Walter Wink(May 21, 1935 – May 10, 2012)
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Oct 14, 2022: CBC Radio: Turn the Other Cheek: the radical case for nonviolent resistance
The late Walter Wink was one of the most influential voices in Christian theology of nonviolence; he unpacked the language of 'turn the other cheek' in Matthew's Gospel and taught that Jesus was pointing to a third way: not fight, not flight, but an active, nonviolent challenge to the oppressor. Derek Suderman, an associate professor at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, says Wink's interpretation of 'turn the other cheek' was influenced by his time in South Africa during the apartheid era. May 29, 2012: NCR: Walter Wink, our best teacher of Christian nonviolence
"Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."(Mt. 5:19) That's what Jesus announced in the Sermon on the Mount, right after the beatitudes and just before the six antitheses, which instruct us to resist evil nonviolently and to love our enemies. In light of that verse, Walter Wink must be considered one of the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I can think of no higher praise. |
May 21, 1935: Walter Wink was born in Dallas, Texas
Walter Wink was a professor of biblical interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York and author of many books, including The Powers That Be, When the Powers Fall, and most recently The Human Being. 
January 5, 1984: Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament is published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers.
From the introduction: "The reader of this work will search in vain for a definition of power. It is one of those words that everyone understands perfectly well until asked to define it. Our use of the term 'power' is laden with assumptions drawn from the contemporary materialistic worldview. Whereas the ancients always understood power as the confluence of both spiritual and material factors, we tend to see it as primarily material. We do not think in terms of spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods as the effective agents of powerful effects in the world. Thus a gulf has been fixed between us and the biblical writers. We use the same words but project them into a wholly different world of meanings. What they meant by power and what we mean are incommensurate. If our goal is to understand the New Testament's conception of the Powers, we cannot do so simply by applying our own modern sociological categories of power. We must instead attend carefully and try to grasp what the people of that time might have meant by power, within the linguistic field of their own worldview and mythic systems. "I will argue that the "principalities and powers" are the inner and outer aspects of any given manifestation of power. As the inner aspect they are the spirituality of institutions, the "within" of corporate structures and systems, the inner essence of outer organizations of power. As the outer aspect they are political systems, appointed officials, the "chair" of an organization, laws in short, all the tangible manifestations which power takes. This hypothesis, it seems to me, makes sense of the fluid way the New Testament writers and their contemporaries spoke of the Powers, now as if they were these centurions or that priestly hierarchy, and then, with no warning, as if they were some kind of spiritual entities in the heavenly places." |
Walter Wink argues in Naming the Powers that the language of “Principalities and Powers” in the New Testament refers to human social dynamics—institutions, belief systems, traditions and the like. These dynamics, or what he calls “manifestations of power,” always have an inner and an outer aspect. “Every Power tends to have a visible pole, an outer form—be it a church, a nation, an economy—and an invisible pole, an inner spirit or driving force that animates, legitimates, and regulates its physical manifestation in the world. Neither pole is the cause of the other. Both come into existence together and cease to exist together.” -Open Democracy
Jan 1992: Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination is published by Fortress Press. Wink explores the problem of evil today and how it relates to the New Testament concept of Principalities and Powers. He asks the question "How can we oppose evil without creating new evils and being made evil ourselves?" Winner of the Pax Christi Award, the Academy of Parish Clergy Book of the Year, and the Midwest Book Achievement Award for Best Religious Book.
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"The victory of faith over the Powers lies, not in immunity to their wrath, but in emancipation from their delusions." --Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (1992) |
"The church says to the lion and the lamb, "Here, let me negotiate a truce," to which the lion replies, "Fine, after I finish my lunch."
-Walter Wink; Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (2003), p. 4
-Walter Wink; Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (2003), p. 4
"Most Christians desire nonviolence, yes; but they are not talking about a nonviolent struggle for justice. They mean simply the absence of conflict."
-Walter Wink; Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (2003), p. 4
-Walter Wink; Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (2003), p. 4
May 10, 2012: Wink died in Sandisfield,
Massachusetts. The cause was complications of dementia, his son Stephen said. In 2010, an interviewer for Sojourners asked what having dementia had taught him:“This has not been a big learning experience,” he answered. “I just don’t think we ought to give so much credit to the sheer role of chance. We ought not to give death so much credit for our spiritual growth.”
Massachusetts. The cause was complications of dementia, his son Stephen said. In 2010, an interviewer for Sojourners asked what having dementia had taught him:“This has not been a big learning experience,” he answered. “I just don’t think we ought to give so much credit to the sheer role of chance. We ought not to give death so much credit for our spiritual growth.”
