Victories and Defeats in the 2008 Legislature

Two days remain of the regular session of Kentucky's General Assembly. It has been a difficult session, and we still have time to effect change for the good in these last two days, but you'll have to read to the end of this blog to find out what you can still do!

Many of you have sent letters and made phone calls to your legislators. I hope you have been following the issues in your local news media, but in case you haven't let me take this opportunity to give you an up date on what has happened, on what still could happen, and to thank you for your participation in the legislative process. Citizens do make a difference. Your voice and opinions matter to your legislators.

THE BUDGET: The major issue facing the legislature in every even-numbered year is the state's biennial budget. Budgets, we know, are moral documents and reveal the priorities and values of a people. Unfortunately, the 2009-2010 budget for our Commonwealth will cause difficulties for many portions of our common life: students at our colleges and universities will face higher tuition rates; there will be minimal salary increases for teachers and staff at K-12 schools, and at colleges and universities. Health and human services will have no additional moneys to meet ever growing needs, and a number of programs will suffer significant cuts to their budgets.

The budget, as adopted by the House and Senate, contains no new sources of revenue. Even the minimal 25 cent increase in the cigarette tax was rejected. The KCC had supported an increase of 70 cents, which would have been a great factor in preventing teens from becoming addicted to tobacco, and in reducing the numbers of pregnant women who smoke. The tobacco tax, even at the 25 cent level as suggested by the House in its version of the budget, would have made some difference and would have generated about $50 million new dollars. A 70 cent increase would have generated about $225 million.

New dollars were needed because the current economic climate has resulted in declining revenues from the state income and sales taxes, all while costs for Medicaid, education, and prisons keep rising. Kentucky is in a real pickle for the next two years, unless the legislature is called back by the Governor for a special session (to the tune of about $65,000 per day) to review the budget and pass some new "revenue enhancements" prior to July 1st.

CASINOS: Through a combination of factors, including the effective voice of opponents such as the Kentucky Council of Churches, the Kentucky Baptist Convention, the Family Foundation, Say No to Casinos, and Kentucky Youth Advocates, and including internal political conflicts between the two political parties and internally to them, the casino issue never made it to a floor vote. The proposal that was brought forward was not what the thoroughbred industry had hoped for, either. The resulting disarray of voices for casinos and the politics of the issue mean that it is effectively dead, and cannot be passed to be included on a ballot for the people's vote until 2010.

ANTI-BULLYING BILL: HB-91 passed both the House and Senate after a conference committee ironed out some of the differences between the two chambers. We have been working for the passage of this bill for 4 years. The bill requires the development and implementation of discipline procedures around bullying. It also requires consistent reporting procedures to state authorities for all school districts.

CHILDREN'S WELFARE: Two good bills for children also passed. SB-120 requires booster seats for children under age 7 who are 40-50 inches tall, and sets a $30 penalty for noncompliance with a grace period for enforcement until 2009. HB-186 requires public school students to receive a dental examination within 90 days of first-time enrollment in Kentucky schools. This means that many children will receive dental care for the first time in their lives.

ENVIRONMENT: The "Stream-Saver" bill that would have prevented strip mining from dumping the debris from their mountaintop removal procedures into the headwaters of creeks and rivers did manage, at last, to receive a hearing, but not from the Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources, but by the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee. We are hopeful that in future years the groundswell of public opinion in favor of this legislation will force it to be heard and receive a vote from each chamber.

I encourage you to read Wendell Berry's impassioned speech from the "I Love The Mountains" day, attended by approximately 2000 Kentuckians, at http://www.kftc.org/our-work/general-assembly/stream-saver-bill/Wendell%20Berry%202-14-08.pdf

ECONOMIC JUSTICE: The Pay-Day Lending bill, HB-500, is stuck currently in the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee. Sponsored by Rep. Johnny Bell, HB-500 would require the creation of a database to allow the Office of Financial Institutions to monitor compliance with state law by payday lenders and borrowers. While not nearly as strong as we would like it to be, it would at least eliminate the practice of borrowers taking out a new loan immediately after paying off a previous loan, and would require a 24 hour cooling off period. The database would make sure that people did not have more than one such loan at a time.

