# Evisceration of Landmarkism



## py3ak (Apr 12, 2012)

To the best of your knowledge, is there a text in English or Spanish, readily available online, that thoroughly and convincingly displays the theological and historical errors of the trail of blood idea? If it specifically addressed the chart prepared by J.M. Carroll that would be excellent, but anything that sufficiently tramples on those ideas will serve.


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## JML (Apr 12, 2012)

py3ak said:


> To the best of your knowledge, is there a text in English or Spanish, readily available online, that thoroughly and convincingly displays the theological and historical errors of the trail of blood idea? If it specifically addressed the chart prepared by J.M. Carroll that would be excellent, but anything that sufficiently tramples on those ideas will serve.



Not to avoid the question but the errors of Landmarkism are so ridiculous that it almost seems unnecessary to have a particular work devoted to refuting it.

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Not meaning to sound rude or anything. It is a good and fair question. I have just been exposed to some Landmarkers (unfortunately) and it is a cult built on ignorance.


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## py3ak (Apr 12, 2012)

I agree, John - it's rather frustrating that anyone would buy into it.


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## christiana (Apr 12, 2012)

http://baptiststudiesonline.com/wp-...all-Successionism-View-of-Baptist-History.pdf


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## Pergamum (Apr 12, 2012)

*Evisceration*

I like the sound of that! We need a new smiley for that.


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## Theoretical (Apr 12, 2012)

A William Wallace not-so-smiley to go with the burning Scot?


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## Contra_Mundum (Apr 12, 2012)

By a competent historian: Amazon.com: Baptist Successionism (9780810836815): James Edward McGoldrick: Books

I think Dr. Renihan (out at the Ref.Bapt. study center connected with Westminster Seminary California) can provide other sources. The Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies


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## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Apr 12, 2012)

Here are some that may be of some use:

Landmark Baptists

â€œAn Analysis of the Doctrinal Errors of Landmarkismâ€ « Aurel Munteanu – Blog

Landmarkism and Twisted History « Fundamentally Changed

THE STUDY OF LANDMARKISM INTRODUCTION

http://www.dbts.edu/pdf/macp/2007/Priest, Are Baptists Protestants.pdf


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## py3ak (Apr 12, 2012)

Thank you, everyone. Bruce, that does seem like just the thing - too bad it's not freely accessible online in digital form yet!


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## R Harris (Apr 13, 2012)

py3ak said:


> I agree, John - it's rather frustrating that anyone would buy into it.



Interesting comment, given that as late as 30 years ago, a good majority of SBC churches adhered to it, and I have had a number of SBC pastors tell me that even in the 1980s the doctrine was still being taught at the seminaries, albeit on a low key level.

I had a fairly high level SBC administrator out of Nashville tell me in 1993 that Landmarkism would be gone by the turn of the century, and I think for the most part that is true, although I think the older generation still has its die hards.

I would love for the SBC to make a formal declaration renouncing Landmarkism, but I am not holding my breath. I think the preferred path of most SBCers is to let it die out quietly, since probably 95% of the SBC membership have never even heard of Landmarkism. So, why raise the issue now? Just let it fade away.


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## JML (Apr 13, 2012)

R Harris said:


> Interesting comment, given that as late as 30 years ago, a good majority of SBC churches adhered to it, and I have had a number of SBC pastors tell me that even in the 1980s the doctrine was still being taught at the seminaries, albeit on a low key level.



It is a heresy built on pride. As long as pride is in man, there will be heresies such as Landmarkism. Unfortunately it is not limited to a very small number in the SBC, there are some Reformed Baptists that hold its tenets.


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## Marrow Man (Apr 13, 2012)

Ruben, Dr. McGoldrick's book is available as a preview at Googlebooks here. It looks like a large majority of the work is available in that form.


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## Alan D. Strange (Apr 13, 2012)

Randy:

I thought that Landmarkism rose and was rejected by the SBC before the Civil War. They started their own association of Lankmark Baptists sometime shortly thereafter. I've heard there have been pockets of them here or there. That's how I've understood the situation.

Perhaps Tom Nettles, or some of the others mentioned here, can clarify: Has Landmarkism had the kind of traction that Br. Harris indicates? I am quite surprised by what he describes as the strength of this position in more recent times (a good majority of SBCs adhered to it 30 years ago?). This is not a specialty for me so I would look to established church historians who have lectured and/or written in this area.

