Part One

Men use the terms “Trail of Blood” and “Landmarkism” as a kind of mockery, almost never with evidence.  They use them in the same manner as calling someone a “Flat Earther.”  If I said I was “Trail of Blood” and “Landmark,” what would I mean?  Should I embrace those terms in light of potential derision?

Trail of Blood

“Trail of Blood” refers to a booklet written by James Milton Carroll in 1931.  Carroll did not originate the words “trail of blood” as referring to the persecution of churches.  Others before used “trail of blood” to describe the ongoing record of atrocities of Roman Catholicism through the centuries in its opposition to the truth.  I like the metaphor of Carroll, which is saying that you can detect true churches in the historical record through findings of state church persecution.

Carroll would say that the trail of blood started with the Lord Jesus Christ and that suffering marks the trajectory of true churches.  I use this exact language all the time, “There have always been true churches separate from the state church.”  I also ask this question, “Do you believe the truth was preserved in and through Roman Catholicism?”  Men find it difficult to answer “yes” to that question.  If they answer, “No,” then they essentially take a Trail of Blood position.  I say, “Well, then we take the same position, don’t we?”

Whitsitt Controversy and English Separatism

Opposition to the Trail of Blood started with a liberal president of the Southern Baptist Convention, William Whitsitt (read here, here, here, and here).  The work of Whitsitt is less famous than Carroll’s Trail of Blood, but if someone does not accept the Trail of Blood, his other option is called, “English Separatism.”  Can we mock someone as “English Separatist”?  The Trail of Blood position predates the English Separatist one.  If someone rejects Trail of Blood, he is left with the Roman Catholic position on church perpetuity or succession.  He denies the promise of Jesus, “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Whitsitt took from his European training a modernistic view of truth.  He wrote and said that if it does not have primary source historical evidence, it isn’t true.  From this, Whitsitt said that the earliest Baptist churches trace from 1610 in England.

A split occurred in the Southern Baptist Convention over Whitsitt.  The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary under the presidency of B. H. Carroll started in a major way because of the Whitsitt controversy.  Most Southern Baptists then distinguished themselves from Protestants.  Carroll’s brother wrote Trail of Blood.

The Application of Modernistic Historicism

Did you know a historical gap exists between the completion of the New Testament and the doctrine of justification?  With that historical position, justification did not exist until after the Protestant Reformation.  No primary source evidence exists for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.  I’ve been to Bethlehem in the Palestinian West Bank area, and the best historical evidence outside of scripture for Jesus’ birth is secondary and vague.  It starts around 325 with Constantine’s mother Helena visiting there.

The mockery designated for Trail of Blood reminds me of the mockery by scientists of a God Hypothesis and intelligent design.  Trail of Blood is true, but it is institutionally inconvenient.  Intelligent design or a God Hypothesis puts people out of business.  Trail of Blood is a strict ecclesiological position that undermines free-floating free agents, who function outside of church authority, like for instance, Alpha and Omega ministries.  “Ministries” function outside of a church, not something we read in the Bible, and cross denominational lines on a regular basis.

Landmarkism

The attack on Landmarkism dovetails with the one on Trail of Blood.  Landmarkism did not originate local-only ecclesiology.  The Landmark movement began in the Southern Baptist Convention because of an ecumenical drift in the Convention.  Modernism began affecting the Convention.  Compromise grew.  Baptist churches began allowing Presbyterians in their pulpit and accepted their “baptism” for transfer of church membership.  The Landmarkers stood against this.

The Landmarkers believed local-only ecclesiology like most of the Southern Baptists in the middle 19th century, but they stressed and influenced a stronger practice.  They rejected what they called, “alien immersion,” baptism without proper authority.  They were saying, “Don’t accept Presbyterian baptism,” or any other Protestant baptism.  The Protestants arose from Roman Catholicism with a continuation of state church doctrine.  Baptist churches should reject their baptism, Landmarkers claimed, practiced, and encouraged all Baptists to join that.

Many today define Landmarkism with a giant falsehood.  They say Landmarkism is chain-link succession of Baptist churches.  Furthermore, they say that Landmarkism requires proof of a chain-link succession of Baptist churches all the way to the Jerusalem church.  That is not what Landmarkism is.

In a more simple way, you should understand Landmarksim as, first, since Christ, true New Testament churches always existed separate from the state church.  Second, churches start churches.  Third, baptism requires a proper administrator.  Authority is a matter of faith, but scripture recognizes the importance of it.  It does not proceed from Roman Catholicism, so it also does not come from Protestantism.

Authority isn’t arbitrary.  It is real and it is somewhere.  We should not eliminate it.  This arises from the rebellion of men’s hearts.  Men don’t want authority, especially church authority.  I see this as the primary cause of the controversy over Landmarkism and the Trail of Blood.