The Pay Day Lending bill still has a chance to be voted out of the Senate and to be delivered to the Governor before the Legislature adjourns on April 15. Please call 1-800-372-7181 to let your legislator know your opinion about Pay-Day Lending practices in Kentucky.

THANKS. Again, I thank you for your participation in our action alerts and in being involved in the legislative process as a faithful citizen. Together we can build a more perfect union.

I also want to thank the groups and churches that hosted me for a Legislative Briefing: First United Methodist Church, Frankfort; Union College, Barbourville; the Peace and Justice Committee of the Diocese of Northern Kentucky; the Kentuckiana Association, United Church of Christ; Summit Heights United Methodist Church (Louisville); Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church (Louisville) and the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky; and Grace Episcopal Church, Paducah.

Time for Divestment in the Sudan

How long will decent people let the genocide in Darfur, Sudan continue? Over three years ago Congress and even President Bush named the violence in Darfur what it is: genocide. Yet it continues. After the Holocaust of the Third Reich, the world said: “Never again.” After the horror of Rwanda, the world said: “Never again.” People of conscience want to know when “never”, with regard to Darfur, will finally begin.

Since 2003, the Sudanese government and its proxy militia, the Janjaweed (the devil on horseback), have been conducting a scorched earth campaign against targeted African communities in Darfur, an area in western Sudan the size of Texas. With extensive support from the Sudanese military, the Janjaweed have terrorized and killed civilians, raped women and girls, and burned villages to the ground. Nearly a half million people have been slaughtered.

When, please tell us, does “never again” begin? With nearly 4.2 million people in need of humanitarian aid, and more than 2 million of whom have been displaced from their homes to live in make-shift camps dispersed through out the regions, the genocide has gone on and on and on.

Despite condemnation from the international community and countless U.N Security Council resolutions, Khartoum has not taken any steps to disarm the Janjaweed, or to end attacks on civilians. Shrugging their shoulders at the U.N. arms embargo, the government continues to fly weapons into the region, and it does little to discourage the ever growing numbers of splinter rebel groups in order to keep the chaos going.

Let us remember the prophet Jeremiah who cried out against the rulers and people of his time: “For from the least to the greatest of them everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. They have acted shamefully, they have committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:13-15)

Are we not embarrassed by the outrageous acts destroying innocent people in Darfur? It is time to do more than to shake our finger and label the events for the past three years as genocide. It is time to use some muscle, and exercise the real clout that is based in economics. If we do not, we are party to the abominations and shameful acts.

The Sudanese government depends heavily on foreign investment to fund its military campaign in Darfur. For example, more than 70% of Sudan’s oil revenue is used to purchase or produce the military equipment Sudan uses against its own citizens. While U.S. sanctions currently prevent domestically-owned companies from doing business in Sudan, many U.S. companies, mutual funds and individuals are unwittingly funding the Sudanese atrocities through their investments in foreign companies operating in Sudan.

Federal divestment legislation – H.R. 180, passed in July in the House by a vote of 418 to one; and a similar Senate bill (S.2271)—the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act that was introduced in October—could go a long way to increase dramatically the economic pressure on the Sudanese government by prohibiting U.S. government contracts with all foreign companies whose business helps fund the Sudanese campaign in Darfur. These companies which engage in the oil, energy, mineral extraction and weapons industries would be forced to choose between contracts with the U.S. government and business with Khartoum.

Citizens who are bothered by the whole catastrophe in Darfur should know that the Bush administration has slowed the progress on this legislation, fearing that it might endanger some current diplomatic activities with Sudan. American people of conscience know that time has already run out for too many people. Thanks to the efforts of citizens throughout the U.S., 21 states have already enacted Sudan divestment measures.

