The Magdalene Review

There is a fair amount of controversy occuring right now about a CNN transcript of the March 29, 2006 Nancy Grace show, on which she interviewed a few people about the recent slaying of a Church of Christ minister by his wife, Mary Winkler. One of the points of the show was to argue that the Church of Christ is “cultic,” thereby providing some sort of added impulse for Mary Winkler to kill her husband. I first read about this on Jim West’s blog here and here, but Chris Heard has a very detailed post on this issue in his blog, Higgaion.

Even though I spent some time in Church of Christ congregations growing up, I’m going to refrain from entering the debate about whether or not it is, in fact, “cultic.” Instead I’d like to focus on some comments made during the show that have to do with (surprise, surpise) Mary Magdalene. This part of the conversation is between Nancy Grace and Dr. Rubel Shelley, whom they introduce as a professor of philosophy and religion at Rochester College as well as a Church of Christ minister:

GRACE: Dr. Shelly, what is the role of women in the Church of Christ?

SHELLY: Well, we believe that God created the human race male and female in his image and that Paul said there is no male or female in Christ. There are some male leadership options, in terms of elders of churches, and most preaching ministries that are reserved to males, but that`s not a cultic fact.

GRACE: Why? Why?

SHELLY: Well, that`s because of a biblical interpretation issue that Southern Baptists and many other groups share in common with Churches of Christ about male leadership in local churches. Churches of Christ are a conservative religious group.

GRACE: OK, wait, wait, wait. Dr. Shelly, no offense, by why, why only male leadership? Does anybody remember Mary Magdalene, ding ding?

SHELLY: Well, Mary Magdalene was not an apostle. All of the apostles were, in fact…

GRACE: Well, Judas was, and that certainly isn’t saying very much.

SHELLY: Well, we don’t want to quarrel with gender issues, with regard to salvation. And probably, I’m more broad-minded and a bit more liberal in terms of things that I would affirm that women have a right to do in church leadership than some of the people in our churches, but generally…

GRACE: OK. Dr. Shelly, let me move on, because I agree with you.

And there we have it, folks. Evidence that Protestants as well as Catholics exclude women from church leadership and deny Mary Magdalene’s role as an apostle. Although this has always been the case, Catholics are the ones who are usually under fire on this issue because female ordination activists are usually focused on the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestant exclusion of women in positions of leadership doesn’t usually get as much air play.

I disagree with Nancy Grace’s tone toward her guest, find it profoundly rude that she interrupted him, and doubt this question has anything at all to do with whether or not Mary Winkler killed her husband. But it is, nonethless, worth pointing out from my perspective as someone who watches public attitude about Mary Magdalene.