Peace,
Alan


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## C. M. Sheffield (Apr 13, 2012)

John Lanier said:


> the errors of Landmarkism are so ridiculous that it almost seems unnecessary to have a particular work devoted to refuting it.



Never underestimate the power of error and man's susceptibility to it. One testimony to Landmarkism's former influence among Southern Baptists may be found in the firing of Southern Seminary's third president, William Whitsitt. 



> Whitsitt became popular among students for engaging them in the historical curiosities that first interested him. One such interest led to an 1893 article in _Johnson’s Universal Encyclopedia_ that generated contentious debate with Southern Baptists who identified with the “Landmark” tenets of J. R. Graves. In the article, Whitsitt argued that the practice of immersion began in seventeenth century England and that Roger William’s church in Rhode Island did not initially immerse. Landmarkists held that an unbroken succession of immersion baptisms from the apostolic era, a necessary basis for the existence of true churches. If the chain was broken, there were no more baptisms and no more churches. In 1895, as the controversy was beginning, the Southern trustees elected Whitsitt the seminary’s third president. Their hopes that the dispute over Landmarkism would die away were soon dashed as the disagreement grew to a furious pitch. Landmark leaders threatened schism. Enrollment fell. Whitsitt resigned in 1899 in order to save the seminary from further injury.
> 
> From the Archives & Special Collections of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary​



When a historian like Whitsitt soundly refutes the historical fallacy of Landmarkism only to have the Convention to demand his removal from office, we are reminded of the words of James Russell Lowell, "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne." And for this reason we must confess our humble dependence upon the Holy Spirit's power for the victory of truth over error.


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## Pilgrim (Apr 13, 2012)

Alan D. Strange said:


> Randy:
> 
> I thought that Landmarkism rose and was rejected by the SBC before the Civil War. They started their own association of Lankmark Baptists sometime shortly thereafter. I've heard there have been pockets of them here or there. That's how I've understood the situation.
> 
> ...



While resolutions were adopted against some of their more extreme teachings just prior to the outbreak of the War Between the States, Landmarkism was never rejected in a formal sense by the SBC. J.R. Graves himself lived until 1893 and continued to propagate his views within the SBC until that time. And his views were more extreme than J.M. Pendleton's, whose _An Old Landmark Reset_ primarily dealt with the question of the propriety of paedobaptist ministers being invited to preach in Baptist pulpits. (I find Pendleton to be an interesting figure and hope to do some research on him in the near future.)

If by "own association of Landmark Baptists" you are thinking of the ABA, that didn't start until the early 20th Century, and then there were a few other splinter groups that emerged around that time like the BMAA. My recollection is that polity (i.e. conventions, the role of mission boards, etc.) was more of a factor than Landmarkism in that split. While there probably aren't that many in the SBC today that would own the term, Landmark teaching apparently still holds considerable sway in some areas like Kentucky. Some churches, for example, will not accept non-SBC baptism. 

If memory serves, based on a recorded discussion from a few years ago, Tom Nettles actually holds to views like the rejection of "alien immersion" that most non-Landmarkers would consider Landmark today. (That's a view that all Landmarkers would hold to but arguably it doesn't itself make one a Landmarker, as most of the opponents of the early Landmarkers would probably have rejected it too.) There are at least several others at SBTS that hold to the same. 

I've had some people tell me that Southern Seminary is chock full of "Landmarkers." But like "fundamentalist" and other epithets, (including the dumbed-down usage of Reformed and Calvinist) sometimes that term is bandied about in a way that is largely divorced from its historic understanding. In this case, it often indicates little more than someone who has a "higher" ecclesiology than the one using the term finds acceptable. For example, some open communion Baptists view close-communion as a "Landmark" practice even though that practice goes all the way back to the early English Baptists and the 1st London Confession of 1644. 

I think the acceptance of dispensationalism, with its strong emphasis on the universal church (which Landmarkers almost always reject) probably went a long way towards the move away from Landmarkism in SBC life. 

There are also different versions of Baptist Successionism. A more extreme view is "chain link" succession, which posits an unbroken chain of Baptist churches back to apostolic times. It's basically apostolic succession for Baptists. While I haven't perused it in a while, as I understand it, that's not what is taught in Carroll's _Trail of Blood. _As I recall, it basically teaches that there have always been some kind of basically baptistic church on earth since apostolic times and identifies with some very questionable groups in the process. 

