[German Version]

(Jan 5, 1877, New York – Nov 25, 1954, Lakeville, CT) was a leading Protestant educator and ecumenicist in the USA during the first half of the 20th century. After an education at Yale, Edinburgh, Marburg, and at Union Theological Seminary (NY), Coffin became a Presbyterian minister in New York. Soon he added duties as a professor at Union, where he became the president in 1926 (until 1945). Coffin was an early advocate of the Social Gospel and a leader of the liberal forces in the fundamentalist-modernist battles within American Presbyterianism (Presbyterians) during t…