Background

Henry Coffin was born on January 5, 1877, in New York, where he spent his early years. Coffin was the son of Edmund, a legal advisor, and Euphemia Coffin.

Education

Henry Coffin attended Yale University, where he got a Bachelor of Arts in 1897 and a Master of Arts in 1900. After graduation from Yale, he studied at New College in Edinburgh in 1897-1899 and the Philipps University of Marburg in 1899. In 1900 Coffin earned a Bachelor of Divinity at the Union Theological Seminary.

Career

Henry Coffin was ordained in the Presbyterian Church United States in 1900, began his ministry at the Bedford Park Church in the Bronx, and remained there in 1900-1905. Then, Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church called him to their pastorate in 1905 until 1926.

In 1904 Henry Coffin started his teaching career at the Union Theological Seminary as a teacher of practical theology. Then, in 1926 he became president of the Seminary and served until his retirement in 1945. Referred to as "Uncle Henry," a popular nickname attached to him by students, Coffin was an active leader in all aspects of seminary life, and in the broader Christian leadership. During his time as president, Henry Coffin was responsible for hiring both Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. He deftly navigated Union Theological Seminary through the financial woes of the depression era.

Between 1945 and 1954, Henry Coffin also lectured and was a public speaker. He was the Young Men's Christian Association speaker in the United States and France during World War I. Besides, he served as a fellow of the Corporation of Yale University in 1922-1945, and the president of the Board of Trustees of Roberts College in Constantinople, Turkey. Coffin lectured at the New College in Edinburgh in 1926, at the Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church, Yale University, and Auburn Seminary. He also was an abroad Joseph Cook Lecturer in 1946-1947. Coffin was elected Moderator by the 155th Presbyterian General Assembly in 1943 of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

Also, Henry Coffin was a writer. Among his more than twenty writings, his book, Meaning of the Cross, is considered an excellent guide to Christian theology.

Achievements

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  Henry Coffin was widely known as a writer, clergyman, and educator. He was awarded honorary degrees from many institutions, including Doctor of Divinity from New York University in 1906, Yale University in 1915, Harvard University in 1922, Princeton in 1925, Glasgow in 1926, Union College in 1928, and Episcopal Theological Seminary in1935. Besides, he honored with a Doctor of Laws from Amherst in 1927 and Saint Andrews in 1934, Doctor of Sacred Theology from Jewish Theological Seminary in 1937, Doctor of Literature from the College of Ozarks in 1931 and Western Reserve in 1937, and Doctor of Theology from the University of Marburg in 1930 and the Faculté Libre de Théologie Protestante in Paris in 1938. Henry Coffin also appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1926.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Joy in believing

    (The book was published after Henry Coffin's death in 1954.)

    1956
  • The Creed of Jesus and Other Sermons 1907
  • Hymns of the Kingdom of God 1910
  • Social Aspects of the Cross 1911
  • University Sermons 1914
  • Some Christian Convictions 1915
  • The Ten Commandments 1915
  • In a Day of Social Rebuilding 1918
  • A More Christian Industrial Order 1920
  • The Portraits of Jesus Christ in the New Testament 1926
  • What Men Are Asking 1933
  • God's Turn 1934
  • Religion Yesterday and Today 1940
  • The Public Worship Of God 1946
  • God Confronts Man in History 1947
  • Communion Through Preaching 1952
  • A Half Century of Union Theological Seminary, 1896-1945 1954

Politics

Henry Coffin was a strong advocate of United States involvement in World War II. With Herbert Hoover, he worked to send provisions to the United Kingdom before the United States declaration of war in 1941. Besides, Coffin was arrested as a Freedom Rider early in the 1960s and was an early admirer of Martin Luther King Jr.

Views

An ordained Presbyterian minister, Henry Coffin embraced a philosophy that put social activism at the heart of his clerical duties. Preaching throughout the United States, he emphasized the application of Christianity to social problems. Coffin also sought to improve the quality of theological education.

Quotations: "God is to me that creative force, behind and in the universe, who manifests Himself as energy, as life, as order, as beauty, as though, as conscience, as love."

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Martin Luther King Jr.

Connections

Henry Coffin married Dorothy Prentice Eells on September 6, 1906. They had two children, Ruth and David Coffin.

Father:

Edmund Coffin

Mother:

Euphemia Coffin

Euphemia Coffin's maiden name was Sloane.

Wife:

Dorothy Prentice Eells

Daughter:

Ruth Prentice Coffin

Son:

David D. Coffin

colleague:

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover was an American politician and businessman. He was the 31st president of the United States (1929-1933). Hoover's reputation as a humanitarian, earned during and after World War I as he rescued millions of Europeans from starvation, faded from public consciousness when his administration proved unable to alleviate widespread joblessness, homelessness, and hunger in his own country during the early years of the Great Depression.

colleague:

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr was an American Protestant theologian who had extensive influence on political thought and whose criticism of the prevailing theological liberalism of the 1920s significantly affected the intellectual climate within American Protestantism.

colleague:

Paul Johannes Tillich

Paul Tillich was a German-born American theologian and philosopher whose discussions of God and faith illuminated and bound together with the realms of traditional Christianity and modern culture. Some of his books, notably The Courage to Be and Dynamics of Faith, reached a large public audience not usually concerned with religious matters.