Your point is not well taken

The National Enquirer-esque headlines are a regular feature of the deceptively-named "Saving Bellevue" website, and one of the more recent ones continues the tradition. I quote thusly, and like so (yet without the large font): "Parliamentarian and Pastor Barry McCarty's church in Texas, Valley View Christian Church split in 2004. The off shoot (sic) is Cornerstone Christian Church He (sic) was the Parliamentarian for our March 25th Business Meeting."

Get it? See, Dr. McCarty had a church split under his watch. So, he must be part of an effort to make Bellevue split, right? Why, of course!

Well, no.

With regard to the so-called "split," it wasn't much of one. Dr. McCarty became Valley View's new pastor, about 150 people flared off to follow Valley View's old pastor preach at a Dallas hotel, and Valley View was just left decimated--with only 1200 people left to attend their church. Granted, an 11% drop in membership is nothing to sneeze at, and none of us is privy to just what level of acrimony was present during those members' departures, but according to the National Enqui... um, sorry, the so-called "Saving Bellevue" reference, no one needs to know anything else about Barry McCarty other than that his church split.

A couple of things to consider here:

1) Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't at least one group in the past splintered away from Bellevue to form its own church? I have yet to read a condemnation of Ramsey Pollard on the so-called "Saving Bellevue" site for presumably mishandling his pastoral duties to the point that members broke away to start what is now known as Second Baptist Church in Memphis. To be clear, I don't know that Pastor Pollard ever necessarily mishandled his pastoral duties--my point is that "Saving Bellevue" should either be consistent, or remove their latest attempt at gossip-mongering.

2) Dr. McCarty has been the Southern Baptist Convention's parliamentarian since 1986. If you'd like to read an extensive article on the man, Baptist Press has one here.

3) Since you probably didn't follow that link, here's a sample from it. As you read it, see if anything sounds familiar about it--quoting thusly, and like so:

Preparing for his first convention, 1986 in Atlanta, McCarty studied what had happened the year before in Dallas. He said that while some of the points of order offered were well-intentioned, they stymied the convention’s deliberative process to the point he suspected that some messengers were raising the points to “confuse and frustrate the chair.”

“The thing I remember most about the convention in Atlanta was that they threw everything at us, including the kitchen sink,” McCarty recalled. “It was pretty obvious to me that people who were opposed to the president had found that in the point of order they had a way to harass the chair.”

McCarty said he gave Stanley a legitimate way to dispatch such points in quick fashion: “I recall one thing I had taught Dr. Stanley that became his favorite expression: ‘Your point of order is not well taken.’ But when someone raised a legitimate point of order, we took immediate corrective action,” said McCarty, who noted the 1986 Convention had an unusually large number, between 60-70, points-of-order raised.

4) Dr. McCarty was a personal friend of Pastor Rogers'; in addition to serving as SBC President in 1979, Pastor Rogers served as SBC President in 1986 and 1987 with Dr. McCarty as parliamentarian. As he noted in the recent business meeting (and as is obliquely referenced in the aforementioned Baptist Press article), Dr. McCarty treasured his friendship with Pastor Rogers. Perhaps some in attendance missed that reference?

Now you know more than "Saving Bellevue" evidently wanted you to know about Barry McCarty, the incredibly well-qualified parliamentarian who served Bellevue during the March 25th business meeting. Why do you think that none of this information made it onto that site?

--Mike

EDITED TO ADD: Apparently, there's nothing that the so-called "Saving Bellevue" folks won't bootleg. I see today that they made a very poor recording of Mark Dougharty today, which continues a trend of surreptitiously recording people and events. Why? From whence comes their compulsion to keep unapologetically breaking these types of laws over, and over, and over, and over again? I mean, I half-expect to see bootleg copies of 300 and Meet The Robinsons for sale on their site!