Who Lynched Willie Earle book cover imageWho Lynched Willie Earle? Preaching to Confront Racism by William H. Willimon has been named the best book of the year in The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) Christian Book Award program’s ministry resources category.

Will Willimon, professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School and a retired United Methodist Church bishop, wrote the book to help pastors of white, mainline Protestant churches preach effectively in situations of racial violence and unease.

The book was published February 2017 by Abingdon Press and stresses that effective 21st century preaching demands a more perceptive understanding of both race and Christian faith.

In the book, Willimon provides a strategy rooted in ecclesial life for pastors and church leaders who want to speak effectively from Scripture on the contemporary social crisis of racial violence and black pain. He emphasizes that preaching effectively today requires hearing black pain, naming white complicity, critiquing American exceptionalism/civil religion, inviting and challenging the church to respond, and attending to the voices of African American pastors and leaders.

The Christian Book Award winners were announced May 1, 2018 at the ECPA Awards Celebration at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.