In Memory of Walter Wink

Yesterday, the theologian Walter Wink died. It is funny when your personal celebrities are people few other people know. I can’t even find out how he died on the internet.

Nonetheless, Wink shaped who I am. If I had to pay him royalties for every time I used the phrase “power, prestige and position” I would be a poor man.

Wink redefined the role of power within the understanding of scripture. For Wink, the command to turn the other cheek is no docile passivism, it is a bold counter-cultural stand. Wink writes in his book, Jesus and Nonviolence:

Why then does he counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of the power to humiliate. The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, “Try again, your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status does not alter that fact. You cannot demean me.”

How much could we learn from Wink, to stand strong and not allow ourselves to be defined by positions of power, prestige, or position?