WE NEED AN INTEGRATED, INNER-OUTER AWARENESS IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD

Academic Ted Grimsrud writes that Wink’s continuing legacy is in his articulation of the inner and outer aspects of institutions, belief systems and traditions. Only by understanding both the spiritual and visible aspects can there be transformation:

"In Wink’s view, we need such an integrated, inner-outer awareness in order to understand the world we live in and act effectively as agents for healing and transformation. “Any attempt to transform a social system without addressing both its spirituality and its outer forms is doomed to failure,” as he puts it in Engaging the Powers. What's more, in Wink's understanding all systems of power have the potential to be just or unjust, violent, or nonviolent."

Psychotherapist Dr John Campbell writes that Wink continues to have relevancy even years after his death. The reason for this is that his biblically based theology addresses the systemic disease in the United States. When so much of the population there are wanting a better political structure, environmental reforms, a fair health care system, and many other reforms, the United States seems stuck. Campbell believes that Wink’s insights into how Power structures work, offers the only way of understanding and countering the resistance to positive change.

Wink is not without his detractors. David Smith critiques Wink’s “Integral Worldview” as having been “granted normative status and allowed to determine what may count as truth and reality” while the Ancient, Spiritualistic, Materialistic, and Theological worldviews are dismissed as no longer being relevant.

Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers continues to be one of the most influential and widely read books on a Christian understanding of nonviolence and Powers. As such, it deserves close reading and thoughtful critique.

DR KATHERINE GROCOTT