The Pastor's Wife Read online

  Knoxville is a place of unquestionable beauty. The great debate is whether the most glorious season is spring or fall. The blooming of a great profusion of dogwoods and azaleas announces the arrival of the warm weather with a breathtaking display of whites and reds, highlighted by the intense, fresh green of new growth. Every autumn, the brilliance of the golds and reds racing down streets and over mountaintops make the area glow like an exquisite work of art.

  Mary grew up on Frontier Trail in a predominately white, modestly affluent neighborhood in southwest Knoxville. Her family attended the Laurel Church of Christ, a 200-family congregation known for its ministry at the University of Tennessee. Her father Clark served as deacon. They lived the life dictated by the guidelines and prohibitions of the Church. The man was the literal head of the household in every way. Clark’s word was law. He made all the decisions for his family.

  When Mary was 2 years old, her sister Patricia was born. Patricia’s life did not get off to an easy start. She was born with cerebral palsy and developed spinal meningitis and encephalitis as an infant. She suffered from significant mental retardation and physical disability. Eventually, she was capable of reading words off of a page, but she had no comprehension of the meaning behind them.

  Mary was close to and very protective of her little sister. Even though Mary had a room of her own, she usually slept in Patricia’s bed with her. She put a pillow between them to keep from being banged up in her sleep by the metal braces Patricia often had to wear.

  Mary attended Mount Olive Elementary School. At home she had a strict upbringing, where rules were made to be followed without question. She learned to mind her manners and respect her elders. She was a quiet and obedient child—reserved and soft-spoken, just like her mother.

  When Mary was in middle school, her parents took in a child named Shannon as a foster daughter. Shannon’s four siblings were spread out in other homes. When the Freemans submitted a request to serve as foster parents for all five of them, they were denied. The state insisted that each child have his own bedroom.

  Mary offered to sleep on the sofa and give up hers, since there were no rules requiring a biological child to have her own space. Instead, Clark Freeman, a home improvement contractor by trade, built an addition to his home. He hoped that all of the kids could live with his family—but, if that still wasn’t the case, at least the siblings would have a place to come together for visits on weekends and holidays.

  By the time Clark finished the project, the five children were re united with their biological parents. Once again, the Freemans were a family of four. Clark bought homes from individuals and from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, renovated them and sold them. He earned his living “flipping houses.” Mary Nell was a teacher for the Knox County Schools. Although certified for the classroom, she chose instead to go to homes and instruct those children temporarily unable to attend school for medical reasons.

  On April 15, 1987, tragedy struck the Freeman home. Mary Nell was giving her youngest daughter Patricia a bath. One minute, Patricia was singing in the tub, the next she had a heart attack. She never recovered. She was only 11 years old.

  Reeling with grief, 13-year-old Mary turned to the counselor at school for help in dealing with her loss. Clark intervened. He called the school and insisted that the counselor not talk to his daughter. This was a matter for the family, the Church and God. No secular professionals were needed.

  Decades later, fingers would point back to this period as the genesis of Mary’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Mary, it was said, never recovered from the death of her sister.

  Meanwhile, in Shannon’s home, the abuse and neglect that had led to her temporary foster care by the Freemans began anew. The state stepped in and removed her and her siblings permanently from their biological home. The parental rights of her mother and father were revoked. The five children were placed in foster care and available for adoption.

  The Freemans adopted 11-year-old Shannon and her siblings, 8-year-old Tabatha, 7-year-old Amanda, 6-year-old Eric and 5-year-old Chase. The kids moved into the new rooms constructed by Clark. Mary Nell purchased a mini-van to transport her newly expanded brood. Amanda later said, “When we all became a family, Mary was so loving, and, like my sister likes to say, kind of like our other mom. She took us everywhere.”

  Mary reveled in the role of big sister and back-up caretaker. She taught her new siblings to play tennis in the summer and built gingerbread houses for them at Christmas time. Mothering them filled some of the void left in Mary’s heart after the death of her sister Patricia.

  At Doyle High School, Mary went by her middle name, Carol, since her mother’s name was Mary Nell. It was a typical act of a teenager seeking separation and independence from her parents. She demonstrated an interest in singing, first discovered when she joined her eighth-grade chorus. Mary sang in the girls’ and mixed choruses and then competed for and earned a spot on the school’s elite madrigal group. She also played tennis, volunteered as a peer tutor with the physically and mentally handicapped students in the special education classes, and was active in Young Life, a religious organization for high school and college students, and in Y-Teens, a youth leadership group.

  Her classmates described her as reserved, studious and quiet, with a good sense of humor, a genuine interest in others and a constant smile on her face. They didn’t know that behind that happy façade was a troubled girl, one who would hide behind the clothing in her closet when she couldn’t cope. They only knew that sweet, nice girl who brightened their day.

  Her loving nature embraced more than just her immediate family and classmates. Long-time family friend Christine Henderson remembered her as “a well-behaved, adorable child, always courteous and thoughtful,” who grew into an “unselfish and compassionate” teenager. She recalled Mary visiting the nursing home where Christine’s elderly bedridden mother was recuperating from a broken hip. “I’ll never forget the way my mother smiled when she told me about Mary’s visit.”