Now it’s time for the U.S. Senate to stand up and demonstrate that the U.S. isn’t just giving lip-service to its opposition to genocide. If the Senate fails to act, a critical opportunity is lost. Call Senator McConnell and Senator Bunning and ask them: When does “never again” really begin? Now is the time to act for our brothers and sisters in Darfur. Tell them to vote for the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act.

Ten Dynamics Impacting American Denominations

On March 1, 2007, I gave a lecture at the Lexington Theological Seminary's Convocation. The title was The Future of Denominations. It was a long presentation. In my blog, I'm going to post the essential ten points that I made, and in a future blog, will outline some of the places that I find hope. While the material I presented makes the future look bleak for the historic American Protestant denominations (with ramifications for the Roman Catholic Church, too), Christians are a people of hope. There are signs of hope. So don't let this blog get you down, but I do hope you will take it seriously. It is meant to provoke thought, and stir up your imaginations.

The Ten Dynamics Changing American Denominations

There are 10 critical dynamics impinging on American Christianity, forcing radical and very rapid changes:

1. A major realignment within and between American denominations moving like a tsunami across our religious landscape. Based in convictions about the authority of scripture, denominations are experiencing internal conflicts over issues related to human sexuality and human reproduction, gender roles, and the mission of the church in society.

2. Denominations are becoming increasingly post-denominational and what denominational distinctions remain are blurring. This is both a signal of our ecumenical successes over the past 60 years; and also a sign of the dying importance of ideas and systematic theological thought in favor of powerful, transformative personal religious experience. Congregations may drop a denominational label from its name, in favor of a more generic and inviting name.

a. One cannot assume that this is purely a Protestant phenomenon. Catholics, who once stayed in a neighborhood parish, are now likely to seek out a congregation and priest whose style matches their own perceptions of what it means to be a Roman Catholic parish. Moreover, parish councils in Catholic congregations have gained great power over the past 25 years. If they don't like their priest for some reason, they can usually put enough pressure on the Bishop to find them a new priest more to their liking.

b. Roman Catholics, whose liturgy has been borrowed by many Protestants in the previous era of liturgical renewal, now often borrow from Protestants, e.g., baptism by immersion is increasingly practiced in Roman Catholic churches. This is both a sign of our ecumenical successes, but such adaptations also signal less rigidity in praxis that allows for the subjective dimension to find satisfaction.

3. The post-modern intellectual attitudes cede the possibility of certitude and absolute truth to a more subjective apprehension of truth for me and a willingness to allow others to have similar or even different truths for themselves. Post-modern attitudes undermine the possibility of authority residing in an ecclesial office or in any historic documents.

4. Post-modernism, and post-denominationalism have not led to Christian unity, resulting not in creeping congregationalism, but in a more American populist syndrome that can be deemed localism. People no longer have trust in institutions that they cannot see and do not control. The absence of trust in distant hierarchical forms of institutional life pervades much of American society.

5. People are spiritually hungry, but that hunger expresses itself not so much in a desire to understand theologically or intellectually, and not in a desire to apply aspects of theological understanding to other complex areas of human life such as economics and national security, but in a desire for religious experience. Given a post-modern attitude, an individual may be able to accept a wide array of doctrines, so long as the experience meets the essential needs of the individual at a particular point in his life. When the experiences no longer feed the individual, they may move on to a new context in search of meeting their spiritual needs.

6. Denominations face declining financial support from local congregations, due to the absence of knowledge about what functions are carried out by the denomination's structures, and due to the absence of trust for institutions beyond local control.

7. Denominational life is changing so radically and so fast that denominational executives and administrators can barely handle all the changes. In the most part these institutional representatives are trying to do all that they formerly did with about half the financial resources, and half the staff. The problem is not that people are giving less money to their churches. In fact, studies show that people are giving more than ever before, but more and more of that money is staying home within the local congregation.

