19. Baptist Successionism Part 2

This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now, here's your host, John Holyfield. Hey everybody, welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This is your host, John Holyfield. And I hope everybody's doing well out there. And good to be back in Tennessee. I had a good time with my friend James last week as we were at the conference. And got back and we had our homecoming at our church and had a wonderful time there. And excited to get back into the subject matter that we're going to be covering in this podcast episode. And that is covering the idea of Baptist successionism and the trail of blood theory. And the idea is that the independent fundamental Baptist movement, many of those that are in there, and I would say that if not all, the overwhelming majority holds to this view that the Baptist church, number one, is the true Baptist, the true church, or that the Baptist denomination are not Protestant, or that the Baptist church has always existed down to the line of Jesus, and that type of thing. And it's really pushed a lot through Bible colleges. Many of the IFB Bible colleges, they teach this type of history in their colleges, so therefore, the preachers and ministers that come out of that hold this view coming out of that college. I was taught it at the Bible college that I went to. And so, it's something that has been held with the IFB for many years. Here's a clip, Harold B. Seitler talking about this. Now the subject again, Baptists are not Protestant. Now that's a negative subject, and yet I know no way to put it in a positive frame if I knew of some way. Baptists are not Protestant. And I'm going to approach the subject from three angles, and I want you to listen to that for a while. Number one, I submit to you that there is a great historical difference between Baptists, that we have them in our day, and Protestants. With no disregard to Protestants in making that statement, it's just a matter of historical data, historical facts, that we're different. And then second, there's a great doctrinal difference between Protestants and Baptists. More than you've ever, well, you'd never know there's any difference at all if you read the newspaper and believed everything you read in the newspaper. Will Rogers said in his lifetime, all I know is what I read in the newspaper. Well, we've reached a point in our day where you better have a little bit more knowledge in what you read in the newspaper to tell you the truth. And that's certainly true with the subject that I'm dealing with today because a news media would have you believe that Baptist people are Protestant when the fact of the matter is that there's a great doctrinal difference between Protestants and Baptists that I'll mention in a moment. And then number three, there's a great congregational difference. The operation of the local churches among Baptists is greatly in contrast with the operation of the local church among the Protestant denominations. Now, with those three divisions, I want to talk to you a moment today about the fact that Baptists are not Protestant. And see, Zeitler talks here about Baptists not being Protestants and he alludes to the fact that there's tons of historical data talks about that. Well, that's one of the things that I want to get into is where is this historical data and really digging into this idea of this. Now, before I get started in it, I do want to mention a couple things. Number one, the majority of the material that I'm going to be, that I'm gathering a lot of my thoughts and what I'm going to be talking about in this little episode series on this issue comes from James M. McGoldrick's book, The Baptist Successionism. I will link that in the show notes. Another good resource that I'm using is Leon Macbeth's Baptist History book and I will link that. And then also, I may be referring to Matthew Lyon's podcast, History and Hope. They did an episode on the Trail of Blood and I will link that episode in the show notes. Now, I do want to remind you, it has been two weeks since we were in this subject. We did sort of a guest episode last week with James Baptist Instinctives and that is very crucial going into this study because you have to understand when we start to examine the groups that are claimed as Baptists, were they really Baptist by what constitutes or what defines what a Baptist is. Okay? So, that's important to note. remember that going forward with that in our minds. McGoldrick says, those who reject the Protestant character and Reformation origins of the Baptists usually maintain a view of church history sometimes called Baptist Successionism and claim that Baptists have represented the true church which must be and has been present in every period of history. And so, what the idea is, is that they go to Jesus teaching in Matthew 16 that the gates of hell will not prevail against this church and they see the corruption and they see the corruption of doctrine even in the Roman Catholic Church through history and of course we understand that because of the Protestant Reformation there wouldn't need to be a Protestant Reformation if there was no corruption and corruption and doctrine and so there was. Because of that these people these that hold to this view think that that could have never been the church. Okay? So, there had to be this one true church and that's what we are so it must have been the Baptists. Over the past centuries historians have advanced four different