  In Mary’s senior year, Doyle and South–Young High Schools merged, forming South–Doyle High. Mary graduated from there in 1992.

  In the fall, she attended Lipscomb University in Nashville, the flagship college for the churches of Christ, a form of worship that is prevalent throughout Tennessee. Even though she was living away from home, she was actively involved in family life. Every Tuesday night was Bible-reading night in the Freeman house and Mary joined in by telephone. She continued her musical interests with the University Singers and worked on the staff of the weekly newspaper, The Lipscomb Babbler. While there, she stopped using “Carol” and reverted to using her first name, Mary.

  After two years of study, she transferred to a school offering a degree in special education, Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee—twenty miles north of Selmer.

  During orientation, Mary, a tiny woman with long brown hair and an easy smile, met another transfer student, Elizabeth Gentle. They got to know each other better as they sat side-by-side in Bible class. “She was easy to get along with,” Elizabeth said. “She just had a sweet spirit about her.”

  Mary was active in Phi Kappa Alpha, one of the six campus social clubs, and was a member of the campus Evangelism Forum, where she met a handsome, athletic student named Matthew Winkler.

  Chapter 9

  Matthew Winkler was born on November 21, 1974, when older brother Daniel was sixteen months old. At that time, the Winklers lived in Fort Worth, Texas, a major industrial city dominated by aviation producers, and grain and oil merchants. Its historical role as cattle marketers and meat-packers earned the city its nickname, “Cowtown.” It was also where Matthew’s grandfather, Wendell Winkler, a native of Port Arthur, Texas, made his mark with the churches of Christ.

  Matthew’s family had deep and substantial roots in this faith. By the time Matthew was born, his grandfather Wendell Winkler, a third generation Church of Christ pulpit minister, was director of the Brown Tr
ail School of Preaching in Fort Worth. He had been spreading the word for thirty years in at least twenty-six states. He’d published nine books on biblical theology, among them the first five books in his “Sound Doctrine for Everyday Living” series and authored several smaller works, including one about the role of the preacher’s wife.

  Matthew’s ancestors were pioneers in the movement that established the churches of Christ. Its history began in the early 1800s when preacher Alexander Campbell proposed a separation from the Presbyterian Church and a return to the primitivism of the first century Church, embracing the fundamental beliefs and fervor of the early Christians. A new Christian denomination, the Disciples of Christ, was born.

  In the early 1900s, another split erupted, led by those who felt that any denomination was wrong in God’s eyes because it created divisions in the body of Christians, and that the existence of an umbrella organization over any individual congregation undermined the authority of Christ.

  The new branch of the churches of Christ—unlike the United Church of Christ, a more liberal Protestant denomination—were all independent, autonomous congregations that reported to no headquarters or convention. Each Church of Christ, then as now, is governed by an all-male group of elders.

  Wendell Winkler wrote that “the New Testament speaks only of local congregations…or the church embracing all of the saved.” He insisted that “Our Lord was undenominational so must his church be.” Winkler considered denominations to be unholy, man-made constructs and advocated for the end of them all:

  Unity exists because of allegiance to a single objective authority. In like manner, when all men will lay down their creeds, disciplines, manuals, confessions of faith, catechisms, think-so’s, maybe’s, and subjective feelings and each with an unprejudiced and receptive heart turns to the word of God, then, and only then, will unity result. Such will constitute the death knell to denominationalism. We must be committed to being nothing, calling ourselves nothing, obeying nothing, saying nothing except that which is authorized by the word of God.

  Any name—Methodist, Baptist, or Lutheran—was wrong, he argued, because it was not contained in the scripture. Any rule of discipline—like the Presbyterian’s Westminster Confession of Faith—was wrong because it set itself above and apart from the Gospel. Other churches said that denouncing denominations was itself destructive, in that it divided and excluded other Christians.

  Nonetheless, this philosophy drove the growth of churches of Christ in a broad swath of this country—from Pittsburgh to El Paso—in the twentieth century. There are congregations in all fifty states and in eighty foreign countries, with 3,500,000 adherents. The majority are in Tennessee and Texas, with Tennessee having the largest per capita membership.

  Despite the lack of an over-arching human authority, the churches do have consistencies in their doctrine. All congregations sing a capella—no instruments are allowed in worship services, since they are not described in the New Testament. Critics of this policy point to numerous mentions of harps and lyres in the Old Testament.

  Another universal belief is that the role of women in the church and the home is secondary to that of men. Women are not allowed to serve in any leadership position in the worship service—not even as song leader. This belief is validated by a verse in the Bible that exhorts women to be quiet in church. Many theological historians believe that this biblical admonition was nothing more than the reflection of a society where women were not educated, and that it is irrelevant in today’s world.

  In the churches of Christ, however, that verse is law. Each congregation decides where to draw the line. In some, a woman is allowed to teach children’s Sunday School classes; in others, putting a woman in charge of the church nursery is considered an affront to God.

