Dr. Walter Wink

Scholar

Walter Wink (born 1935) is a professor emeritus at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. His faculty discipline is biblical interpretation. Wink earned his Master of Divinity (1959) and his Ph.D. (1963) degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Ordained a Methodist minister in 1961, he served as Pastor of First United Methodist Church, in Hitchcock, Texas from 1962-67. He then returned to Union Seminary as first Assistant, then Associate Professor of New Testament. In 1989-1990 he was a Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.

He is known for his work on power structures, with a progressive Christian view on current political and cultural matters. He coined the phrase “the myth of redemptive violence”, and has contributed to discourse on homosexuality and religion, pacifism, psychology & Biblical Studies, and Jesus as a historical figure. Neal Stephenson likens some of Wink’s ideas to “an epidemiology of power disorders”, a phenomenology of oppression. Author Philip Yancey references Wink frequently in his work.

One of Wink’s major avenues for teaching has been his leadership of workshops to church and other groups, based on his method of Bible study (The Bible in Human Transformation, 1973), and incorporating meditation, artwork, and movement. These workshops are often presented jointly with his second wife, June Keener-Wink, a dancer and potter.

One of Walter Wink’s sons, Chris Wink, is known as a founding member of the Blue Man Group.

Walter Wink is featured in the FAITHANDREASON® Studio Series Volume Four, “Does It Really Matter What I Do In Today’s World?”, “What Is Sin Anyway?”, and “What About Homosexuality And The Church?”

http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/Wink_3707.htm

Scholars