8. American cultural populism tends to resist long-term institutionalization of any dynamic.

9. American cultural impulses for immediate gratification may also be blamed, in part, for the attitude of keeping "money at home," rather than sending it to a collaborative organization.

10. Organizations or organizational structures whose work is not immediately visible become less attractive recipients of individual and congregational financial support, and thereby tend not to be funded, or to be understood as part of their inherent mission.

Some Potential Consequences

The consequences of these ten dynamics endangers the capacity of the local church to see the forest for the trees, to have a truly global understanding of the body of Christ, and may yield a situation in which there will no longer be adequate educational and support services necessary to allow congregations to see and minister beyond themselves. In danger of disappearing are the denominationally distinctive Sunday School curricula, the certification of clergy, and the maximized use of time, energy and money in mission work.

What denominations are in danger of losing as they become more determined to do what they always did is the insight of peers in the ecumenical community, the possibility of fresh vision and imagination, and the exponential increase in clout through joint actions in the public policy arena. If denominations continue to try to maintain all their previous programs and functions with declining financial resources, they will continue to lose congregations in to the great maw of indistinct, amorphous locally centered Christian eclecticism.

It will be crucial for denominations, perhaps working with the ecumenical bodies that they are so drastically under-funding, to work together to imagine a new future and new ways of resourcing the local church to keep it accountable to the Gospel of Jesus, to offer mutual support, mutual discernment of what, where, and how God's Holy Spirit is leading the church, and to keep each other honest. Without such imagination and prophetic leadership, eventual collapse of the historic American Protestant denominations is possible. I have a friend in the Netherlands, a theologian of some repute there, who says quite frankly, based what he has witnessed of these same dynamics over the past 40 years in western Europe, that we may be in the last century of the Christian religion.

I am not quite so pessimistic. A future blog will outline signs of hope.

Living always in hope for unity, justice, and peace, Nancy Jo

Minimum Wage: It's About Values

In his State of the Commonwealth address, Governor Fletcher closed by praising legislators for hanging the banner that reads "In God We Trust" in each chamber. Then he noted that "...here in Frankfort the well-heeled voices are easy to hear, hard to ignore and inviting to heed. But if we listen carefully," he said, "we will hear the soft and timid voices of the poor, the fatherless and the downtrodden that without our special efforts will go unnoticed. It is often in the still small voice that truth resounds." His final sentence implored: "Let us listen more carefully to do justice to those that our creator called the least of these my brethren as we have done these three years."

Not to put too fine a point on it, there is a certain moral irony here, for both the governor and the legislature. The God in whom they say they trust is a God who is always on the side of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the vulnerable. The God in whom they say they trust is a God who has been scandalized throughout history by lip-service that does not follow-through with actions on behalf of the poor, who are God's beloved.

In a speech laden with ideas about how to spread moneys from the so-called "surplus" there was very little for anyone who might qualify as poor. Supplementing financial aid while raising tuitions will not provide significant help our college students. Many of them earn the tip wage ($2.13 per hour) as they work to put themselves through college, laboring 40 + hours a week at jobs whose schedule allows them to also go to school. A tax exemption for those in active military service is a temporary measure that will surely help their families here at home, but doesn't address their need for more income.

What would really help both these groups of deserving people, and the nearly 117,000 of children who live in poverty in Kentucky is the swift passage of HB-305, which would raise the minimum wage to $7.00 in July. Increasing the minimum wage would benefit as many as 275,000 of our neighbors, especially the 126,000 whose wages now fall below $7 an hour. When 83% of Kentuckians who would see wage increases with the passage of HB-305 are over age 20, we are reminded that this isn't just about first time workers. Often, it is about our college students who are working 40+ hour work weeks at restaurants earning tip wages that may bring them to slightly above the minimum wage, but certainly the wages and the long hours that they have to work in order to pay their bills and their rising tuition rates delays their graduation from college and slows their entry into a skilled knowledge based economy. It would also allow businesses to plan for future such increases by having a built-in cost of living adjustment to the minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage is not simply an issue to be debated about whether it will be passed in Washington or in Frankfort. We have been waiting for Washington act for three years, and once again, it has stalled. The minimum wage issue is not just a matter of economics, but it is a values issue. It is a religious issue about how to treat our neighbor.

