Mildred Bangs Wynkoop - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mildred Olive Bangs Wynkoop (born September 9, 1905 in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

died May 21, 1997 in Lenexa, Kansas

Lenexa, Kansas

Lenexa is a city in the central part of Johnson County, located in northeast Kansas, in the central United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 48,190. As a satellite city of Kansas City, Kansas, Lenexa is included in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area...

) was an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene

Church of the Nazarene

The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged from the 19th century Holiness movement in North America with its members colloquially referred to as Nazarenes. It is the largest Wesleyan-holiness denomination in the world. At the end of 2010, the Church of the...

, who served as an educator, missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

and theologian, and the author of several books. Donald Dayton indicates that "Probably most influential for a new generation of Holiness scholars has been the work of Nazarene theologian Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, especially her book A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism

A Theology of Love

A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism is a book written by Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, it is still in print.A Theology of Love is an important book in Wesleyan theological circles, especially in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. Thomas Jay Oord called the book a "modern-day classic in...

."http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1248 The Wynkoop Center for Women in Ministry located in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

is named in her honour.http://www.wynkoopcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=66 The Timothy L. Smith

Timothy L. Smith

Timothy Lawrence Smith was a noted historian and educator, known as the first American evangelical historian to gain notability in research and higher education.-Early life and education:...

and Mildred Bangs Wynkoop Book Award of the Wesleyan Theological Society also jointly honours her "outstanding scholarly contributions."http://wesley.nnu.edu/wts/awards/SmithWynkoop%20Book%20Award%20Guidelines.htm

Personal life

Mildred Olive Bangs was born on 9 September 1905 in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

, the daughter of Carl Oliver Bangs (born in Mandal, Norway) and Mery Dupertuis (born in Ollon, Canton de Vaud, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

), both immigrants to the USA.http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/administration/archives/ourarchives/researchers/bangs/display.aspx She is the older sister of theologian Carl Bangs (born 5 April 1922 in Seattle, Washington; died 7 July 2002), the author of Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971; rev, ed. 1985)http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0212/alumni/deaths.html http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/administration/archives/ourarchives/researchers/bangs/display.aspx; and also of Bernice Bangs Morgan, a former evangelist and Methodist home missions pastor in Alaska http://www.ncnnews.com/nphweb/html/ncn/article.jsp?id=1402, who was at one time "the only woman minister in Alaska" (Morgan), and author of The Very Thought of Thee: Adventures of an Arctic Missionary (Zondervan, 1952). She had three other sisters. (Morgan 7)

Wynkoop's parents met Phineas Bresee, General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene

Church of the Nazarene

on their honeymoon and became charter members of Seattle First Church of the Nazarene. (Holiness Today November/December 2005). Mildred Bangs entered Northwest Nazarene College and traveled in its collegiate quartet with president H. Orton Wiley

H. Orton Wiley

Henry Orton Wiley was a Christian theologian primarily associated with the followers of John Wesley who are part of the Holiness movement...

on the weekends. Two years later, she followed Wiley to Pasadena College, (now Point Loma Nazarene University

Point Loma Nazarene University

Point Loma Nazarene University is a Christian liberal arts college. Its main campus is located on the Point Loma oceanfront in San Diego, California. It was founded in 1902 as a Bible college by the Church of the Nazarene.-History:...

) to complete her bachelor degrees.

While studying at Pasadena College, Mildred met her future husband, fellow student Ralph Carl Wynkoop (born 5 October 1905 in Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

; died 3 March 2001 at Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

). On 27 December 1928 Mildred and Ralph were married at the Central Church of the Nazarene (now the Aurora Church of the Nazarene) in Seattle, Washington. Several ministers officiated at the wedding, including Rev. Alpin Bowes, pastor of the church, and Rev. Elsie Wallace, the first woman ordained by Phineas Bresee in the Church of the Nazarene

Church of the Nazarene

.http://www.wynkoopcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=63 http://www.wynkoopcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=65 Their first home was Pasadena, California, where they were students at Pasadena College.

Education

Wynkoop initially studied at Northwest Nazarene College (now Northwest Nazarene University

Northwest Nazarene University

Northwest Nazarene University is a private Christian liberal arts college located in Nampa, Idaho.-History:Eugene Emerson organized a combination grade school and Bible school in 1913 as Idaho Holiness School...

) in Nampa, Idaho

Nampa, Idaho

Nampa is the largest and the fastest growing city in Canyon County, Idaho, USA. The population of Nampa was 81,557 at the 2010 census. Nampa is located about west of Boise along Interstate 84, and six miles west of Meridian. Nampa is part of the Boise metropolitan area...