A couple of more helpful resources are _Old Landmarkism and the Baptists_ by Bob L. Ross and _The Doctrine of the Church: A Baptist View_ by John M. Thornbury. Both are published by Pilgrim Publications. Ross's book, to my recollection, is aimed more at successionism and related issues whereas Thornbury's takes aim at the idea that there is no universal church that is presently in existence.

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py3ak said:


> To the best of your knowledge, is there a text in English or Spanish, readily available online, that thoroughly and convincingly displays the theological and historical errors of the trail of blood idea? If it specifically addressed the chart prepared by J.M. Carroll that would be excellent, but anything that sufficiently tramples on those ideas will serve.



To get back to the original question...I have to run and can't look it up now, but Phil Johnson links to a helpful article in his Hall of Church History. There may be some helpful information on the Reformed Reader site, which also has a lot of Landmark and other historic Baptist writings available as well.


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## Alan D. Strange (Apr 13, 2012)

Sorry, Chris, I wrote my post in haste and, looking over it, see that it was not that clear. 

I did not have in mind the ABA, which, as you note, was not formed until the 20th century. I was simply thinking of those who separated from the SBC after a pre-Civil War statement rejecting Landmarkism. I thought that they called themselves just Lankmark Baptists, though presumably they, and some number, did later form the ABA.

What I meant by "pockets of them here or there" was some scattered number in the SBC, but nothing widespread. I knew that, as I understood, though Landmarkism was condemned by the SBC, there continued to be pockets of it in the SBC, but I thought most of it was, ultimately, in the ABA or elsewhere outside of the SBC. I did not think that as late as the 1980s, it would have been as pervasive in the SBC as Br. Randy suggested. I appreciate your post.

Peace,
Alan


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## C. M. Sheffield (Apr 14, 2012)

Pilgrim said:


> I think the acceptance of dispensationalism, with its strong emphasis on the universal church (which Landmarkers almost always reject) probably went a long way towards the move away from Landmarkism in SBC life.



I find this a most interesting statement in light of the role J. R. Graves played in propagating both Landmarkism as well as dispensationalism. One could argue that Graves did more to advance dispensationalism among Southern Baptists than anyone else.


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## PuritanCovenanter (Apr 14, 2012)

Landmarkism (as well as this 'Trail of Blood') still has a big following in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist groups and espc. KJVO (King James Version Only) groups (http://www.landmarkbaptistchurch.org/). If I remember correctly Tom Nettles did try to show that Landmarkism (The 'Trail of Blood' tradition or thought) had no place within the Confessional Baptist tradition. It had no footing as the Particular Baptists (Reformed Baptists) came out of Puritan and Reformed Traditions according to many Reformed Baptist if I remember correctly.

Landmarkism even has a group in a Calvinistic tradition. The ones I knew were Calvinistic and Amil but this was not the norm. http://www.landmarkbaptistchurch.org/. They were heavily influenced by dispensationalism. There was a church here on the west side of Indianapolis that tried to adhere to the RPW, even to the point of headcoverings for women. I might be blurring some of the issues but I use to hold to the congregational thought. It is just few steps away from the biblical standard of Landmarkism in my thinking. But I have been incorrect before. I hope I am not getting it wrong and equating things incorrectly here.


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## Pilgrim (Apr 14, 2012)

C. M. Sheffield said:


> Pilgrim said:
> 
> 
> > I think the acceptance of dispensationalism, with its strong emphasis on the universal church (which Landmarkers almost always reject) probably went a long way towards the move away from Landmarkism in SBC life.
> ...



I've tried to find Graves' book on dispensationalism online but I've been unable to find it. (It has been a while since I've looked, however.) I suspect that he had to have had significant differences from the dispensationalism of Darby, Scofield, etc. based on his ecclesiology. I do know of some Sovereign Grace Landmarkers who reject dispensationalism in part because of its emphasis on the universal church as well as its antinomianism, etc. They largely affirm the 1689 except for the statement on the universal church, which they tend to call the "Glory Church" a la B.H. Carroll. 

Despite the influence of Graves, I think it's probably safe to say that the Scofield Bible was primarily responsible for spreading dispensationalism among Baptists of all kinds as well as among Protestantism generally.

