Life Of Jason

In today’s letters to the editor, there is a letter from Hosea Bilyeu where he apologizes to Roger Ray for taking him to task about one of Roger’s columns where he appeared to have a very condescending attitude toward his readers. Hosea took issue with Roger’s statements lamenting poor sales of his book in the first letter and apologizes in the second letter for taking what Roger called a joke “out of context.” (Now, my gut says that “joke” wasn’t entirely without the attitude that Mr. Bilyeu discussed but if he spoke with Mr. Ray and says that it was a joke then I believe Mr. Bilyeu. And no, I don’t go to his church. My opinion of Hosea Bilyeu is based on what I saw of him from being at events around him and his church staff.)

However, I can see where Mr. Bilyeu could have easily thought Mr. Ray was not joking and where I had that gut feeling that I’m trying to shake in light of Mr. Bilyeu’s comments in today’s newspaper. At the end of the same paragraph where Mr. Ray referenced the poor sales of his book he also wrote “We are a nation faced with serious issues and we need to break our addiction to the literature of diversion and be willing to pick up texts which both challenge and inform us.” Now, taking that statement in the context of being in the same paragraph with a reference to poor sales of his book, it’s understandable that someone could believe Mr. Ray was not kidding in his comments and that he was linking his poor sales to people being addicted to “literature of diversion.”

However, when Mr. Bilyeu said in his first letter that I wonder if his condescending remark is not indicative of the lameness of the left” I don’t believe he was very far off the truth. In fact, I first raised the issue of Mr. Ray’s condescending attitude in a blog entry dated November 8 entitled “Look Closer At Roger Ray.” I pointed out using examples of Mr. Ray’s column where he was being very partisan in his remarks and how his analogy was flawed. I also took issue with his apparent stance that he cannot be friends with someone who is a strong conservative and/or was or is a supporter of President Bush. I really felt there was an underlying hate toward conservatives in Mr. Ray’s writings and I believe that this incident with Mr. Bilyeu has raised some serious questions on top of the previous questions.

Read DrRogerRay’s responses in the comments to the first letter from Mr. Bilyeu. Look at how Mr. Ray responds to criticism from Hosea Bilyeu’s son:

DrRogerRay: “However, I avoid personal insults, especially of non-elected or local figures whose children might also read the editorial page and whose neighbors will certainly have those insults in mind when they see you out cutting the grass. ” (Relevant snippet taken from much larger post.)

WillBilyeu: “Dr. Ray, If you are trying to insinuate that Hosea Bilyeu is a hateful person hiding behind religion then you are wrong. Please do not complain about a perceived, vicious, personal attack and then immediately begin making inflammatory personal statements. Don’t forget, someones kids might be reading. ” (Note: Mr. Ray had earlier in the thread had said “Is it any wonder that most people assume that religious conservatives are really just hateful people hiding behind religion?” in reference to Hosea Bilyeu.)

So, we had a son of Hosea Bilyeu pointing out that Mr. Ray did exactly what he said he avoided: personal insults of non-elected or local figures whose children might also read the editorial page. Well, it’s not the editorial page but the blog connected to the newspaper that prints his editorials.  Does that really make a difference?  Here was Mr. Ray’s response to Will Bilyeu:

“Let’s see if I get this right, Will: You believe that your father should be able to call me arrogant, lame and irresponsible in a publication which goes to 40,000 readers and I shouldn’t be able to object to that, even in a blog read by a few dozen people? Does malignant narcissism run in your family?”

So now it wasn’t enough for Mr. Ray to go after Hosea Bilyeu but now his son and his family.

The next post was the son explaining he wasn’t attacking Mr. Ray but rather taking exception to a statement about his father. Mr. Ray then responded that he was going to stop this and his post included: “ Hosea and I have just spoken on the phone and reconciled our differences privately. He regrets writing about me in the letters to the editor and I regret writing about him here. Christians need to work out their differences in private in loving and respectful language and we have pledged to one another to do that. ”

I noticed that he did not apologize to Mr. Bilyeu in any public manner in the way he made his public comments. He said he regrets writing the comments but that doesn’t mean he thinks he was wrong to do it. Mr. Ray didn’t apologize to Will Bilyeu for his public insults toward him. (Now, I’m open to the possibility that occurred within the call to Hosea Bilyeu but Mr. Ray didn’t mention that happened when he mentioned the call.)

I will be waiting to see if there is a public apology on the part of Mr. Ray to Hosea and Will Bilyeu along the lines of the letter from Mr. Bilyeu who showed yet again he is a man of strong integrity.

I hope that we will see that apology. However, that will not fade away questions I’ve raised and issues regarding the statements that Mr. Ray has made within his column. I hope that some day he will answer some of those questions and we can have an actual discussion about the issues Mr. Ray raises that are in need of all our attention.