If They Mated
The Conon O’Brian show has a great feature called, “if they mated.” You take two people and throw them together to see what they would look like if they had a child. For example, the love child of Saddam Hussein and Dan Rather, had they mated, would look like Geraldo Rivera.
I saw something the other night that reminded me of this, but first the background.
I grew up in the Church of Christ, and in fact still worship within that religious tradition. It’s a small demonination primarily in the southern United States. Tennesse and Texas probably have the two largest concentrations of CoCers.
Now I could write oogles about things I think are wrong with the church. I stayed because I came to the realization that going elsewhere wouldn’t magically provide a “problem-free” community. As long as there are people like me in the church, there will unfortunately be problems. And while I may be dangerously close to the edge (a push might cause me to look for other churches), so long as I can find a healthy church that respects diversity of opinion, I’ll stay. Thus far, I’ve been blessed.
So, I mention this as background because our little tradition has been heavily in the news lately. Perhaps you’ve heard. A minister’s wife shot the minister, and nobody really knows why. With three little kids in the family, it is by all accounts a very sad story.
So back to the point. I was flipping through the channels the other night and came across the Nancy Grace show. She was parading a string of guests to offer “expert” commentary on the situation, or at least as much “expert” commentary as is possible when no one really knows what happened.
One of the things she did was paint the Church of Christ in the harshet possible light, strongly implying that we are a cult. While most CoC churches are theologically and politcally conservative, rise to the level of a cult they do not. Categorically labeling the entire group is particularly problematic, as is categorically labeling any group, since there are many different opinions with the church on any given issue.
Nancy Grace was vile. She repeatedly cut people off, mocked them, and generally made a dope of herself. In particular, she treated in the harshed way the one Church of Christ minister she had on the show. (It should always warn you if someone blasts a group, with 12 other guests, while letting a single person speak for the group being assailed.) She interviewed Rubel Shelly, a minister who teaches at Rochester College in Michigan. She asked, for example, about the CoC’s views on women’s roles in the church. Historically, the CoC has had limited roles for women in public worship (something I’m in complete disagreement on and something which is starting to change in places). Nancy Grace asked why this was the case, Rubel Shelly began to explain that it was traditionally because of the interpretation in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Nancy Grace immediately cut him off and chastized him, saying that she didn’t need a history lesson. When Shelly protested that she’d asked why, she mocked him for his evasiveness and said he’d make a great lawyer.
The ineptitude, the smugness, the incredible rudeness and arrogance from Nancy Grace. I had seen this before, but where? Why of course, Bill O’Reilly. And that’s what got me thinking. What if they mated? What would the love child of Grace and O’Reilly look like?
x 
I can only venture a guess.
I laughed out loud when I saw that, though, don’t you think you’re being a little harsh? You could have at least chosen a fully clothed mole rat!
Oh, now you’ve done it; you’ve insulted the entire Naked Mole Rat community. I certainly hope that none of your graduate research projects involves immunology….
This is not to vindicate Nancy Grace in any way, b/c even her dreadfully ugly haircut demands the retribution of all sane people in the world, but you should be aware that there is a denomination that calls itself “Church of Christ” which is borderline cultish. I think they may be historically related to the CoC denomination you are in, which has distanced themselves from this bastard denominational child; their name does lend itself to confusion since the two denominations aren’t currently related, either in formal relationships or in doctrinal beliefs. The cultish CoC is an outgrowth of the “Boston CoC,” also known as “International Church of Christ;” Google it for some interesting reading. I actually had some friends who had run-ins with the Boston CoC denom in central Illinois, so I know from experience that they can be very authoritarian, controlling, manipulative, strictly hierarchal, and they attempt to cut people off from their networks of friends, especially those who disagree with their ultra-rigid interpretations (the most caustic of which is their idea that one must be “discipled” by a “disciple” in order to be a Christian, and low and behold, the only legitimate disciples to be found are within the confines of their own church). So yes, borderline cultish. If Nancy Grace had done her homework, she’d have known the difference between denominations quite easily.