Walter Wink, Theologian and Author, Dies at 76
By Douglas Martin
May 19, 2012
Walter Wink, an influential liberal theologian whose views on homosexuality, nonviolence and the nature of Jesus challenged orthodox interpretations, died on May 10 at his home in Sandisfield, Mass. He was 76.
The cause was complications of dementia, his son Stephen said.
In 16 books and hundreds of scholarly articles, Dr. Wink became “one of the most important social and political theologians of the 20th century,” in the words of Sojourners, an ecumenical Christian magazine.
On the subject of gay rights, he acknowledged that in at least three instances the Bible categorically condemned homosexuality. But he argued that Jesus, who never commented on homosexuality in the Gospels, would have naturally supported a marginalized group.
Besides, he noted, modern people do not follow the Bible to the letter in all things, like its endorsement of slavery. Moreover, he criticized specific interpretations of biblical language, saying, for example, that the word sodomy as used in the Bible referred to anal rape, not consensual sex.
Sodomy, he wrote, has “nothing to do with the problem of whether genuine love expressed between consenting persons of the same sex is legitimate or not.” And he insisted, “There is no biblical sex ethic.”
Many theologians bridled at his interpretations. Robert A. J. Gagnon, writing in Christian Century in 2002, said Dr. Wink ignored clear evidence of biblical antipathy to homosexuality. He said Dr. Wink’s insistence that the Bible offers only sexual mores and no sex ethic was supported only by “sheer ideological fiat.”
Dr. Wink wrote disparagingly about the belief in the power of violence to solve both societal and personal problems, using as evidence the Babylonian creation story, which involves gods killing one another, as well as violent television cartoons and much in between.
He repeatedly called for “militant nonviolence.” The idea, he said, was not to be a doormat to aggressors but to turn their arrogance against them. He cited Jesus’ advice: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”
Walter WinkCredit...Fellowship of Reconciliation/forusa.orgDr. Wink compared Jesus to the community organizer Saul Alinsky in the clever ways Jesus advised nonviolence to get the upper hand. For his own part, Dr. Wink visited South Africa, East Germany, Central America and Chile to support nonviolent resistance there.
More broadly, Dr. Wink asserted that because Jesus had defined himself almost exclusively as “son of man,” he saw his task as not so much helping people to prepare for the next life but as helping them to be more human in this one.
Walter Philip Wink was born in Dallas on May 21, 1935. His father owned a hardware store and then was a salesman for the Fuller Brush Company. Walter grew up in a liberal Methodist church, but during a summer in Oregon as a college student he attended a Pentecostal church. Though he quickly rejected Pentecostal fundamentalist theology, he praised its spontaneity, which he saw as symbolic of the earliest days of the Christian church.
He graduated from Southern Methodist University and earned a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary. He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1961 and served as pastor in a blue-collar parish near Houston.
Dr. Wink wrote that he had learned as a parish minister to say and write only what the average intelligent person can read. This egalitarian propensity, he said, later caused some of his articles to be rejected by prestigious theological journals for being “chatty” or “popular.”
He taught at Union in the first half of the 1970s, but was denied tenure. This rejection came, he noted, after the publication in 1973 of his book “The Bible in Human Transformation,” which began, “Historical biblical criticism is bankrupt.”
He then taught at Hartford Seminary, and in 1976 he joined Auburn Theological Seminary in Manhattan, where he stayed for the rest of his career. With his wife, the former June Keener, he held workshops around the world that combined religious-themed pottery, dancing and biblical interpretation.
His marriage to the former Virginia Moore Conerly ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children from his first marriage, his sons, Stephen and Christopher, and his daughter, Rebecca Barnes, and eight grandchildren.
Dr. Wink was found to have dementia in 2006; two years later he and his wife ended their workshops. 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.”
A version of this article appears in print on May 22, 2012, Section A, Page 24 of the New York edition with the headline: Walter Wink, Theologian and Author, Is Dead at 76. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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