Hello, my name is Tim Willard. I write about the intersection of faith and culture, the theology of beauty, aesthetics, the arts, film and television, the American Church, Christian discipleship, and spiritual formation. I also serially post my fiction and poetry here.
My writing has been featured in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Patheos, Acculturated, The Huffington Post, FaithIt, Duke Divinity’s Faith & Leadership, ThinQ Media: Essays, Catalyst Magazine, Outreach Magazine, Relevant Magazine, and The Commonplace Quarterly.
I was born in Lexington, Virginia, the son of a Brethren pastor. My parents raised five children, three boys, and two girls. As a ministry family, we’ve lived in Indiana, Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania. My favorite sports teams are all from Florida, but if you ask me where I grew up, I’ll tell you Lititz, Pennsylvania.
I was kicked out of Liberty University in my sophomore year. That winter, I encountered the God of the Bible in a profound way. I spent fourteen years in and out of college before earning my bachelor’s in Bible, focusing on Church History. During those fourteen years, I did the band thing for seven years, touring the country in a van with my two closest friends from three of them.
It was during my last tour that I met my future wife. We have been married for twenty-three years and live in Waxhaw, North Carolina. My wife inspired me to finish my undergraduate degree and press on to seminary at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. There, I studied Christian Thought and wrote my master's thesis, A Theology of Personhood. That research became the foundation for my first book, Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society (Zondervan), co-authored with my friend Jason Locy.
During my research for my second book with Jason, Home Behind the Sun, I took a deep dive into the topic of beauty. After rereading C.S. Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory,” I inquired with theologian Alister McGrath about him supervising a doctoral thesis on beauty in C.S. Lewis's works. I enrolled at King’s College London and moved my family to Oxford, England, for two years, where I wrote my thesis.
My newest book, The Beauty Chasers: Recapturing the Wonder of the Divine, is a theological reflection on beauty and my time living in Oxford with my family. For more on The Beauty Chasers, click here.
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