Baptist Successionism is an embarrassment to Baptists

This is my personal response to the claim of Baptist Successionism. Thanks to labarum312 for inspiring me: http://youtu.be/Twyeoh55q4Q

Read up on Baptist Successionism here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_successionism

The book "The Trail of Blood" by Dr. J.M. Carroll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trail_of_Blood

The excellent response to Carroll's erroneous claims is James Edward McGoldrick's book, "Baptist Successionism", available in your library or search online. Sadly, it's out of print so copies are a bit pricy.

For an accurate (and exhaustive) history of the Baptist faith, read "Baptist Ways" by Bill Leonard, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Ways-Bill-J-Leonard/dp/0817012311

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Baptist
• successionism
• church
• history
• Trail of Blood
• personal plea

[Mencel89]

the people that espouse this line of B.S (and no that is NOT Bible Study) are the Fundamentaliist Indipendent Baptists. These baptists for the most part are KJV Onlyists (or as I call them, KJV Idolaters.

[ziptone]

@Mencel89 Yes, I think that's right. Most Baptists that I know have never even heard of Successionism, so thankfully it's mostly fallen into obscurity.

[MrsShirotora]

I was told the same thing in response to my questions about Church History when I was a kid, except in the version I heard it was the church of Christ, not those heathen Baptists. ;)

[ziptone]

@MrsShirotora Did your Church of Christ allow instrumental music in worship services? Also, did they teach that baptism was an absolute requirement for salvation?

[MrsShirotora]

@ziptone No and yes, respectively. However, as bizarre and fallacious as it was, it did instill in me at a young age that historical authenticity is important, that Christianity ought to be what was believed by the apostles and the first generations of Christians, so when I discovered what that really was, I had to submit myself to it. I'm Eastern Orthodox now.

[ziptone]

@MrsShirotora Wow, and I thought my Baptist friends who converted to Catholicism made a big jump. :]

[jdchitty]

Finally, there is an excellent essay at Reformed Reader website: "A Primer on Baptist History: The True Baptist Trail" by Chris Traffanstedt. Thanks again for the great video.

[jdchitty]

I learned in the Dictionary of Baptists in America that the Baptist Successionist view, aka Landmarkism, was developed in the nineteenth century debates among American Protestant denominations as a way to prove a superior origin, which should thus bolster their claims to truth. Lutherans descend from Luther; Reformed from Calvin; Methodists from Wesley; but Baptists from Christ (having been baptized by John the Baptist). A form among British Baptists too, but can't elaborate on their connection.

[jdchitty]

...therefore, as you may have gathered, I became a Presbyterian. But that's just me. As a teenager, I almost became a charismatic, so you could say I'd been looking for a reason to quit being a Baptist, and finally found it. Thanks for posting this video and helping me promote McGoldrick's book. I've featured it on my blog in the past. Hope it gets republished someday. BTW, even the Baptist McGoldrick has become a Presbyterian. He now teaches at Greenville Pres. Theo. Seminary.

[jdchitty]

...who descend from the English Separatist Puritans (theologically Reformed). When I compared the Particular Baptist Second London Baptist Confession of Faith with the Presbyterian Westminster Confession, I saw that the former was basically a condensed version of the latter. Long story short, the battle for my mind was won when I reasoned (I admit this logic won't persuade everyone, just me, apparently), if the Bapt. agree w/ Pres. on so much, what makes them think they're so wrong on baptism?

[jdchitty]

The intellectual dishonesty and rampantly poor scholarship involved in maintaining this view is what got me wanting to learn what the true foundations of the Baptist tradition are, and I learned that, although there were in the post-Reformation era both Particular (Calvinistic) and General (Arminian) Baptists, they are essentially different who both adopted the same name Baptist. The modern moderate Calvinistic Baptists of today are descendants of the Particular Baptists...

[jdchitty]

The Church of Christ commenter in this thread indicates that his tradition taught a similar thing. In fact, there is a non-denominational version of this theory of church history. Plymouth Brethren (and thus anabaptistic) missionary E. H. Broadbent (1861-1945) wrote The Pilgrim Church which takes a parallel contrarian view of history but associates his trail with the Anabaptist tradition.

[jdchitty]

How sad I am to hear that McGoldrick's book is out of print! It really is good. The thing that makes Baptist Successionism work (I was raised in it) is to instill in people an inherent distrust of reputable scholarship. So nowadays it's a form of anti-intellectualism. As you say, it takes five minutes of checking historical resources to see Baptist Successionist claims do not hold water. That's why they must teach their followers to be hyper-critical of reputable sources.