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Top 10 William H. Willimon Quotes (2025 Update)

William H. Willimon Quote: “The gospels tell us that knowing where this gift came from, who his people were, isn’t going to help us much. If you want to know about Jesus, if you want to know him, you’ve got to meet him on the road.”

1. “The gospels tell us that knowing where this gift came from, who his people were, isn’t going to help us much. If you want to know about Jesus, if you want to know him, you’ve got to meet him on the road.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “To be a Christian means gradually, Sunday after Sunday, to be subsumed into another story, a different account of where we have come from and where we are going, a story that is called “gospel.” You are properly called a “Christian” when it’s obvious that the story told in Scripture is your story, above all other stories that the world tries to impose on you, and that the God who is rendered in Scripture is the God who has got you.”

2. “To be a Christian means gradually, Sunday after Sunday, to be subsumed into another story, a different account of where we have come from and where we are going, a story that is called “gospel.” You are properly called a “Christian” when it’s obvious that the story told in Scripture is your story, above all other stories that the world tries to impose on you, and that the God who is rendered in Scripture is the God who has got you.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “The most important decision in Christian theology is to decide whether you will speak of God as a person or as a concept, as a name or as an idea. Talk about God as, to use Paul Tillich’s term, “ultimate reality,” and you will get a safe, dead abstraction that you can utilize in whatever salvation project you happen now to be working. Name God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and God will enlist you in God’s move upon the world.”

3. “The most important decision in Christian theology is to decide whether you will speak of God as a person or as a concept, as a name or as an idea. Talk about God as, to use Paul Tillich’s term, “ultimate reality,” and you will get a safe, dead abstraction that you can utilize in whatever salvation project you happen now to be working. Name God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and God will enlist you in God’s move upon the world.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “On one occasion Walter Brueggemann said, “If you are a coward by nature, don’t worry. We can still use you. You can get down behind the biblical text. You can peek out from behind the text, saying, ‘I don’t know if I would say this, but I do think the text does.’ ” I like that image – the preacher hunkered down, taking cover behind the biblical text, speaking a word not of the preacher’s devising.”

4. “On one occasion Walter Brueggemann said, “If you are a coward by nature, don’t worry. We can still use you. You can get down behind the biblical text. You can peek out from behind the text, saying, ‘I don’t know if I would say this, but I do think the text does.’ ” I like that image – the preacher hunkered down, taking cover behind the biblical text, speaking a word not of the preacher’s devising.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “So there are no nontheologians; there is just good theology and bad theology.”

5. “So there are no nontheologians; there is just good theology and bad theology.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “The charge of blasphemy, if it is ever made, is treated as a quaint anachronism; but the charge of treason, of placing another loyalty above that to the nation state, is treated as the unforgivable crime.”

6. “The charge of blasphemy, if it is ever made, is treated as a quaint anachronism; but the charge of treason, of placing another loyalty above that to the nation state, is treated as the unforgivable crime.”

— William H. Willimon

7. “We reject the charge of tribalism, particularly from those whose theologies serve to buttress the most nefarious brand of tribalism of all – the omnipotent state. The church is the one political entity in our culture that is global, transnational, transcultural. Tribalism is not the church determined to serve God rather than Caesar. Tribalism is the United States of America, which sets up artificial boundaries and defends them with murderous intensity.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “It was a short step from the liberal Christ-the-highest-in-humanity to the Nazi Superman.”

8. “It was a short step from the liberal Christ-the-highest-in-humanity to the Nazi Superman.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “The thousands of black bodies incarcerated on death row are one legacy of lynching. The highest rates of execution in the United States can be correlated with those states where lynching was most prevalent. America’s practice of lynching morphs rather than dies.”

9. “The thousands of black bodies incarcerated on death row are one legacy of lynching. The highest rates of execution in the United States can be correlated with those states where lynching was most prevalent. America’s practice of lynching morphs rather than dies.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “For Barth, and for us, Nazi Germany was the supreme test for modern theology. There we experienced the “modern world,” which we had so labored to understand and to become credible to, as the world, not only of the Copernican world view, computers, and the dynamo, but also of the Nazis.”

10. “For Barth, and for us, Nazi Germany was the supreme test for modern theology. There we experienced the “modern world,” which we had so labored to understand and to become credible to, as the world, not only of the Copernican world view, computers, and the dynamo, but also of the Nazis.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “Avid TV viewers are more likely than others to believe their neighborhoods are unsafe, assume that crime rates are rising, and overestimate their odds of becoming a victim, and they are more likely to own guns.”

11. “Avid TV viewers are more likely than others to believe their neighborhoods are unsafe, assume that crime rates are rising, and overestimate their odds of becoming a victim, and they are more likely to own guns.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “When there is a racial tragedy, the inclination of white Americans is to grieve, to brush ourselves off, and to get back to being the “real America.” But white supremacy is the “real America.” As Christians, we need to see that these tragic, cruciform moments can be opportunities to hear God’s word in a fresh, new way. God doesn’t bring the tragedy upon us, but we know from scripture that God is relentlessly redemptive, eager to transform our evil into God’s good.”

12. “When there is a racial tragedy, the inclination of white Americans is to grieve, to brush ourselves off, and to get back to being the “real America.” But white supremacy is the “real America.” As Christians, we need to see that these tragic, cruciform moments can be opportunities to hear God’s word in a fresh, new way. God doesn’t bring the tragedy upon us, but we know from scripture that God is relentlessly redemptive, eager to transform our evil into God’s good.”

— William H. Willimon

William H. Willimon Quote: “We are right to trust descriptions of Jesus given by those most disrupted by Jesus.”

13. “We are right to trust descriptions of Jesus given by those most disrupted by Jesus.”

— William H. Willimon

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