There are over 2000 references to the poor in the First Testament. It is the second most prominent biblical theme, following after idolatry, with which it is often connected. The Hebrew prophets were clear: it is idolatry to give allegiance to God and then ignore the claims of the poor for justice. One of every 16 verses in Christian Scriptures has to do with the poor; in the first three Gospels, one out of every 10 verses; and in the Gospel of Luke, one of every 7 verses is concerned about the poor.

There is a floor below which it is unjust, and immoral to pay someone for their labor -- whether they are young first-time workers, or adults with minimal skills. The prophet Isaiah wrote: "my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain..." [Isaiah 65:22-23]. The letter of James says: "Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord." [James 5:4]

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have led the way by raising their minimum wages higher than the federal wage. They knew that it was immoral to wait any longer for Washington to act. Must Kentucky be perpetually in last place? Let's join the other 29 states, and do what the people clearly support, and raise our minimum wage. Let's quit scandalizing the God we say we trust.

Statement for KY Faith United To Reduce Tobacco Use

The following is the statement I delivered at a press conference on May 31, 2006. To read more about this press conference, please visit the website of the Kentucky Council of Churches. To read the statement adopted by the Executive Board of the Kentucky Council of Churches on May, 16, 2006, please visit http://www.kycouncilofchurches.org/TobaccoUse.html.

Scripture tells us that our bodies are gifts from God, and that they are to be honored and respected. Today, on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, I am pleased to announce that the Executive Board of the Kentucky Council of Churches, meeting on May 16, at Faith Baptist Church in Georgetown, Kentucky, unanimously endorsed the resolution of the Kentucky Faith United to Reduce Tobacco Use.

We in the faith community cannot stand by while tobacco use devastates so many Kentucky families. So many of our children and adults are at risk because our state has the highest smoking rate in the nation. Our community leaders have a moral obligation to address this serious problem by taking actions to protect the health of all citizens. We hope and pray that public officials will do what is right and that they will act quickly to increase the tobacco tax-a proven means of reducing teen smoking in particular-and to pass smoke-free air laws and fund tobacco prevention programs to protect all Kentuckians from the hazards of tobacco use and second hand smoke. We know these solutions work.

So far, our elected leaders have only taken baby steps towards enacting ways to change and improve the health of Kentuckians, when it comes to tobacco use. These small measures leave us with the fifth lowest tobacco taxes in the nation. Kow-towing to merchants in the name of so-called "lost revenues" does not acknowledge the profound expenses that they incur and that all of us experience because of the ill-health of our fellow citizens.

The Kentucky Council of Churches has been conducting a multi-year campaign among our member denominations to encourage congregations and pastors to understand physical health as a spiritual issue. By addressing health related behaviors such as smoking and other addictions, churches help their members grow spiritually, and contribute to changing public attitudes and public policy about tobacco use. In its first years of existence, the Kentucky Council of Churches brought churches together to address the use of tobacco and alcohol by children. We are continuing that emphasis nearly 60 years later. Moreover, in a time when the state continues to struggle to find adequate revenue to meet the growing costs of Medicaid (many of which are caused by the health damaging effects of tobacco use), the Kentucky Council of Churches has consistently endorsed tax reform measures that would include raising the tobacco taxes in our Commonwealth. Then, instead of eliminating a number of our neighbors' access to health care, we might be able to fund the system more adequately.

Finally, however, it is our clergy who can make the biggest difference in this battle. Talking with our members about their habits-from tobacco use to alcohol to eating habits--, and creating support ministries to help people address their health issues in positive ways, we can change the reality of Kentucky's embarrassing ill health, and make our beautiful state a place of healthy, bright, energetic people. The Council will continue to use its means of communicating with its 3000 congregations, who have collectively nearly one million members, to join this campaign and our campaign of Kentucky Churches Care for the Body.

