Tactics

Something has recently dawned on me.

And by "recently," I mean about ten seconds ago.

Does anyone passing through this little corner of the Internet think, for a moment, that President George W. Bush needs to sit down for a serious one-on-one with Cindy Sheehan? Mrs. Sheehan, who lost her son Casey in Iraq, actually received personal condolences from the President; after their meeting, she had nothing but nice things to say about Mr. Bush. Fast-forward a bit, and she's camping out in a ditch near the President's Texas home, "protesting" the war effort and opining about virtually anything and everything else. Fast-forward a bit more, and she's purchasing property in Crawford under false pretenses so she can more easily hector President Bush, still using her son's coffin as a soapbox.

Mrs. Sheehan's tactic (and the tactic of those surrounding her) is to make her own self the issue.

Unfortunately, that same tactic is being employed by Mark Sharpe And Friends.

Let me quote Mr. Sharpe, thusly and like so:

I feel compelled

The question asked was in reference to Mark Sharpe's request

(There's that talking-about-oneself-in-the-third-person business again. Mike Bratton just hates that...)

I'm not sure how much he knows about the situation because I've not talked to Jim Barnwell and Jim Barnwell has not talked with me.

Unless someone who knows has told him, he has no idea of the efforts I and many other deacons and members have done to discuss these issues in a private manner instead of openly before the church in this public setting.

(A church, just for the record, is a private setting--not a public one like, oh, say, the Internet.)

That doesn't sound like reconciliation to me.

My heart is grieved

I plead with the administration

I plead with the laymen who are in leadership

This is the most disturbing part of the whole anti-Bellevue business: The issues raised are playing a weak second fiddle to the individuals doing the issue-raising. See for yourself, the next time you visit savingbellevue.com, how their own page titles look to you (emphasis mine):

Deacon David Bishop Letter to Pastor

What steps has Steve Gaines taken to reconcile with Mark Sharpe?

Mark Sharpe asks Steve Gaines to resign.

Honestly, there are no legitimate "sides" to this business. The idea is that those of us who are Christians are, or should be, on the Lord's side; if we have disputes, then someone (or everyone) involved is out of alignment with God's will for that situation.

When the savingbellevue.com people took to the Internet, the newspapers, and the television, actually "saving Bellevue" got lost in the shuffle of interviews and pronouncements. It was taking a figurative stick, and drawing a figurative line in the figurative sand; publicly calling those at Bellevue who disagree with your viewpoint "cowards" and "the Mafia," among other things, are polarizing, line-in-the-sand statements.

Only with a real sadness can such a viewpoint be identified not as a desire to save Bellevue, but as anti-Bellevue. Pardon me for getting personal, but I'm sick of seeing it. The "Saving 'Saving Bellevue'" blog has, for whatever reason, shut down; it would be nice to see savingbellevue.com follow suit. I'd much rather report and/or opine about any of the thousand other stories zipping through the air these days--but as long as that site keeps churning along, this one will offer alternatives.

--Mike