A Tragic Event

 April 9, 2006

By: Sellers S. Crain, Jr.

    The tragic events that unfolded in Selmer, TN two weeks ago have shocked and saddened all who know or know of the Winkler family.  I think I met Matthew once while he was working as the Youth Minister at the Bellevue Church of Christ in Nashville.  His father, Dan, was the minister for the Crieve Hall congregation in South Nashville for 13 years before moving back to Huntington, TN, where he labored while in school at Freed-Hardeman University.  Dan's father, Wendell Winkler, who died last year of cancer, was a preacher's preacher, a trainer of preachers for many years.  Matthew was following in their footsteps.

    Last week several national news programs ran pieces almost every day about this story.  Most, if not all, of them somehow implied that the church of which they were members might possibly be culpable.  None of these programs was more blatantly offensive to me than the Nancy Grace program on CNN's Headline News Channel 47 in Nashville.  Ms. Grace had on a Baptist missionary from Finland, Tom Rukala, to explain what the Church of Christ is.  This man's ignorance of the Church was appalling.  He either unintentionally misrepresented us, or he was deliberately trying to frame the Church in as negative a light as possible.

    Let me share with you some of those misstatements.  First, he said that "unless you are baptized by one of their minister, you are doomed to hell."  I do not know of any Church of Christ minister who believes that or preaches it.  In fact, the church of which Mr. Rukala is a part, taught for years that unless you were baptized by one of their ordained, licensed preachers, your baptism was invalid.  As far as I know, they still do teach this.  Second, he said this view "breaks completely from the traditional Christian view."  What is the "traditional Christian view"?  We have today, I'm told, more than 3,000 groups claiming to be Christian, and they do not agree.  There is no such thing as a "traditional Christian view," so how can we break from it?  Third, he said "You have to be a member of their narrow sect" in order to be saved.  The Church is not a sect.  The definition of a sect is "A religious denomination" (The New American Webster Dictionary).  Since we are not a denomination, we cannot be a sect, but since he admittedly belongs to a denomination, he belongs to a sect.  Fourth, he said that we were a cult, or that we had "cult like characteristics."  Mr. Rukala has confused us with the International Churches of Christ (Boston Movement), which, admittedly, did have cultic characteristics, but we are not a cult.  A cult is defined as "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also it's a body of adherents... a small circle of persons united by devotion or allegiance to an artistic or intellectual movement or figure" (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary).  There are at least seventeen characteristics of a cult, none of which apply to us.  (continued next week)

 Brotherly,

Sellers