John Bowen Coburn, 1914-2009(1)

I n 1955, a letter from the distinguished surgeon and scholar Allen O. Whipple (1881-1963) recommended John Bowen Coburn, a relatively young clergyman, for membership in a New York association "of authors, artists, and amateurs of letters and the fine arts." Coburn, said Dr. Whipple, was "forthright, with no piety, but with a wealth of faith and human understanding."2 By "piety," Whipple meant the outward affect of piety ("piousness"), the ironic and pejorative sense of the word. Throughout his long and distinguished career in the Episcopal Church and notwithstanding his reputation as an interpreter and practitioner of Christian spirituality, the same could still have been said of John Coburn when he died on 8 August 2009, only weeks before his ninety-fifth birthday: "forthright, with no piety, but with a wealth of faith and human understanding." The author of this article is but one of a host of women and men to whom John Coburn was a revered mentor and faithful friend. We first met in September of 1957, both newly arrived at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts - he as dean, I as a first-year student. He seemed on first meeting a formidable figure of great authority and a certain austerity. There was an impressive dignity and density to his public persona, especially at prayer, whether reading from the Book of Common Prayer or delivering his own artfully crafted and deeply personal prayers. He had a penetrating gaze; when a student came into his office and had been seated, saying nothing, he fixed that unwavering gaze until its recipient blurted out whatever was on his or her mind - often more than intended. And he heard what was said. In the course of our seminary years, my wife and I came to knowjohn and Ruth Coburn as friends, house-sitting at the deanery one summer and asking Ruth to be godmother to our second daughter. When I finished my doctorate, Coburn suggested that I take a temporary post at Wooster School, in Danbury, Connecticut, living in the headmaster's house, which had been his parents' home. Some years later, after teaching in a college and universities in the Midwest for a number of years, I accepted an appointment at Coburn 's alma mater, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where I served for two decades before retirement. In the mid-1960s, my family became summer residents of Wellfleet on Cape Cod, where the Coburns vacationed, and were closely involved with the Chapel of Saint James the Fisherman, of which John Coburn was a founder in the 1950s; and we remained in close touch with the Coburns and their family. What follows is a biographical sketch of John Coburn 's life, strongly colored by reminiscence, long association, and deep affection. This article attempts to sketch only the most salient events in the career of John Coburn, to reflect on his character, and to draw to the attention of historians his importance in American religious history in the twentieth century. There remains much material for the author of a full biography to discover and record; and it is to be hoped that a biographer/historian will undertake that task while first-hand witnesses to John Coburn 's life and work are still living. YOUTH AND EDUCATION John Bowen Coburn was born in Danbury, Connecticut, on 27 September 1914, to the rector of St. James' Church, Aaron Cutler Coburn (1884-1942), and his wife, Eugenia Bowen Woolfolk (1880-1958). John was a member of the eleventh generation of the Coburn family in America.3 After three generations of farmers, all were clergymen save his grandfather, Jesse Milton Coburn (1853-1923), a physician in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and later South Norwalk, Connecticut. Aaron Coburn graduated from Amherst College in 1907 and Philadelphia Divinity School in 1911. He attended Union Theological Seminary in New York in 19111912 as a graduate student,4 while serving as an assistant at Grace Church in Greenwich Village. There he met Eugenia, who was a deaconess at Grace Chapel, a mission settlement of the parish on East 14l Street. …