William H. Willimon

Born in 1946 in South Carolina, William H. Willimon is the author of over fifty books, a retired bishop in the United Methodist Church, a professor of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School, and an editor-at-large of the Christian Century. Willimon received his master’s from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate from Emory University. He served as dean of Duke Chapel at Duke University for twenty years. He has taught in Australia, Germany, Singapore, and New Zealand, and his books have been used in seminaries around the world. One survey of pastors ranked him one of the “twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world,” and another found him one of the two most frequently read writers by pastors in mainline Protestantism, along with Henri Nouwen. Willimon’s books include Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (with Stanley Hauerwas) In 2021 he gave the prestigious Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School. Those lectures became the book, Preachers Dare: Speaking for God which is the inspiration for his ninetieth book, Listeners Dare: Hearing God in the Sermon.

Recent Articles

Browse All Articles

Featured Books

Bread and Wine

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Søren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lewis, Philip Yancey, Eberhard Arnold, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, J. Heinrich Arnold, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Johann Christoph Arnold, George MacDonald, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Thomas Merton, Leo Tolstoy, N. T. Wright, William H. Willimon and Meister Eckhart

Has there ever been a more hard-hitting, beautifully written, theologically inclusive anthology of writings for Lent and Easter? It’s doubtful. —... Read More

Acclaim

This handsome hardback has brief readings from some of the world’s leading literary and spiritual writers, offering just enough meaty and aesthetically-rich writing to please and challenge anyone who wants to dip in to a more mature sourcebook.

Hearts and Minds Bookstore
Lent is a season of restraint, but this compiled book is a Lenten (and paschal) smorgasbord, offering more than 70 excerpted readings for Lent and Easter. Inside you’ll find writings of spiritual leaders, theologians, literary favorites, mystics, and justice heroes, including Clarence Jordan, Kathleen Norris, Ernesto Cardenal, Simone Weil, Wendell Berry, Madeleine L’Engle, Philip Berrigan, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few.

Sojourners
Has there ever been a more hard-hitting, beautifully written, theologically inclusive anthology of writings for Lent and Easter? It’s doubtful. Many readers may well find that this collection – a sequel to the highly successful 'Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas' – is the one book they return to year after year, forgoing their usual custom of buying a new Lenten devotional each spring. Caveat lector: no one should have this much pleasure during Lent!

Publisher's Weekly starred review