{"id":110,"date":"2006-03-30T07:25:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-30T11:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=110"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:39:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:39:50","slug":"nancy-dear-i-have-one-word-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=110","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Dear, I Have One Word For You"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Church of Christ<\/a> blogosphere has been abuzz the past week since one of its own ministers, Matthew Winkler, was tragically shotgunned in the back by his wife in Selmer, Tennessee. She has confessed to the crime and a motive, but so far only authorities close to the case know what she said and to date they haven’t shared that information with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Of course, that doesn’t prevent folks from speculating on the “why” (after all, these things must make sense, right?) and everyone from the greeter at Wal-Mart to such paragons of journalistic excellence and integrity<\/a> as Nancy Grace <\/a>has their own theory. Personally, I’ll go with the greeter at Wal-Mart after watching Nancy Grace’s spasmodic prancing and preening on CNN last night. You see, Ms. Grace has uncovered the titillating tidbit that is the lynchpin to this investigation–the Church of Christ is a cult and Mary Winkler is its mind-numbed pawn.<\/p>\n

How this “fact” escaped the attention of authorities in Selmer is beyond me, but thank God Nancy is around to help move things along. Nancy featured a Baptist preacher on her show a couple of nights ago who indicated that yes, indeed, the Church of Christ does have “cult-like” characteristics, and Nancy left hanging in the air the insinuation that this somehow played into the tragic events in Selmer. Last night she had another Baptist, Dr. Bob Jones (president of fundamentalist Bob Jones University), who to his credit refused to label the Church of Christ a cult, although he did take the opportunity to say that he believed that some Church of Christ beliefs and practices are “unbiblical.”<\/p>\n

Enter our own champion and spokesperson, Dr. Rubel Shelly<\/a>. Our family knows Rubel from our days in Nashville in the early 90s when he was the pulpit minister at the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ (he is now a professor of religion at Rochester College<\/a> in Michigan). Rubel has a PhD in philosophy from Vanderbilt and is an intellectual stalwart and if anybody could give Nancy a run for her money, surely it would be him.<\/p>\n

If he could get a word in edgewise, that is. Try as he might, he was able to do relatively little of that as Ms. Grace, her mind apparently made up before the fact that Rubel was the epitome of the stereotypical knuckle-dragging, wife-beating fundamentalist, dismissed him for the most part with the wave of the hand and a roll of the eyes. The transcript of the show can be found here<\/a>, and an excellent analysis of the “inquisition” here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One person whom she could not control as well was Mary Winkler’s lawyer, Steve Farese. Mr. Farese is a dapper Southern gentleman with an interminable drawl who appears to be a barrister who just stepped from the pages of a John Grisham novel. Don’t let the drawl and Southern vernacular fool you–this guy’s got an assortment of long knives tucked away in that silk blazer of his and he knows how to use them. After watching him for a few minutes, I was convinced that if I ever got into a heap of trouble anywhere below the Mason-Dixon line, that he would be the “go-to-guy” of choice.<\/p>\n

As to the charge of the Church of Christ being a cult, as a lifelong member I can say that yes, I have met a few of my brethren who were a bit controlling and walked around with a zombie-like stare and their arms rigidly extended looking for someone to choke. And yes, if you check the typical Church of Christ pantry, you’ll find an ample supply of Kool-Aid, but I assure you that we only buy that in bulk from Sam’s Club for the sole purpose of Vacation Bible School each summer.<\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that for the most part, we in the Church of Christ do much more good than harm (witness the grace-filled behavior of the Selmer brethren toward the accused murderer) and are much too loosely organized and disagreeable with each other to ever truly qualify as a cult. We can’t even agree on one-cup versus many cups for communion or whether or not we should have paved parking lots–what chance do we possibly have of ever agreeing on who should be our “Grand and Glorified Leader?”<\/p>\n

One thing folks in the Church of Christ will find themselves agreeing on in the next few days is that Nancy Grace is the epitome of a yellow journalism hack and a certifiable spaz. My three sons were howling in laughter at certain points in the show, and Number One commented, “She has way too many people on at once to ever discuss anything in a serious way.”<\/p>\n

Nice observation, Number One. CNN should be renamed ADDN (Attention Deficit Disorder Network). Nancy dear, I just have one word for you–Ritalin.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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