explanations to account for the origin of Baptists and that's what Leon Macbeth teaches. Number one, the outgrowth of English separatism. Number two, the influence of biblical Anabaptists. Number three, the continuation of biblical teaching through the ages. And number four, what we're dealing with, the succession of organized Baptist churches through the ages. Okay, so the earliest Baptists recognized their separatist background but later historians obscured that heritage under layers of successionist theories. So, about the 1800s and Matthew Lyon talks about this in his episode on the Trail of Blood. Somewhere around the 1830s, 1840s, there was a group of, well, I don't know if I would say it as a group but there was a few different guys that were coming up, Armitage and Ray and a couple others that were connecting things in Baptist histories and so, whenever you read a work of Baptist history that takes the successionism view, they will refer to these guys. And what they did was, they basically would try to connect, use history and connect these peoples as Baptists and basically teach that the Baptist movement has existed down to the time of Christ. Now, you have in the 1800s the Baptists and America split between the Northern Baptists and the Southern Baptists and it's not long among the Southern Baptists and really around the Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee area. So, really that region of the Southern Baptists that the view becomes very prevalent about this one church, Baptist church that, and adapting these history, this long line of succession of Baptist churches' historical perspective. This movement in these churches became known as the Landmark Movement. The Landmark Movement. Landmarkism became the main method by which Baptists convinced themselves that theirs were the only true churches and all others mere human societies without valid ministers or ordinances, says Leon Macbeth. Now, it's important to note the Landmarkists or Landmark Baptists were not independent fundamental Baptists. The independent fundamental Baptists were not on the scene yet. They're not around. I jokingly say that the Landmarkers were the first IFB. That's a joke. They weren't IFB, but I'm going to read you what the Landmark teachings were and you're probably going to be like, okay, that sort of sounds IFB. So, here are some Landmark teachings. This is in the around after the Civil War, late 1800s, and they adopted these pieces. Number one, Baptist churches are the only true churches in the world. According to this view, the church established by Jesus and the Apostles was a Baptist church. Of course, absolutely. It could have been, definitely couldn't have been a Presbyterian church or a Lutheran church, right? It had to be a Baptist church. Number two, sorry, I don't mean to be snarky. I'll try not to be snarky anymore. All right, number two, the true church is a local, visible institution. There is no room, no room is made for any invisible or universal church. So, that's number two. Landmark teachings, number, my notes go to number four, maybe I have a typo. Number four, there must be no pulpit affiliation with non-Baptists. And what that meant was you could not preach in another church that was not a Baptist church, and you could not preach or have a non-Baptist come in and preach in your church. So, that's where they stood. Number five, only a church can do churchly acts. What does that mean? Well, if only a true church is a Baptist church, that basically means that only a Baptist church can perform communion. Only a Baptist church can perform baptism. So, therefore, that if you got baptized in a church that wasn't a Baptist church, your baptism was not legitimate, and you must be re-baptized. Okay? So, regardless of what the mode or method of baptism was, if it was not in a Baptist church, you were not baptized, you have not done anything that is considered a churchly act. And then, number six, Baptist churches have always existed in every age by an unbroken historical succession. Landmarkism became, and so, Macbeth goes on and he says, this, landmarkism became the main method by which Baptists convinced themselves that theirs were the only true churches in all others, mere human societies without valid ministers or ordinances. Perhaps the landmark movement, Macbeth says, is best understood as a Baptist equivalent of 19th century Roman Catholicism. That's, that's, that's a pretty harsh rebuke. so, this is what happens with the landmark movement. And there's a guy named J.C. or J.R. Graves that really pushes this and he expands this movement and leads this movement. And, the landmark view of Baptist history is based upon an assumption, not upon evidence of historical research. Instead of drawing conclusions from the historical data, they looked for historical evidence to support their prior conclusions. Landmarkism became the main method by which Baptists convinced themselves that theirs were the only true churches and all others, human societies. Okay, so I said that. Moving on, these landmark groups became very divisive because those that did not want to take this hard line in the sand, and so therefore if you weren't as hard line as them, even though you're a Baptist, you were not their kind of Baptist, and therefore they began dividing. And those, the powers that be in the SPC during this time, and you're talking about now the early 1900s, began to be concerned about this and wanted to take some action. And Macbeth really