William J. “Billy” Abraham 1947-2021

One of global Methodism’s most prominent thinkers has unexpectedly died. William F. “Billy” Abraham was, remembered IRD President Mark Tooley, “a tireless and courageous voice for Christian orthodoxy with Wesleyan distinctives.” He passed away October 7.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1947, Abraham graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary in 1973. He taught classes at educational institutions all around the world and was a fixture at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University where he served as the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at the Perkins School of Theology. Shortly before his retirement from Perkins he received the Faculty Achievement Award in 2018.

Abraham had a playfully contrarian impulse, never shying from debate but also maintaining friendships across theological divides especially at Perkins, where most faculty didn’t share in his fierce defense of scriptural authority and participation in the Methodist renewal movement. In 2013, he gave the IRD’s annual Diane Knippers Memorial Lecture examining Just War, Terrorism and Christian Ethics.

In 2020, Abraham was named the Inaugural Director of the Wesley House at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary in Waco, Texas. He advocated for a division of the United Methodist Church pronouncing it “ungovernable” and instead for emergence of a new global Methodist Church.

“Deep down, I believe that there is enough honesty and even good will across the church to hope for a constructive conversation about the way forward,” Abraham wrote in 2019 following the denomination’s specially called General Conference. “We can, if we really desire, make the transition as economical and efficient as possible. The mountain is there to be climbed; and the future view from the top will be terrific when we get there.”