Just Jesus ─ My Struggle to Become Human

Until his death in 2012, Walter Wink was one of the most influential Christian intellectuals of our time. He was a pastor and theologian, a political activist and a writer. He first becme a practitioner of active nonviolence during the Civil Rights Movement in Selma Alabama, and continued to seek social justice for all under dictatorships in Chile and the apartheid in South Africa. Always through the lens of Jesus, Wink's life and work demonstrate just how important the need to understand "the Son of the Man" is in today's modern world.
Wink shows us that inspiration and insight can come from any source: a Pentecostal Church in Oklahoma, dreams, Buddhist meditation centers, childhood traumas, an empty forest, illness, and the Gospels. Wink's work in social justice and his life as a theologian are inextricably entwined, finding evidence for nonviolent resistance in the Bible and seeing the need for Jesus in daily struggles.
"An autobiography of my interest in Jesus, perhaps that is too ambitious," writes Wink. "What I have done here is far less grand. I have simply written down vignettes, or excerpts of my life's story that I find interesting. These autobiographical reflections are in no way exceptional. Everyone has a life story. My story may, at the very least, show why I theologically think the way that I do."
Just Jesus is the jubilant autobiography of the man who sought justice in all walks of life, including his own.

DR. WALTER WINK (1935-2012) was an influential American biblical scholar, theologian, and activist, and was an important figure in progressive Christianity. He was well known for his advocacy of, and work related to, nonviolent resistance. Wink earned his Ph.D. at The Union Theological Seminary where he taught for nine years, and in 2010 was honored with the Unitas Distinguished Alumni Award. He went on to spend much of his career teaching at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. Wink wrote more than sixteen books as well as hundreds of scholarly articles, and is recognized for coining the phrase “the myth of redemptive violence.” With his wife, June Keener Wink, he held workshops around the world that combined religious-themed pottery, dancing, and Biblical interpretation. Wink died in 2012 from complications of dementia.