Arch Enemy #1 – Nancy Grace

I’ve been needing to start an enemy list for quite a while. Because I have quite a few of them, and if they ever happen upon my blog, they will want to know it.

Not that I’m much of anybody to fear. A pacifist who can barely bench a hundred-fifty pounds (if that) from Menard, TX with a small space staked out on the edge of the blogosphere. I’m not a person to fear just a whole lot.

So there’s no really good reason to make an enemy list. But I’m starting one anyway.

By the way, the order of the enemy list really means nothing. It’s not as though enemy number one is the worst enemy. Enemy number one just means that on the day I started the list, this person was the enemy I was ticked off at.

So, for those of you who did not read the title of the blog or look at the picture below, the first person to be named by me an official enemy on my blog:

Nancy Grace

Nancy Grace hosts the show Justice Hour on CNN Headline News. CNN needed an ignorant blowhard a while back to compete with Bill O’Reilly for rating. So, they chose Nancy Grace. I picked up that she was a moron whose show I would not be watching immediately. Unfortunately, during the last week, I’ve had the misfortune to watch her show because she was covering a subject I was interested in.

My church.

Nancy Grace, whose show tends to exploit tragedies (usually murders) for all their worth, has been covering the murder of Matthew Winkler, a Church of Christ preacher from Selmer, TN. She was ignorant about what the Church of Christ was, so she brought on an “expert” on the Church of Christ, a fellow who was not a member of the Church of Christ and who evidently has a problem with us.

Here’s a part of the transcript from the Monday show:

TRANSCRIPT:
NANCY GRACE: A well-respected and much beloved minister in the Church of Christ, Selmer, Tennessee, gunned down in his own home. His wife, according to many reports, has confessed to police. They say whodunnit is not the issue, it`s why she did it. That is the question.
I want to go to pastor Tom Rukala, joining us tonight, a special guest, a Baptist minister. I`ve been researching the Church of Christ. I don`t know that much about it. What can you tell me?
PASTOR TOM RUKALA, BAPTIST PASTOR: Well, the Church of Christ is a relatively new church. It was started about 150 years ago by Alexander Campbell (ph). And it`s, unfortunately, a very legalistic sect, and they tend to use methods of intimidation and pressure tactics. They claim that they are the only ones going to heaven, and all other people are condemned to hell. So in case…
GRACE: Uh-oh, I`m in trouble. But I already knew that.
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: Now, wait a minute. What more can you tell me?
RUKALA: Well, they claim that if you`re not baptized by one of their ministers, that you`re doomed to hell, even if you`re a believer in Jesus Christ, which, of course, breaks completely from the traditional Christian view that all those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved because we`re saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose again. For the Church of Christ folks, that`s not enough. You have to be a member of their narrow sect. It`s a very exclusive group. And if you`re not a member of their sect, you`re condemned.
GRACE: You know, Pastor, you keep saying “sect.” “Sect.” You make it sound like a cult.
RUKALA: It kind of is a borderline cult, unfortunately. I don`t want to make it out to be some kind of Hare Krishna group, but it has cult-like characteristics and…
GRACE: In what sense?
RUKALA: Well, in the sense of the exclusivism, the attitude that they are the only ones who know the truth. The tactics that they use are sometimes just — not only un-biblical but unethical, and they can be very ungracious, unfortunately.

Then, she continued this line of questioning Wednesday night with Rubel Shelly (an extremely respected theologian from the Churches of Christ). I won’t subject you to all of that transcript since it was conveniently typed in a way that doesn’t demonstrate just how often in the forty-five seconds he was on that she interrupted him. The gist of the interview was this. She asked Dr. Shelly if the Church of Christ was a cult:

GRACE: “Is the Church of Christ a cult? Is it cult-like? Did that play into this murder in any way? With us, Dr. Ruble Shelly [sic], professor of philosophy and religion at Rochester College. He`s a Church of Christ minister. He knows the Winkler family. Let`s take a look. Single leader, cult-like qualities, trying to isolate members, members happy and enthusiastic -- I don`t think that`s a bad thing -- experimental rather than logical, hide what they teach, say they`re the only true group. Dr. Shelly, response?”

When he answered no, she seemed dissatisfied and hurriedly switched topics to role of women in the Church of Christ. Since the Churches of Christ run by local church autonomy, there is a variety of ways the Church handles that particular topic. When he tried to answer, she cut him off. Then, she asked if the Church of Christ thought Muslims and Jews will go to heaven? She wanted a yes or no answer, though it’s not a yes or no answer? Dr. Shelly refused the simple answer and said, “I believe that Jews and Muslims are to be shared the gospel of Christ. Now, that`s a much larger issue.” Grace said, “Gotcha, OK. All right. I get it.” They then knocked Dr. Shelley off the air, so that she could get the response to Dr. Shelley from Deepak Chopra: “I can`t help but think that religion has become divisive, quarrelsome, and sometimes even idiotic. I think it`s based on very tribal views that go back to an ancient past. And perhaps we should see a future where religion has no relevance anymore…” Shelly never got to respond to anything else. He was on the show, it seemed, for little over a minute. Later in the show, she asked another guest if the Church of Christ was a cult.


So anyway, I can’t really begin to express how many things were wrong with this. Nancy Grace wanted desperately to label the Church of Christ as a cult so as to make better tv. So, she belittled Dr. Shelly (and misspelled his name and called him a psychologist) and wouldn’t let him answer her questions. She then cut him off the air and turned to another guest so that they could attack Dr. Shelly. She then went on as though nothing had happened to the rest of her ridiculous show.

The lack of journalistic integrity was appalling to me.

More saddening is how much the Church of Christ has worked to change in the last thirty years so that they’re not exclusivist and legalistic. Then, comes along Nancy Grace to tell everybody that we’re a cult.

So, Nancy grace earned my first email to complain to a tv show.

And she’s the number one arch enemy.