does some great research and tells that story greatly in his book. There are variations within the group. Some hold that organic succession can be proven, and that it is essential. Others hold that succession is essential and does exist, but cannot be proven. Others that it can be proven, but is not essential. Some historians who have advocated some versions of successionism include Adam Taylor, G.H. Orchard, D.B. Ray, J.M. Camp, and J.M. Carroll. And that name, J.M. Carroll, may signal to you, may send flags up in your brain, because the most vivid example of successionist history is the booklet by J.M. Carroll that is titled The Trail of Blood. And The Trail of Blood was actually, I was issued The Trail of Blood in my college history class. In fact, my college history, church history class, it was called Baptist History, our two textbooks were J.M. Carroll's The Trail of Blood, which is, like it says, a booklet, and James Beller's Collegiate Church History Workbook. Both Baptist successionism viewpoints, and so The Trail of Blood, Matthew Lyon really breaks that down and tears it apart in his podcast episode. They say the book was based on lectures that Carroll had given. It was published in 1931. Carroll, they say this in the episode, claims itself, the booklet claims as a document of historical fact. You're talking about a booklet that covers 2,000 years of church history in less than 75 pages? That's being generous, maybe like 50 pages. Okay. And I like this, they said, what do you call a historical book with no footnotes? And Matthew Lyon said, I would call it an opinion. Hey, that's the historian saying that, and I would absolutely agree. Now, James Beller in his Collegiate Baptist History workbook said, the scriptures and history point to Baptist as being the nearest to the truth. History and the scriptures. believers. Okay. No major historian today, Macbeth says, holds to the organic succession of Baptist churches. It is not viewed as, you know, you have the term in the scientific world, junk science. I guess it would be considered in the historical world, junk history. Now, Beller says in his book, we may conclude that the wise men Jesus said he would send from Matthew 23, 34, were church builders. He goes on to talk about this, this stuff about, in his collegiate history book about these first men were Baptists being sent off by Jesus starting Baptist churches. And there's many other IFB guys that hold to this. here's a clip that actually the new IFB, Stephen Anderson group and that stuff, one of the churches in their Verity Baptist church, they put together a documentary on being Baptist and here's a clip from it, sort of some things of what they're saying about this, holding to this view. When a government leader sets up a meeting and says, hey, I want to make Christianity the religion by law of all of Rome, people are going to have to convert to Christianity, they're going to have to be Christians, we're going to legislate Christianity, and I want you guys to help me set that up. Here's what you need to understand, no true Christians are going to show up to that meeting. Because you know what true Christians believe? They believe that you can't legislate Christianity. There was a group of Baptists, Baptistic people I'll say, the Anabaptists, the Paulicians, the Waldensians, the Albigensians, who during that first meeting of churches at Nicaea, they had taken the position that churches should not sacrifice their autonomy, they should not be organizing themselves into a hierarchy, organizing themselves into a network, an association, or convention as we would call them today, but rather we should continue under the headship of Christ for each church and the Holy Spirit administration of each church and that will be our unity and leave the work of the ministry and the ministry work, mission work, up to the Spirit of God as he leads. True believers that descended from, that were saved by, that were connected to, the true believers that came from the Lord Jesus Christ, those believers always maintained autonomy from this Roman Catholic Church, and as a result, they were persecuted. See, once the Roman Catholic Church was established, there was still persecution of true believers. Now, it went from the Jews to the Roman Empire to the Roman Catholic Church. And like I said, many major Bible colleges in the IFB, Independent Fundamental Baptist, they teach this in their college. Crown, I believe, teaches this. Ohio's Anderson taught it. West Coast teaches this. I know that because Paul Chappell believes this. Paul Chappell said this, and he wrote a book in 2013 called The Road Ahead, Ten Steps to Authentic Ministry for Independent Baptists. And in the book, he has a chapter on their heritage, and he says this, although at times throughout the centuries their doctrine would become skewed, often because of the lack of training available, nothing but their love for Jesus and dedication to truth could keep them shining for Christ during these dark days. Such were the Paulicians, Montanists, Novationists, the Andonatists in Armenia, modern-day Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the Albigensians in France, the Waldensians in Italy, and numerous other groups. groups. So there, Paul Chappell ascribes to this trail of blood theory by taking the groups that Carol laid out in the trail of blood and calling them Christian or Baptist, linking them up in the Baptist heritage group. Now, he is very careful not to say these