, where she was a student of Nazarene theologian H. Orton Wiley

H. Orton Wiley

Henry Orton Wiley was a Christian theologian primarily associated with the followers of John Wesley who are part of the Holiness movement...

and biblical scholar Olive Winchester

Olive Winchester

Olive May Winchester was an American ordained minister and a pioneer biblical scholar and theologian in the Church of the Nazarene, who was the first woman ordained by any Christian denomination in Scotland, the first woman admitted into and graduated from the Bachelor of Divinity course at the...

. After Wiley resigned to become president of Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University

Point Loma Nazarene University

), she transferred also to Pasadena College, where she received her A.B. and Th.B. degrees in 1931. She earned a Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree from Western Evangelical Seminary (now George Fox Evangelical Seminary

George Fox Evangelical Seminary

George Fox Evangelical Seminary is a multi-denominational, university-based school that offers a variety of master degree and postgraduate degree programs in theology and ministry, located in Portland, Oregon....

) in 1952. Her thesis was entitled "A Biblical Study of Man in His Relationship to the Image of God." Additionally, she earned a M.Sc. from the University of Oregon

University of Oregon

-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...

in 1953; and a Doctorate in Theology (Th.D.) from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary

Northern Baptist Theological Seminary

Northern Baptist Theological Seminary is a seminary located in Lombard, Illinois, USA, near Chicago. It was founded in 1913 by the Second Baptist Church of Chicago to prepare students for church leadership, and it continues to represent a theologically conservative alternative within its...

in 1955. Her thesis was entitled "A Historical and Semantic Analysis of Methods of Biblical Interpretation as They Relate to Views of Inspiration."http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wynkoop/webdocs/bibliowk.htm http://www.wynkoopcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=64

Ministry

Influenced by early role models like Rev. Mrs. Elsie Wallace, a pastor of Seattle First Church of the Nazarene and briefly superintendent of the Northwest District of the Church of the Nazarene, and by Olive Winchester

Olive Winchester

, theologian and academic dean at Northwest Nazarene College, Wynkoop walked through the doors of ministry that opened to her. (Holiness Today 2005)

Pastoral Ministry and Evangelism

For about 20 years, until they decided that Mildred would begin graduate studies, the Wynkoops served together as co-pastors or full-time itinerant evangelists. They were co-pastors of the Glassell Park Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

for four years until her graduation from Pasadena College in 1931, before pastoring the Church of the Nazarene at Ojai, California

Ojai, California

Ojai is a city in Ventura County, California, USA. It is situated in the Ojai Valley , surrounded by hills and mountains. The population was 7,461 at the 2010 census, down from 7,862 at the 2000 census.-History:Chumash Indians were the early inhabitants of the valley...

for a year. Their next pastorate was for four years at Marshfield, Oregon (now Coos Bay

Coos Bay

Coos Bay is an S-shaped inlet where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, approximately 10 miles long and two miles wide, on the Pacific Ocean coast of southwestern Oregon in the United States. The estuary is situated south of the Salmon River. The city of Coos Bay, once named Marshfield, was...

). During this pastorate, Mildred was ordained in 1934 as an elder in the Church of the Nazarene by John W. Goodwin

John W. Goodwin

John W. Goodwin was a minister and general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene.Goodwin was born near North Berwick, Maine, and was raised in the Advent Christian Church. After moving to California in 1905, he joined the Church of the Nazarene and assisted Phineas F. Bresee in the founding...

, General Superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene, and Ralph was ordained in 1935 by General Superintendent Roy T. Williams

Roy T. Williams

Roy Tilman Williams was a minister and general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene.- Biography :Roy Williams was born in Milam, Texas on February 14, 1883. His family moved to Many, Louisiana when he was five years old. Williams was not exposed to religion during his childhood; however,...

.

Ralph and Mildred spent the next five years traveling as evangelists, mostly on the West Coast. They moved to Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, to serve the Brentwood Church of the Nazarene for nine years. When Mildred enrolled in doctoral studies in Chicago, Illinois, Ralph returned to evangelistic ministry.

Educational Ministry

Wynkoop's first teaching assignment was at Western Evangelical Seminary (now George Fox Evangelical Seminary

George Fox Evangelical Seminary

) in Portland, Oregon, where she served as Professor of Theology from 1956 to December 1960. From 1961 to 1966 she taught in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

where she was the founding President of Japan Nazarene Theological Seminary, and briefly in Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. From 1966 to 1976 she served as Professor of Theology and Director of the Department of Missions at Trevecca Nazarene College (now Trevecca Nazarene University

Trevecca Nazarene University

Trevecca Nazarene University is a private Christian liberal arts college located in Nashville, Tennessee.-History:TNU was founded in 1901 by Cumberland Presbyterian minister J. O. McClurkan as the "Pentecostal Literary and Bible Training School"...