Guest Editorial: Media Coverage of the Iran Threat

by Geoff Young, Lexington

Just as the idea of a threat from Saddam Hussein was consciously hyped by the Bush administration in 2002 and early 2003, the idea of Iran as an existential threat to the US is being hyped today. Coverage of the Iran nuclear issue over the past 6-8 months has had an impact: approximately half of the US population now fears Iranian nuclear weapons. The mainstream media (MSM) has contributed to this climate of fear by producing a stream of articles written from within the administration's frame -- "Iran is a Threat to Us"-- and leaving out the critically important context of international law.

Key facts are being omitted from almost all MSM articles and reports:
(1) Under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the legal right to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants.

(2) Israel has never signed the NPT and is widely believed to possess at least 200 advanced nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them onto Iran's cities.

(3) The US and other major nuclear powers have consistently ignored the provisions of the NPT that require the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. The Pentagon is even working to develop a new generation of smaller, "more usable," mini-nukes and "bunker-busters," an advance in the arms race that contradicts the spirit of Article VI of the NPT.

(4) The US is taking hostile actions against Iran's government. Congress has appropriated millions of dollars to "promote democracy" in Iran, and the Guardian Unlimited reports that US special forces have been operating in Iran to select sites for future air strikes and help armed opposition groups http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1750678,00.html (4/10/06).

How would Americans feel about similar actions being taken by a hostile foreign government on our soil? We would surely consider it an act of war.

(5) If Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which has not been proven, it is probably for the purpose of deterring an attack by Israel or the US. Iran is aware of the different policies the US has taken toward Iraq as compared to North Korea.

(6) The current US administration has a proven track record of exaggerating threats and using fear in order to justify aggressive war. Has the MSM learned nothing from the Iraq experience?

(7) An attack by the US and/or Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities would constitute the war crime of international aggression (unless the UN Security Council had first authorized an attack, which is almost inconceivable given the position of Russia and China).

(8) Such an attack could lead to a much wider and longer war in the Middle East, and might even trigger a third world war between the US and much of the Muslim world. A typical example of the right-wing frame appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader on Sunday, April 16, pages A3 and A4. A full-page article by Andrew Maykuth of the Knight-Ridder News Service was titled, "Portentous Power Play: Tehran's insistence on enriching uranium could destabilize a volatile region, damage energy markets and bring nuclear weapons to an Islamic theocracy." We see a map showing the range of Iranian missiles that, if fitted with hypothetical nuclear weapons that do not now exist, could "put targets in the Middle East and Asia - and American troops in the region - at risk."

We are not shown a map of US military facilities that could threaten the security of Iran, even though it was the US, not Iran, that invaded a neighboring country (Iraq) in 2003 in an unprovoked act of aggression, has troops fighting in another neighboring country, Afghanistan, ensures that no serious pressure will be exerted against Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, and just agreed to accept the legitimacy of India's nuclear weapons. We also see the same kind of scary satellite photos of Iranian buildings that Colin Powell trotted out at the UN during the long campaign of deception designed to justify an invasion of Iraq.

The article quotes various foreign policy experts about what is at stake and what options the US government has. The Iranian government is described as "revolutionary" and an "Islamic theocracy." The entire discussion is firmly anchored within the Bush administration's frame, i.e., "Iran is a threat and what can we do about it." The issue is never framed as, "What can the countries of the world do to deter the theocratic US president from committing further acts of war and aggression?"

Likewise, the issue is never framed as, "What is the Bush administration up to now, and is it possible that they are cooking up an 'Iran Threat' in order to help themselves politically?"

