friend for the sake of the friendship."
p. 157: "My concern here is for preachers to be constantly aware of the sheep browsing on hillsides wondering when they can safely return to the sheepfold."
WSC reminds me a lot of saints who I have known--Woody Leach, Al Payne. Both of his generation, both college chaplains like WSC, both active anti-racists. Thank God for them. RIP.
WSC was one of the saints I looked to. He takes positions on theology and the role of the church in the world that I endorse, and he puts them in provocative and inspiring ways. He has the right touch in his imaginary correspondence with a thoughtful, inquisitive college freshman. I just wish someone might re-write this for a contemporary audience, maybe with discussion of issues like racism and climate.
Some lines that struck me:
p. 38 (replying to a pious evangelical "friend" who was after him): "Well, Bill, you'll always be on our prayer list." I couldn't help but ask, "And how does your prayer list differ from your s**t list?"
p. 47: "...what's dangerous is not commercialized but sentimentalized Christmas."
pp. 69-70: "I think most of us would much prefer God to remain God rather than become the frailest among us. We want God to be strong so that we can be weak. But God wants to be weak so that we can be strong."
p. 71: "God provides minimum protection but maximum support..."
p. 97 (quoting Harry Emerson Fosdick): "The world has tried two ways to get rid of Jesus: first by crucifying him, and second by worshipping him." Jesus doesn't ask us to worship him. He said, "Follow me."
p. 134 (quoting a journalist): "The terrorism of suicide bombers is born of despair. There is no military solution to despair."
p. 143: "I'm convinced every first-world student should have a third-world experience...."
p. 149: "In churches, Christ is always in danger of being domesticated. Too many members think of him as a sort of first-world Fred Rogers."
p. 156: "[Some preachers] don't want to jeopardize their congregation's affection for them. A true friend of course is willing to risk his friendship for the sake of his friend, rather than use his friend for the sake of the friendship."
p. 157: "My concern here is for preachers to be constantly aware of the sheep browsing on hillsides wondering when they can safely return to the sheepfold."
WSC reminds me a lot of saints who I have known--Woody Leach, Al Payne. Both of his generation, both college chaplains like WSC, both active anti-racists. Thank God for them. RIP.
May 4, 2008
i have bought two copies of this book and gave both away, one to my priest. incredible. down to earth faith and doubt encased in an academic world--yale. in the tradition of rilkeàs letters to a young poet, a student at yale writes the chaplain and their discourse is incredible. and the once-chaplain of yale, the late william sloan coffin, wrote it. wow.
September 17, 2021
If you renounce the possibility of God with the ammunition of logical paradoxes and worldly counterarguments, then this book is for you.
It does not proselytize. Rather, it teaches the reader to live the questions they ask, and live into the answers.
It does not proselytize. Rather, it teaches the reader to live the questions they ask, and live into the answers.
June 6, 2018
Meant for a younger audience, but it means one less book in “gifts tbr” pile. Slowly conquering the mountain.
October 18, 2008
On April 12th of this year we lost a great man, Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Of all his writings I want to recommend for your reading edification a small but wise volume, written shortly before the author's death at 82, Letters to a Young Doubter. The work was inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, who in his July 16, 1903 letter wrote these famous and wise words of encouragement to the young aspiring poet, Franz Xavier Kappus:
"... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves . . . Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them . . . Live the questions now . . . , someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers."
Coffin was also encouraged by Tolstoy who believed that certain questions are put to humanity "not so much that we should answer them, but that we should spend a lifetime wrestling with them." For he believed that faith is no substitute for thinking, but faith makes good thinking possible.
In several ways Rev. Coffin shares the company of people like Dietrich Bonhoefer, Francis of Assisi and those who came from wealthy, comfortable and established families only to find their calling in leaving a life of ease to enter the service of Christ. Impossible to pigeon hole, this sagacious man went from being a CIA Agent to Chaplin of Yale University, to President of SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), and to Senior Minister at Riverside Church, NYC, where he hosted notables like Martin Luther King, Jr, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. If you have never heard of him, surely you have heard one of his most famous aphorism, "Remember young people even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat."
In this light but thought-provoking short work, Coffin, author of the Theological Booksellers' 2004 Book of the Year Credo, exchanges an academic year-long series of letters with a fictional young college student named Tom (after the Bible's Doubting Thomas?) who struggles with issues of his faith, complexities of the modern world, sin, problems with his personal life, values, God's love and God's Power.