  Young women raised in the Church were urged to willingly choose submission to the authority of men as a way of life. Pulpit preachers told the girls that women are treasured and uplifted in the churches of Christ and that the acceptance of submission was a gift from God to be cherished and embraced by every woman. Their mandated purpose on earth was to care for their children and support their men.

  Another sharp distinction between the doctrine of the churches of Christ and the Christian denominations centers on the rite of baptism. Most protestant and Catholic churches practice infant christening. In this ceremony, the parents present their baby to be anointed on the forehead with water from a baptismal font or basin. Like the Baptists, the churches of Christ do not perform this service, and believe, instead, in full immersion baptism. A participant in this rite walks into waist-deep water in a river or small pool designed for this purpose in the front of the church. The minister lowers the celebrant backward until the head is completely submersed. But the purpose behind this act differs greatly. Baptists believe that once children reach the age of accountability, in other words, achieve an understanding about the difference between right and wrong, they can be saved by accepting Jesus into their hearts and asking for forgiveness of their sins. They are then eligible for baptism, a prerequisite for membership in the Church. To the Baptists, this ritual is one that follows the example set by Christ. It is a public affirmation of faith and a symbolic resurrection to a new life.

  In the churches of Christ, however, full immersion baptism is an essential ingredient for salvation. It literally washes away sin. Without it, a soul is doomed to hell. Because of their belief that this form of baptism is the only way to avoid eternal damnation, many Baptist ministers have labeled churches of Christ a “sect” or “cult.”

  The churches of Christ provide an inflexible outline for living life, worshiping and raising children. Some Christians are turned off by this rigidity. Others find their black-and-white approach comforting.

  The Winkler family emerged from the churches of Christ as a multi-generational dynasty. Matthew’s father, Dan, began his ministerial career five years before Matthew’s birth. As a high school student, Dan preached at a little church in the country. He continued delivering sermons through his college years. After graduating, he stepped into the pulpit full-time at the age of 21.

  Dan met Diane while they were in college. They married in August of 1970. After graduation, Diane became a school teacher. During Matthew’s childhood, the family moved from state to state, following a trail of pulpit positions. They moved from Fort Worth to Greenville, Texas, a small city northeast of Dallas, in the Blackland Prairie. Then to Woodbury, Tennessee, a small town southeast of Nashville, situated halfway between Murfreesboro and McMinnville. When Matthew was 5 years old, the family grew by one more boy, Jacob.

  Then Dan moved on to the Huntingdon Church of Christ—in a town a little more than an hour’s drive from Selmer. Matthew attended sixth and seventh grades, and played football at Huntingdon Middle School before Dan accepted a position at the Beltline Church of Christ, and the family moved to Decatur, Alabama, the seat of Montgomery County, on October 6, 1988.

  Decatur is perched on a hill overlooking the Tennessee River. It began its life as Rhodes Ferry, named after the crossing established in the 1810s. Incorporated as Albany in 1821, a directive issued by President James Monroe changed its name to honor Stephen Decatur, renowned United States Navy commander, who was killed in a duel.

  During the civil war, Yankee troops burned the city to the ground—only three buildings survived the conflagration. The city rose from the ashes despite the additional decimation caused by two yellow fever plagues. From that building spurt, the town now boasts the most intact Victorian-era neighborhood in Alabama.

  Like Mary’s hometown of Knoxville, Decatur was nestled on the Tennessee River, and benefited from President Roosevelt’s creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

  Dan assumed his new position as pulpit minister for Beltline Church of Christ, a well-established congregation—they had their first service under a big oak tree in 1931. Under Dan’s leadership, the church grew, reaching 425 members, and built a new activity center with offices, work-room
s, fellowship rooms, a benevolent area and several classrooms.

  Matthew enrolled at Austin High School and played on the football team as an outside linebacker on defense, and fullback on offense. All three of the Winkler boys played football. Dan and Diane told each one of them to exercise their force on the field, but to always remember there were different expectations elsewhere. “Be nothing but a gentleman off the field.” They believed all of their sons lived up to this ideal. They never saw any evidence that Matthew was emotionally or physically abusive to anyone.

  His football coach, Dyer Carlisle, told reporter Tonya Smith-King of The Jackson Sun that the two older brothers were both hard-nosed players. Matt trained all summer long lifting weights to be the best player he could be. “The only difference between Daniel and Matthew, Matthew was more, probably more spirited. Daniel was even-keeled. And I mean this in a positive way, but Matthew, he would really get fired up. I mean, he really got into the game, he was very emotional…

  “He was very passionate. As coaches, that was a good thing…Matthew was one of our best hitters. He was just pretty much a coach’s dream to work with…I could see him maybe having a temper, but the only time I ever saw it was in relation to getting fired up about a game. He was a really tough-minded kid on the football field…” but “…he left it all on the field. He didn’t bring it into the locker room or the community.”

  The coach also appreciated his star player’s parents. “Even when things weren’t going well with the team, let’s say, they were always positive and always supportive. They were just the ideal parents to work with.”