The Trail of Blood

trail

You know that annoying kid in school who loved to brag about how General Lee was his great-great-great-great uncle’s second cousin twice removed? When that kid grows up to be a fundamentalist, he’ll probably be a huge fan of the the book The Trail of Blood.

Baptists as a denomination have only been around for about four hundred years — Independent Fundamental Baptists for considerably less. This short existence has created a certain amount of envy of other traditions who have been around for a lot longer and have an impressive pedigree that claims members all the way back to the Apostles. Inevitably, something had to be done to bolster up Baptist prestige, and that something was this book detailing “The History of Baptist Churches From the Time of Christ, Their Founder, to the Present Day.”

Now in order to make this impressive family tree, the author was forced to bring together some very strange bedfellows indeed. Cathari, Donatists, Novatians, and a lot of others were evidently all Baptists. Not fundamentalists, of course, because they didn’t have the KJV yet, but ancient paintings do conclusively prove that they did in fact have established bus ministries, so it’s obvious they’re related to fundamentalists today. And nobody would be more surprised than they to learn it.

So do not be dismayed by Roman Catholics who claim to have leaders reaching back to Peter. Fundamentalists have roots that go back all the way to Genesis with Diklah the son of Joktan and they’ll show you the charts to prove it.

16 thoughts on “The Trail of Blood”

  1. Not coming from a Baptist background originally, I had never heard of any of this stuff until my first year of college. Up until then, I just assumed that everyone had roughly the same version (at least as far as where the current denominations/groups started) of church history as I had been taught.

    I remember how bizarre and strange it sounded to me the first time I heard it. Aside from the revisionism and relabeling of religious groups from the past, I was actually surprised that modern day Baptists would actually want to be associated with some of the groups that were being claimed as ancestors.

    Furthermore, I never understood why it was important to trace it back that far. Most of the other denominations (apart from Catholics) are perfectly happy to trace back to a much more recent date. Claiming that that was the date they re-established the true church (with a new name) from the apostasy that it had fallen into. Most denominations never feel the need to claim purity of their group from the beginning of time.

  2. Having grown up in an ABA Missionary Baptist Church, the Trail of Blood was right up there next to the Bible. In the church we recently left, in the adult Sunday School classroom gracing the length of the classroom wall, was a copy (large and in color) of “The Trail.”

  3. If it’s not the baptist church then which church is it? If it’s the catholic or greek/russian/ethopian or any variant of an orthodox church then there doctorine has to be right in order for the bible to be correct. Christ unequivicolly said “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” as well as “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” This means that either there was a church that Christ and he was with it always, not that it would fall into apostacy and that it would have to be “reformed” which by the way baptist have never wanted to do, or that Christ was a liar and was unable to keep his promise. We have several options and I don’t feel it is necassary to pick one by default. I pray that study, rigorous as it might seem, would be done and the CORRECT conclusion reached. If you find another church that still holds to the docterine of Christ and is not, or has never been espoused to the corrupt catholic institution let me know so i can get baptized and added unto their congregation.

  4. @michael f: lol!

    baptist “history” cracks me up. do they seriously identify with the doctrines of the novationists? if i’m not mistaken, they rebaptized because they believed that a baptism was invalid if it was performed by a clergyman who had or would later apostacize. is this what baptists believe now? really? they believe that the sacrament of baptism is for remission of sins, and that if the pastor who baptized you falls away from the church that your sins are no longer remitted and you have to get rebaptized? is that baptist doctrine? cause according to the trail of blood, the novations were true Christians. how about the montanists? do baptists currently believe that montanus was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit? do they baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of montanus? cause the montanists sure did. i don’t remember that happening in the baptist church i grew up in. maybe i’m misreading the chart. or maybe it’s a bunch of absurd lies that are designed to give credibility to an belief structure that is just an offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot of the reformation. if there really were a trail of blood which leads to the modern baptists, then “brother” carroll wouldn’t need to invent it. i guess he figured that nobody to whom he was “preaching” would bother to run a fact-check on him. and on that one count, he seems to be correct.

  5. oops! i seem to have confused the novationists with the donatists. luckily, the donatists are also identified as baptists on the chart, so no harm is made to my overall point, which is that baptist history is ridiculous.

  6. @Reader Mo, I still maintain that my “Baptist history” class in Bible college was one of the two most inaccurately named classes I’ve taken.

  7. I cringed everytime I heard the baptists say stuff like Jesus was a baptist or John was a baptist. John was the baptist, as in, he baptised Israel. But he was not a baptist. After all, he didn’t wear a suit 😛

  8. Got one question to ask, does “Trail of Blood” churches forbid transfers to other denominations since most of them believe in the no-universal church doctrine? Even if that denomination is fundamental?

    The IFB church I used to be with believes in the Trail of Blood stuff.

  9. You really should study this closely. Then seek a landmark/sovereign grace baptist church and visit them. They will preach the gospel to you and if your saved they will scripturally baptize you and teach you the thing of Christ.

  10. Martyr’s Mirror….

    There were those who were never part of Romanism and who held to pacifism and believers baptism throughout the centuries.

    The book I referenced is not a Landmark Baptist book, but an Amish and Mennonite book. Its history has been validated. There are similarities between the Martyr’s Mirror and the Trail of Blood.

    It is always surprising to me that evangelicals can believe that the Lord’s Commission and his historical promise was a lie. He promised to be with his church until the end of the age. He also commanded the church to offer scriptural baptism (which is believer’s baptism). If believer’s baptism stopped being practiced, then the Lord is a liar, and not the Son of God.

    Yes, there is a Martyr’s Mirror and a Trail of Blood. Thank the Lord that He preserved His church.

  11. all of you must confused.they all stopped recieving the Essence of Gods message.Jesus Christ from the start He redeem the sonship He want all those denomination to produce a son..church age is over.there is one man who you need to listen and theres nothng wrong to open your mind.Pastor Apollo C.Quiboloy.

  12. To the catholic, you must repent and believe in Christ.
    Come out from among the and seek a landmark baptist church.
    They will guide you in the truth.

  13. Trail of Blood, love to see how that compares to the Trail of Tears. Apples to oranges doesn’t come close. 🙁

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