It is an easy read offering small delicacies that you need to savor slowly. The book is full of wit and witticism that will make you stop to think and perhaps wish Coffin went deeper into each topic. But we are left with that task to ponder and even struggle with applying his words to our life, as when he writes to Tom and says: "There are two ways of getting rich. One is to have lots of money, the other is to have few needs" and "If you are religious, remember that doctrines are only signposts; love alone is the hitching post.".
If you are like most and have doubts, I recommend this book. Coffin's sense of humor and affection allow him to keep the gravest considerations in perspective. How else can one believe that doubt moves us forward not backward, that guilt is "the last stronghold of pride," that Jesus was "both a mirror to humanity and a window to divinity."
During an interview for one of his books, when he was asked why such a cosmopolitan and world famous figure would banish himself to rural Vermont, he replied "Nature gets more interesting as you're about to join it."
"... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves . . . Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them . . . Live the questions now . . . , someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers."
Coffin was also encouraged by Tolstoy who believed that certain questions are put to humanity "not so much that we should answer them, but that we should spend a lifetime wrestling with them." For he believed that faith is no substitute for thinking, but faith makes good thinking possible.
In several ways Rev. Coffin shares the company of people like Dietrich Bonhoefer, Francis of Assisi and those who came from wealthy, comfortable and established families only to find their calling in leaving a life of ease to enter the service of Christ. Impossible to pigeon hole, this sagacious man went from being a CIA Agent to Chaplin of Yale University, to President of SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), and to Senior Minister at Riverside Church, NYC, where he hosted notables like Martin Luther King, Jr, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. If you have never heard of him, surely you have heard one of his most famous aphorism, "Remember young people even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat."
In this light but thought-provoking short work, Coffin, author of the Theological Booksellers' 2004 Book of the Year Credo, exchanges an academic year-long series of letters with a fictional young college student named Tom (after the Bible's Doubting Thomas?) who struggles with issues of his faith, complexities of the modern world, sin, problems with his personal life, values, God's love and God's Power.
It is an easy read offering small delicacies that you need to savor slowly. The book is full of wit and witticism that will make you stop to think and perhaps wish Coffin went deeper into each topic. But we are left with that task to ponder and even struggle with applying his words to our life, as when he writes to Tom and says: "There are two ways of getting rich. One is to have lots of money, the other is to have few needs" and "If you are religious, remember that doctrines are only signposts; love alone is the hitching post.".
If you are like most and have doubts, I recommend this book. Coffin's sense of humor and affection allow him to keep the gravest considerations in perspective. How else can one believe that doubt moves us forward not backward, that guilt is "the last stronghold of pride," that Jesus was "both a mirror to humanity and a window to divinity."
During an interview for one of his books, when he was asked why such a cosmopolitan and world famous figure would banish himself to rural Vermont, he replied "Nature gets more interesting as you're about to join it."
January 21, 2012
For any person who has read a sermon of Coffins, was intrigued, stirred, or even confused, this is an excellent and accessible primer to his political theology. Through the medium of letters to a fictitious (but no less 'real') sharp, young, but skeptical Christian, Coffin lays out his theological perspectives on the abundance of life, the difference death makes, and the undeniable social justice tenor of the Gospel, which cannot be denied.
An excellent, quick read.
An excellent, quick read.
May 2, 2015
A wonderful series of fictional letters, based on a similar collection of letters by Rilke. This was my first sustained encounter with Coffin, and I will be back for more. He would be more interesting if he were more theologically oriented and less predictably liberal at points, but overall a very thoughtful and helpful series of reflections. A book whose quick read far outweighs its impact.
May 31, 2007
This unfortunately wasn't as good as I thought it would be. It was a take on Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, which I loved, but even though the format was the same, it didn't impact me the way Rilke's work did. Just ok.
July 18, 2013
I was hoping to like this book more than I did. I appreciated the format, but wasn't inspired like I was with Rilke's book. Parts were poignant, but I was surprised by the amount of political views in the book. I was expecting more spiritual words of wisdom, and could've done without the politics.
September 9, 2009
Coffin uses beautiful language and a full heart to express his beliefs to his young, fictional friend. Oh that my faith could be as strong as his was.
December 31, 2014
William Sloane Coffin, I am fortunate enough to say, is the voice of my belief system.
June 17, 2015
It was shorter than I expected but still a good read. This is a book I plan on going back to again and again
January 19, 2016
Wonderful book.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews