Just Jesus: My Struggle to Become Human, by Walter Wink

Walter Wink.  One of those authors I frequently saw referenced, whose titles always were somewhere down my list of books to read, but who I never got around to reading.  My loss.  I finally picked him up, in his swan song.  I think he is best know for his Powers books, as well as for his nonviolent activism.  Just Jesus: My Struggle to Become Human, gives glimpses into his life and writings that promise treasures to be found by readers of his work.

The bite-sized chapters in Just Jesus run the gamut from autobiography to biblical criticism and political activism.  To the extent that they captured his personality and intellect, they leave me with the impression of a man at whose feet I would have loved to have sat.  Clearly, given his popularity on the lecture circuit and in the academy, many would agree.

Reflecting on his career, he writes, "I have been paid to do what I most like to do: interpreting Scripture."  It started when his mother "punished" him by making him read the Bible.  "Here is the most important book in the world, I thought, and yet it doesn't make any sense."  Not only did he find it made sense, but he was gifted in showing the Bible's sense to many others.  In these writings I sensed a deep respect for the Bible and a strong desire to read it in light of current events.

Wink's commitment to the Bible may stand in contrast, for more conservative readers, to some of his other views.  His work in "active nonviolence," his dabbling in Buddhism, his approval of homosexuality as a lifestyle choice, among other things, might convince conservatives that he is hopelessly liberal.  But he resisted the liberalizing of the church in the mid- to late-twentieth century.  He went to Union Seminary, where he said he "caught the fading glimmer of [its] greatness" as it became more and more liberal.  He laments that "the community of accountability among biblical scholars had ceased to be the church and had become the academic guild of professional scholars."  More and more he saw the "impotence of the detached, objective approach to Scripture for dealing with the real issues of life."

Wink's writing is engaging and thought-provoking.  While the short essays in Just Jesus do their fair share of wandering, they ultimately do point to Jesus as "the human representation of the human being," who can "open people's lives to the living presence of God."  Wink is hard for me to pin down.  But I think that's just what he would want me to say.

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!