Writing One's Own Obituary

[In the following article, the first eight paragraphs are adapted from the very first editorial I wrote for the South Pacific Division Record—the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s weekly publication for all Adventists in Australia and New Zealand—after having become senior editor at the church’s publishing house for that region. The article was published in the October 4, 1986, issue.]  

WHILE TAKING A CLASS in news writing at the University of Maryland, I was given the unique assignment of writing my own obituary.

Ostensibly, the teacher was giving the assignment merely to teach his students the fine art of describing the life of someone who has recently died. I say ostensibly because I believe he actually may have had more than that in mind. I soon discovered that writing one's own obituary is a more difficult exercise than meets the eye.

I toyed with the idea of being killed by a hit-and-run driver while, like a Good Samaritan, changing a tire for two stranded elderly women. Although it seemed a good way to go, it was a little too heroic when I actually looked at it on paper. Besides, just how much was the teacher going to psychoanalyze my writing?

Next, I tried surviving to a ripe old age. But having lived such a long life, I had to describe what I had accomplished. To what grandiose heights should I say I had attained? And how would the teacher psychoanalyze that? It wasn't an easy assignment.

After having thrown away dozens of piece pieces of paper, I finally sat down and wrote a simple obituary that gave as few details as possible, while still providing the information the teacher would consider necessary.

But why all this talk about obituaries? Simply this: With this issue of the Record, I officially assume my role as editor – and I also begin to write my own editorial "obituary," whether I like it or not. The things I write, the editorial emphasis I give, the way I react to comments, how I relate to the staff – all these are going to determine what people will say about me when I have left this post.

And, in a sense, we all write our own obituary by the way we live, for we produce the raw data from which someone else will draw the information to write our obituary when we are gone. It would be nice to have been classed a success professionally. But more crucial still is to have been classed a friend of Jesus.

Yes, writing one's own obituary is a greater challenge than one might think. In fact, it takes a lifetime.

Fast-forward 40 years.

The other day I did a Google search to locate an article I had published in the Orlando Sentinel a few years ago. Instead of the article appearing on my screen, what appeared was an AI (Artificial Intelligence) analysis of my writing—which gave me an idea.

“Is there an overarching theme that runs through the opinion pieces James Coffin has written for the Orlando Sentinel?” I asked AI as a separate query. I found the response fascinating. I share it here, edited somewhat for brevity:

“The overarching theme running through the roughly 100 opinion pieces James Coffin has written for the Orlando Sentinel is the defense of religious freedom, moral accountability, and social inclusion through the separation of church and state. . . . Coffin writes from a deeply spiritual perspective but consistently champions secular governance to protect all belief systems. . . . His columns generally break down into a few recurring sub-themes:

“1. Strict Church-State Separation. Coffin argues that merging religion with public policy or politics ultimately corrupts faith and marginalizes minorities. For example, he has written against mandating school prayer and opposed placing the Ten Commandments on public classroom walls, arguing they [the Ten Commandments] are too spiritually significant to be downgraded into civic posters.

“2. Interfaith Respect and Anti-Tribalism. A heavy focus of his writing is pushing back against the ‘all-inclusive labels’ used to demonize marginalized groups. He frequently calls on the community to judge people as individuals, urging Christians to stand against the harassment of Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, and other religious or social minorities. 

“3. Moral Candor and Social Justice. Coffin frequently challenges readers to examine how their political stances align with their self-professed moral and religious values. This includes writing candidly about addressing historical and systemic racial injustices rather than letting extremist distractions derail the conversation.

“Ultimately, his pieces serve as a consistent call for empathy, civility, and constitutional boundaries to ensure a pluralistic society where everyone has the freedom to worship—or not worship—as they choose.”

It struck me that the foregoing AI summary and analysis are a kind of obituary that has been made available while I’m still alive. And, quite frankly, I’m heartened by the fact that even such a mechanized assessment as the one provided by AI has so accurately summed up the values and intent of what I’ve written over the years for the general public. 

In my editorial of 40 years ago, I said that it “would be nice to have been classed a success professionally. But more crucial still is to have been classed a friend of Jesus.” 

AI has made me feel pretty good about one small slice of my life—the opinion pieces I’ve written for the Orlando Sentinel over the past three decades plus. But AI isn’t really equipped to assess whether or not I should be classed a friend of Jesus. There will be no AI sneak-peek obituary on that front.  

But there is a kind of here-and-now, sneak-peek obituary about being a friend of Jesus, which is inspired by Jesus himself and recorded in 1 John 3:2—and it’s not based on what I’ve done but on what he has done. Moreover, it applies to every one of us who’ve accepted Jesus as Savior. Here it is: “NOW we are children of God . . . ” (emphasis mine). That’s it.

And that’s certainly a lot more inspiring than merely receiving from AI a good assessment of my writing.