Flawed and fallen folk

After publishing 64 books on theology, worship and church leadership, William H. Willimon wrote a novel, Incorporation (Wipf and Stock), about a large suburban congregation, its dysfunctional staff and its narcissistic senior pastor. We wanted to know what led Willimon to try his hand at fiction. Or is it fiction? We asked Lillian Daniel to find out.

Lillian Daniel: What possessed you to write a novel? Has it always been a dream of yours?

William Willimon: Sort of. I’m a lover of novels, ever since a college course in the modern American novel. I love Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and even dear, sweet, degenerate Marcel Proust. I reread them all.

Pastors must be curious about people. Novels are a natural aid to pastoral work. When you watch Gustave Flaubert dissect a character, it’s a great help in attempting to figure out why the chair of your vestry is so screwed up. Also, as a pastor, you spend a great deal of time with people who are exposed and without adequate protection. Being a pastor is therefore almost like being a novelist without all the alcohol.

LD: You Methodists and your obsession with other people’s alcohol! In my denomination, we would say that being a Methodist pastor is like being a pastor without all the alcohol.

At any rate, your novel is brutal in its critique of ambitious clergy. The main character—the “senior managing pastor”—leads an affluent tall-steeple church that is liberal leaning and light on the gospel. This guy has no theological depth in his sermons or his life. And yet he is beloved by parishioners and admired in his denomination, and his church has all the statistical markings of success. I get the feeling you know this guy.
 
WW: Are you suggesting that I am ambitious, affluent, tall-steepled and liberal leaning?