) in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. From 1976 to 1979 Wynkoop was the Theologian-in-Residence at Nazarene Theological Seminary

Nazarene Theological Seminary

Nazarene Theological Seminary is a Christian seminary affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene. It is located in Kansas City, Missouri, which was formerly also the location of the headquarters of the Church of the Nazarene...

in Kansas City, Missouri.

Theology

Wynkoop's theology has been described as "relational theology" by Michael Lodahl.http://reedings.com/archive/151July2004.htm Wynkoop's theological agenda was shaped initially by H. Orton Wiley

H. Orton Wiley

Henry Orton Wiley was a Christian theologian primarily associated with the followers of John Wesley who are part of the Holiness movement...

, "America's leading exponent of Arminian theology" (Holiness Today).

Wiley understood that the Nazarenes were oriented to the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

through the Anglican tradition. Stimulated by Wiley, Wynkoop's brother, Carl Bangs, became a world authority on the Dutch reformer James Arminius and Arminianism
Arminianism
Arminianism is a school of soteriological thought within Protestant Christianity based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic followers, the Remonstrants...

's spread in England and America. Her interests, however, focused on John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...

and his relevance for theological life today. (Holiness Today 2005)

In John Wesley: Christian Revolutionary (1970), Wynkoop showed how the Wesleyan tradition's founder held together two strains torn apart by American fundamentalism

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...

: personal piety and social compassion

Compassion

Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...

. She urged a return to Wesley's classic formulation. She provided an account of her church's basic theology in Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology(1967).

Six years of missionary service in Taiwan

Taiwan

and Japan

Japan

stimulated Wynkoop's creative thinking on how to best communicate the theology of holiness—a process that resulted in her 1973 magnum opus

Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

A Theology of Love, a reinterpretation of the Wesleyan message for her time. Wynkoop was also influenced by the process theology

Process theology

Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and further developed by Charles Hartshorne . While there are process theologies that are similar, but unrelated to the work of Whitehead the term is generally applied to the...

of Daniel Day Williams

Daniel Day Williams

Daniel Day Williams was a process theologian, professor, and author. He served on the joint faculty of the University of Chicago and the Chicago Theological Seminary, and later at Union Theological Seminary in New York City...

.http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3026 In A Theology of Love,

she questioned the terminology of a "second work of grace." She taught sin was not a substance to be eradicated, but a wrong relationship with God. Wynkoop taught the decisive moment of salvation was justification and that believers received the Holy Spirit at that time. She did not connect the baptism of the Spirit with entire sanctification.

http://www.fwponline.cc/v24i1/Review%20one.html

Wynkoop advocated:

Ontological trichotomy
Trichotomy
In mathematics, the Law of Trichotomy states that every real number is either positive, negative, or zero. More generally, trichotomy is the property of an order relation...

, a recent revival of Gnostic thought in some Christian circles, undermines a concept of the unity of personality so basically assumed in Hebrew thought. It raises no barriers to-in fact it actually suggests and encourages-a virtual depersonalizing of the self. If man is only the sum of so many entities, he is simply an aggregate of selves, a split personality, a double mind; not a responsible, valid, centralized self. Any pluralistic concept of personality destroys the foundation of biblical holiness which is characterized by love, and which is a wholly personal quality capable of being experienced, truly, only by a unified person.
It has always been the most profound conviction of Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology refers, respectively, to either the eponymous movement of Protestant Christians who have historically sought to follow the methods or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, or to the likewise eponymous...

that the Bible speaks to the moral relationships of men and not about sub-rational, nonpersonal areas of the self. Sin is basically self-separation from God, not in measurable distance but in moral unlikeness and spiritual alienation. Holiness is moral to the core -love to God and man-qualities of the self in relation to the person of God and of men.(Wynkoop, A Theology of Love, 50-51).

Love is the gospel message. Christian love, revealed by God in Christ, is the correction of man's limited, selfish, selective, perverted love. It stands against any human concept of love projected into a theory of God's nature and His way with man.