things, but he's endorsing this type of teaching by mentioning these groups, and here's a clip of him talking about giving out the trail of blood at his church. On today's Growth Point videos, I'd like to speak for a few moments about the subject, the trail of blood. Maybe you've read the little booklet by B.H. Carroll, The Trail of Blood. For 25 years, I've given that booklet to our new members here at Lancaster Baptist Church because it has been important for me to educate our new members in the fact that we come from a long line of Christians who have literally shed blood for our faith. We have been persecuted as a people by the Roman Catholic Church during the Dark Ages. Hundreds of thousands of people with similar faith to us were thrown over the rock's edge, were drowned, were burned at the stake. Men like John Huss, men like Waldo, the leader of the Waldensians, so many historical accountings of this trail of blood have been given. And I just want to take a moment to remind you today that we come from a real heritage of people who have paid a price with their blood in order that we might have the Bible, in order that we might have the truth that we hold today. And in this kind of let the good times roll mentality, we need to stand up and preach the truth of the doctrine. You know, men die because they preached against transubstantiation, they preached against indulgences, they preached against the state church of their day. And Reformation fires burned, and long before the Reformation fires, the Anabaptists were faithfully paying a price. The Waldensians were being thrown off of the rocks because of their faith in Christ way before the Reformation came. And from the earliest moments of history, the church has been a church that's been a persecuted church. Okay. So, in that clip, he actually talks about handing this trail of blood. You don't hand the trail of blood out to people when they come to your church or join your church for 20 years if you do not believe in the content that it has. So he ascribes to this. The problem is, and that's sort of the idea of what we're trying to get to, is talking that these groups are not, they're not Baptists. They're not Baptists at all. Okay. And we'll get to that. He says this. He says the founding, Paul Chappell says this, the founding beliefs of our movement trace much further back than the 1870s or the 1930s. I believe they go all the way back to the New Testament. And there he is holding to the Baptist successionism view and the trail of blood theory. J.M. Carroll explained that the blood in the title signify suffering because the true church has been persecuted throughout history. Yes, listen, here's the deal. Has there been persecution in the church? Absolutely. Have the Baptist people been a persecuted people? Absolutely. Dr. Lyons said that in the episode we did two weeks ago. Okay. So we're not denying, I'm not denying there's persecution in the church's history or saying that. the correlation that Carroll and those that embrace the trail of blood theory make is that the way that you can find, number one, the Baptists are the true churches and the way that you can find that these people are Baptist groups is because of their persecution. That doesn't make historical sense at all. Okay. the way that you tell somebody who's a Christian is by how they lived and by their doctrine and their theology and how they lived that theology and that doctrine and the testimony of a changed life. Just because they were persecuted does not make them believers. And as we talked about two episodes ago, there is a whole set of criteria that defines somebody as a Baptist. not merely just being persecuted makes you a Baptist. The trail of blood view has not and cannot be verified, says James McGoldrick in his book on Baptist Successionism. Okay. The only lights that continued, now listen to this, this is from Peter Ruckman. Here's one from Peter Ruckman. The only lights that continued to shine in this period were the biblical offspring and spiritual descendants of the novatians, Priscilians, Paulicians, Petarines, Messalines, Ukites, Nestorians, Sabalians, and Manichaeans. In this period, they became known as the Vaudois, Brethren, Bogomils, Albigenses, Waldenses, Henrichians, Bulgarians, Petro-Brusians, Beringarians, Arnoldists, and the Cathari. Even though they were many different names for these Christian believers, all had five major points of commonality. All right, so here it is. I think some of them know that you can't find the Baptist distinctives. Now, first of all, they say, here's how you define a Baptist church, and they give the Baptist distinctives. And then they say, well, these are the Baptists throughout history, and this is what they have in common with Baptists. Number one, says Ruckman, they professed to believe that the Bible alone was the final authority in all issues when any issue came up. They wouldn't agree with Ruckman. They wouldn't agree one bit, because they didn't have the King James Version back then. And that's Ruckman's view of the only authority. Okay? They didn't have the King James Version before 1600, before 1611. And that's where these groups existed. Other point is, is that, no, not all of these groups professed that the Bible was the alone final authority. Number two, they would not sprinkle or baptize babies. Not all these groups fit that criteria either. Number three, they did not believe the state had any business dictating to a local church in matters of religious