37 Quotes by Walter Wink

I think people get excited about their perspective on sexuality because it gives them the feeling that, their failures notwithstanding, if they take a hard stand on what they consider to be godly, maybe God will be more merciful to them.

The polarization is such that the conservatives on this side have their prayer meeting and their choir meeting. And the liberals on this side have their prayer meeting and their choir meeting, and the two sides never get together and talk about it. The result is the tearing apart of the fabric of the body of Christ.

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

History belongs to the intercessors.

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

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.

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

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.

Jesus does not encourage Jews to walk a second mile in order to build up merit in heaven, or to be pious, or to kill the soldier with kindness. He is helping an oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an onerous practice despised throughout the empire. He is not giving a nonpolitical message of spiritual world transcendence. He is formulating a worldly spirituality in which the people at the bottom of society or under the thumb of imperial power learn to recover their humanity.