Walter Wink Quotes

• The gift our enemy may be able to bring us: to see aspects of ourselves that we cannot discover any other way than through our enemies. Our friends seldom tell us these things; they are our friends precisely because they are able to overlook or ignore this part of us. The enemy is thus not merely a hurdle to be leaped on the way to God. The enemy can be the way to God. We cannot come to terms with our shadow except through our enemies.

  Walter Wink

  Enemy, Shadow, May

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• History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. By means of our intercessions we veritably cast fire upon the earth and trumpet the future into being.

  Walter Wink

  Believe, Mean, Fire

  Walter Wink (2010). “The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium”, p.187, Harmony

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• ...Jesus did not advocate non-violence merely as a technique for outwitting the enemy, but as a just means of opposing the enemy in such a way as to hold open the possibility of the enemy's becoming just as well. Both sides must win. We are summoned to pray for our enemies' transformation, and to respond to ill-treatment with a love that not only is godly but also, I am convinced, can only be found in God.

  Walter Wink

  Jesus, Mean, Godly

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• Evil can be opposed without being mirrored. Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated. Enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed.

  Walter Wink

  Evil, Enemy, Oppressors

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• History belongs to the intercessors - those who believe and pray the future into being.

  Walter Wink

  Prayer, Believe, Future

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• Prayer infuses the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present.

  Walter Wink

  Prayer, Air, Atmosphere

  Walter Wink (2010). “The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium”, p.185, Harmony

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• The greatest obstacle is simply this: the belief that we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong. That is the addict's excuse.

  Walter Wink

  Belief, Obstacles, Excuse

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• Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.

  Walter Wink

  Biblical, Fighting, Simple

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• In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world.

  Walter Wink

  Country, Peace, Real

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• To worship is to remember Who owns the house.

  Walter Wink

  House, Remember, Worship

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• The 'peace' the gospel brings is never the absence of conflict, but an ineffable divine reassurance within the heart of conflict; a peace that surpasses understanding.

  Walter Wink

  Heart, Understanding, Conflict

  Walter Wink (2010). “The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium”, p.121, Harmony

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• Killing Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it

  Walter Wink

  Jesus, Trying, Dandelions

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• never adopt a strategy that you would not want your opponents to use against you

  Walter Wink

  Use, Opponents, Want

  Walter Wink, Fellowship of Reconciliation (U.S.) (1987). “Violence and nonviolence in South Africa: Jesus' third way”

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• History belongs to the intercessors

  Walter Wink

  Intercessors

  Walter Wink (2010). “The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium”, p.185, Harmony

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• The tragedy is not that nonviolence did not work against the Nazis, but that it was so seldom utilized... The churches as a whole were too docile or anti-semitic, and too ignorant of the nonviolent message of the Gospel, to act effectively to resist the Nazis or act in solidarity with the Jews.

  Walter Wink

  Ignorant, Tragedy, Church

  "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination". Book by Walter Wink (pp. 254-256), 1992.

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