It is precisely this unlimited, impartial, indestructible love that needed to be "revealed" because the best in human love has been limited. The very nature of sin is love's perversion which makes the self the object of its own dedication. Could the dogma of particular election as understood by some theological traditions be the projection of faulty human love into the very nature of God? The gospel was not born in human philosophy but in God's heart revealed in Christ. This Wesley declared. (Wynkoop, A Theology of Love, 18)

Holiness and love are two different words for two different things. In the realm of formal definition each is distinct. They cannot be interchangeably used in any one context. But this is in the realm of words as words. In the realm of existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

meaning something of their relatedness begins to come through. But it would be inaccurate to say they are "related." To say holiness and love are not identical but related would imply that they were associated in experience but not vitally and essentially connected in life. It would say that each has an autonomy apart from the other. Somewhat in the sense that a house and a home, a person and a lawyer, an institution and a school can be equated, holiness and love can also be…When holiness and love are put together, the analogy of the two sides of a coin would be closer to the truth. Neither side can be both sides at the same time. Sides are not to be equated, but the obverse side is as essential to its existence as the face. Love is the essential inner character of holiness, and holiness does not exist apart from love. That is how close they are, and in a certain sense they can be said to be the same thing. At least Wesley consistently defined holiness, as well as perfection, as love.(Wynkoop, A Theology of Love, 24).

Wynkoop wrote "an admirable college history in The Trevecca Story, beginning with an analysis of the school's theological roots." (Holiness Today 2005)

Honours and awards

Wynkoop served as the President of the Wesleyan Theological Society in 1973. She received Trevecca Nazarene College’s Faculty Member of the Year award and its President’s Award for Distinguished Service in 1970; Certificate of Merit from Trevecca Nazarene College in 1976; Alumnus of the Year from Western Evangelical Seminary in 1980; Holiness Exponent of the Year award from the Christian Holiness Association in 1990; and Alumnus of the Year from Point Loma Nazarene College in 1992.

Publications

Her books include

Wesleyan-Arminian and Mild Calvinism Distinctions (1960); These are transcribed classroom lectures.
Foundations of Wesleyan-Arminian Theology (1967);
John Wesley: Christian Revolutionary (1970)http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/wynkoopbook.pdf;
A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism
A Theology of Love
A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism is a book written by Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, it is still in print.A Theology of Love is an important book in Wesleyan theological circles, especially in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. Thomas Jay Oord called the book a "modern-day classic in...

(1972)http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyctr/books/2601-2700/HDM2663.PDF;
The Occult and the Supernatural(1976);
The Trevecca Story: 75 Years of Christian Service. (1976).

Wynkoop published articles in The Wesleyan Theological Journal, The Asbury Seminarian, Sanctification and Biblical Theology, Theological Trends, Preachers’ Magazine, Herald of Holiness, Light and Life, and The Seminary Tower. Among her published articles are:

"The Communion of the Holy Spirit" Wesleyan Theological Journal 3:1 (Spring 1968) http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1968-wtj-03.pdf
"The Development of the Doctrine of Personal Predestination."
"An Existential Interpretation of the Doctrine of Holiness: A Message Presented in Chapel Service." Western Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oregon, November 3, 1955.
"A Hermeneutical Approach to John Wesley"Wesleyan Theological Journal 6:1 (Spring 1971)http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1971-wtj-06.pdf
"John Wesley: Mentor or Guru?"Wesleyan Theological Journal 10:1 (Spring 1975):5-14.http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1975-wtj-10.pdf
"John Wesley's Philosophy of Faith." Theological Trends (February 1964).
"Love is Existential." The Preacher's Magazine (August 1958).
"Paul Tillich's Interpretation of History." Theological Trends (March 1963).
"Practical Norm of Love." The Preacher's Magazine (September 1958).
"Protestant Theology and the Imago Dei." Theological Trends (April 1966).
"Sanctification is Existential." The Preacher's Magazine (July 1958).
"Theological Roots of the Wesleyan Understanding of the Holy Spirit"Wesleyan Theological Journal 14:1 (Spring 1979):77-98.http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1979-wtj-14-1.pdf
"Theology's Role in the Christian Ministry." The Seminary Tower (Winter 1976-77) Nazarene Theological Seminary.
"The Wedge of Truth." Published Reformation Day Sermons. Trevecca Nazarene College. (30–31 October 1967).
"Wesleyan Theology and Christian Development." The Asbury Seminarian (April 1976).
"A Wesleyan View on Preaching Holiness"Wesleyan Theological Journal 4:1 (Spring 1969)http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1969-wtj-04.pdf

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Personal life

Education

Ministry

Pastoral Ministry and Evangelism

Educational Ministry

Theology

Honours and awards

Publications

Archives

External links