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PuritanCovenanter said:


> Landmarkism (as well as this 'Trail of Blood') still has a big following in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist groups and espc. KJVO (King James Version Only) groups (Landmark Baptist Church). If I remember correctly Tom Nettles did try to show that Landmarkism (The 'Trail of Blood' tradition or thought) had no place within the Confessional Baptist tradition. It had no footing as the Particular Baptists (Reformed Baptists) came out of Puritan and Reformed Traditions according to many Reformed Baptist if I remember correctly.
> 
> Landmarkism even has a group in a Calvinistic tradition. The ones I knew were Calvinistic and Amil but this was not the norm. Landmark Baptist Church. They were heavily influenced by dispensationalism. There was a church here on the west side of Indianapolis that tried to adhere to the RPW, even to the point of headcoverings for women. I might be blurring some of the issues but I use to hold to the congregational thought. It is just few steps away from the biblical standard of Landmarkism in my thinking. But I have been incorrect before. I hope I am not getting it wrong and equating things incorrectly here.



A great many of the Landmarkers historically were very Calvinistic. T.T. Eaton is one that comes to mind. With regard to soteriology, I tend to doubt that they were any less (or much less) Calvinistic than those who did not agree with them on everything. And some of the big names (i.e. "Founders") of that era agreed more with the Landmarkers than some of the more broadly evangelical SBC Calvinists would be comfortable with.

---------- Post added at 05:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:57 PM ----------

I found a podcast with Tom Nettles in which he discusses Landmarkism: Founders Podcast: Tom Nettles on Baptist Identity « Provocations & Pantings

I hope to listen to those podcasts soon and I'm sure they will be very helpful. However, this isn't what I was thinking of. I was thinking of a video taken at SBTS with Dr. Nettles, Dr. Russell Moore and a few others that did not cast Landmarkism in an entirely negative light. Like Randy, my recollection may be faulty here. It was linked on a blog along with some comments from the Calvinistic author and/or a commenter or two about not wanting to be SBC anymore after seeing this coming out of the bastion of SBC Calvinism. Hopefully it is still online but with blogs you never know. 

But I do know that Dr. Moore has written elsewhere that those like myself who were immersed in a church that taught conditional security (in my case, The Wesleyan Church) just got wet and were not validly baptized. This is a Landmark influenced view that places heavy emphasis on the authority of the administrator along with immersion subsequent to a profession of faith. Typically those who hold this view would also reject immersions performed by paedobaptist ministers as well. You can also see this influence with the highly controversial guidelines adopted by the International Mission Board of the SBC in 2005 which rejected charismatic missionary candidates as well as those who had received these kinds of "invalid" baptisms in the Assembly of God and other denominations that reject eternal security or perseverance of the saints, along with any baptism of any mode performed in a church that baptizes infants or which holds to baptismal regeneration (as with the Church of Christ.)


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## Pilgrim (Apr 14, 2012)

Alright, here is what I was thinking of. (I had first seen it here.) This was live-blogged so there are a lot of typos. I reproduce the pertinent comments below: 



> *Q: What about alien emersion, [sic] from a church that teaches the benefits of baptism can be lost?*
> 
> 
> Dr. Wills responds: The administrator does matter. That informs what that baptism means. It is more than getting wet.
> ...



Now, if one wants to limit Landmarkism to the question of Baptist successionism, then this is not Landmarkism, as Dr. Moore argues. But I don't think that was really the main issue at the time of the Landmark controversy, at least not solely. (Also, a lot of non-Landmarkers, including Spurgeon apparently, held to a form of Baptist perpetuity.)

I wonder how many of these men would follow this through to its logical conclusion and assert that paedobaptist churches (and basically all non Baptist churches) are no churches at all and are merely religious societies that may have true believers among them? I reckon at least some of them are too committed to evangelicalism (i.e. things like T4G, TGC and even ETS) to state that. If I recall correctly even many of the non Landmarker SBC "Founders" were not so shy, only disagreeing with the Landmarkers (well, Pendleton at least) on the question of whether or not it was proper for a Baptist church to occasionally invite a paedobaptist minister into her pulpit. J.L. Dagg has an extended discussion of this question in his _Manual of Theology_. 

It could be that I am wrong and that my "alien immersion" is invalid. These men say it flunks on two grounds, that the church held to conditional security and that it accepted all modes and both pedo and credo. I've been waiting for a cogent argument since 2005 but have yet to receive one. (I doubt I'll receive a defense of Dr. Nettles' statement in this forum!) If they were full blown Landmarkers, to me their position would be more consistent. 

I've simply posted all of this to note that Landmark ideas still hold considerable sway in the SBC, even (or perhaps especially?) at Southern Seminary. If there is any precedent for these views prior to the rise of Landmarkism (and especially if there is any precedent for them among the 17th Century Particular Baptists) I have not seen it.


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