belief or practices. That might be one that he finds with some of these groups, but I don't even know if they would state it that way. Number four, they would not pray, pray to the saints or pray for the dead. That is absolutely false. You wait till we talk about the politicians. We're going to start, we'll discuss the politicians and what they taught and believed. Yeah. Number five, they rejected the Roman Catholic mass. Catholics. Now, here's what's funny. Many of the guys they like to cherry pick out of history and call them Baptists. I think you heard Chapel say this. Whether it was John Huss, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, St. Patrick, they all like to say these guys weren't Catholics. They were Baptists. No, they weren't Baptists. They were not Baptists at all. The only thing was that they disagreed or they opposed the Catholic Church on a point of doctrine or a point of issue that the Catholic Church ended up persecuting or killing them for. But they definitely were not Baptists. In fact, if any of those guys, Patrick, William Tyndale, Wycliffe, Huss, were alive today, they would be branded heretics by your modern IFB church. Now, to refute a little bit about Ruckman's statement, just go back to the last two episodes that I keep referring back to. Historically, the Baptists have believed Baptist distinctives. Okay? And that's what constitutes a Baptist, not these little points that Peter Ruckman came out of. So, when you, when you, the main theory that has been perpetrated by J.M. Carroll on the Trail of Blood, and one of the things that you will see often duplicated is the Trail of Blood Chart, that is in his book, his little booklet. And it starts off with early church history, and you start off with the Christians in the early, you know, AD 100, 200, and when you have the Council of Nicaea, and the change there, you then have the Montanus come out, and then the Novations is a group that he puts in there. the Montanus, then the Novations, the Petarenes during this time, and then the Donatists move in, and then, so these are all the Baptist groups according to them. So the first Baptist group are the Montanus. The next Baptist group are the Novations, and then there's a group of Petarenes, that's a Baptist group. Then you have the Donatists, which exist for a while, and then that gives way to the Cathari, and the Cathari are then changed their name to the Paulicians. Now the Paulicians are a group, a religious group that existed for quite a while. They, their sort of group history lasts for several hundred years, and then when you get to about twelve hundred, eighty, twelve hundred, you have groups known as basically the Arnoldists, which follow a guy named Arnold of Brescia. You have the Henricians, which follow a guy named Henry, and so these groups, you have the Albigensians in the 1300s, and these groups are Baptist groups that follow these specific men, and so because they follow these specific men, then they get the, historically they get these names, Henricians, Arnoldists, and all this stuff, but according to the Baptist succession theory, they are Baptist. Now, they probably do have a lot in common with modern IFB, but not Baptist, because they actually are characterized by following only a man and not Jesus. Yeah, that was a little snarky, I'm sorry. Then about the mid-1300s, 1400s, you have the Waldenses, or the Waldensians, and they last for a couple hundred years, and then comes in the Anabaptists, and the Anabaptists are around the Protestant Reformation time, and the Anabaptists give way to the Baptists. Now, that's the idea. That's the teaching of Baptist successionism. And so, what the intention is, in the next episode, this was sort of short, in the next episode, my intention is to break each group down, and using some research and stuff that I've done with some of these resources that I'm going to mention in the show notes, break these groups down, and explain and show why these groups are not Baptists, and therefore, the whole idea of the Baptist succession theory comes crumbling apart completely. And what you are left with, okay, here's a bold claim, what you are left with is fake news history, right? We like that term nowadays, fake news. It's false history. It's not historical. And so, therefore, those that find themselves in academia that are pushing this, prove themselves to be very lacking in the area of research, and I think, historical integrity. Because they're not giving an honest story. I know that's a bold claim. Very bold claim. But come on. I mean, just because you cherry-pick a group that matches your agenda of what you want to accomplish, doesn't make that group historically what it is. And so, therefore, you're having to change the rules as you go to adjust, to adapt this group. Or you're not even doing the time to take the research to find out what that group believed. Okay? And so, that's going to be the goal of the next episode. I know it was short today, but next week, we are going to break down these groups, Montanus, Donatist, Albigenses, the Novationists, and the Anabaptists. Okay? So, that will be next week. Until, I hope you guys have a great week. And please check out the podcast on Twitter and Facebook. Share it, like it, give it a rating, leave it a review on Apple Podcasts. And until next time, guys, to God, not the pastor, be the glory.rewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrew Thank you.

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