By helping the Bush administration hype the "Iran Threat," the MSM is playing with fire. It is failing to exercise its journalistic responsibility to question the motives of powerful people, and it is behaving in a highly irresponsible manner, exactly as it performed during the buildup to the War in Iraq. A much more skeptical approach is urgently needed, or we may find ourselves discussing how the MSM helped George W Bush start World War Three.

Geoffrey M. Young, Lexington, KY
email: gyoung4@isp.com

A Tribute to Bill Coffin: Pastor, Prophet, Friend of the World

The Washington Post today (April 13, 2006) headlined its obituary for Bill Coffin: William Sloane Coffin Jr; Chaplain was Lifelong 'Disturber of the Peace'. They got it wrong. Bill was a disturber of complacency, of apathy, of cynicism, of syrupy sentimentality and bland religion. If you felt comfortable in any of those ways, then he disturbed your equilibrium and upset your ways of thinking about life and the Gospel. He was, rather than a disturber of the peace, an advocate for peace, the peace that passes all understanding. He believed in the reconciliation of nations and human beings. He committed himself to right the wrongs he saw that wounded people and kept us all from the truth.

It was my privilege to know Bill Coffin for over 40 years. Although I was never part of the inner circle of students from Yale Divinity School who became his close friends in the days of his chaplaincy at Yale, I was on the fringes of his ministry for over 8 years during that time in a variety of ways. I taught his children in Sunday School, although I doubt that they remember me because their lives intersected with hundreds of seminarians and students. Later, after graduation from Yale Divinity School, I served as an associate minister of one of the three churches on the New Haven Green, and there, with other colleagues, formed the New Haven Downtown Christian Ministry, an ecumenical effort at serving the poor, feeding the hungry, and in shared religious education. In that capacity, I worked as a colleague with Bill during those days when there were demonstrations about the Vietnam War and over Civil Rights issues (the Black Panther trial in New Haven). Those days during the 1960s and 1970s were formative of my entire life and ministry. I have tried to model my own preaching, teaching, pastoral style, and work for social justice on what I learned from William Sloane Coffin.

Long years passed, until we reestablished our friendship when we brought Bill to Kentucky to be our speaker for the annual assembly of the Kentucky Council of Churches, in October of 2001. He remained in Kentucky after that assembly and preached on Sunday morning at my little country church, New Union Christian Church in Woodford County. There were people who called members of my congregation to blast them for having that "radical" speak at their church.

Wherever he went and whenever he spoke, he left the people who heard him charged with a new vision of their potential to be something better than they were, and with a knowledge that they had the capacity, as ministers-as pastors, and preachers, as leaders-to change the world. His pastoral style was so personal that he connected directly to all kinds of people who may or may not have agreed with him. And he remembered them. He would, from time to time, in these last few years ask me about John David Dyche, a Louisville conservative commentator; or about Dan Rosenberg, the CEO of Three Chimneys Farm; or about Ben Chandler; or any number of other people with whom he interacted while in Kentucky. His pastoral capacity to remember people in their particularity stands in contradiction to those who say he was just a "disturber of the peace."

In his most recent book, Letters to a Young Doubter [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005], written after the time when doctors had told him he would probably be dead, he writes to "Tom", some of my favorite words about religion: "...religious faith often goes through three stages: conscious, self-conscious, and finally unconscious. That takes time. Only when you've reached the third stage are you free, and free perhaps to be really happy. Actually I would call religious life joyful rather than happy. Happiness connotes pleasure while joy is a deeper emotion that, far from excluding, can actually include pain. Joy often points to a profound sense of self-fulfillment: 'For this I was made and meant to be'-that's a joyful experience." [pp. 73-74]

In July, 2005, I pledged myself to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament. It's a crazy dream, but it is possible, and I believe it is possible because of the life and witness of a great preacher of the Christian Gospel. His intellect, his extraordinary gifts with words, music, poetry, and his faith were gigantic. I'll miss him terribly, but I know that his life and words will continue to inspire a new generation of pastors and prophets who believe in God's cause to redeem the world.