Trail of Blood book?

My post on this subject can be found here.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1200455&postcount=40

Please overlook all the typos, as my alter ego, Language Cop, must have been off-duty, that day.

Ed

 

The Trail of Blood is a good starting point in understanding that the New Testament Churches continued throughout history.

There are some spurious areas, but all historians are faced with this. Some fill in with their own speculation and it gets passed off as historica fact.

Not all the groups listed will be totally true to the New Testament we understand. Even in New Testament times there were people who strayed from the truth in areas. Paul had to correct a few.

Every true baptist should read the trail of blood and go on from there.

It costs very little and doesn't take long to read. Well worth it.

Cheers, and yes, I am a Landmarkist,

Jim

 

Might I suggest The Baptist Heritage-Four Centuries of Baptist Witness by H. Leon McBeth. This is the text I use when teaching Baptist History for New Orleans Baptist Theo. Seminary. Even Bob Jones Univesity uses this text for their Baptist History course(graduate & undergrad)

 

Hi Emily: As a former Baptist myself, now Orthodox Christian, I’ve walked a few miles in your shoes. Let me be the first to tell you that if you and your husband are looking into Lutheranism, then a “book” about Baptist history is going to do no good. Actually as a former Baptist the ‘Trail of Blood’ left me wanting more and with more questions than answers, but by all means, I encourage you to read the book…take your time and leave no stone unturned. Your in-laws are like my relatives were when my family and I were converting to Orthodoxy. But remember, you’re the one that’s going to stand before God and give account….your in-laws will get over it.

My advice is don’t stop with Lutheranism. During my journey not only did I look into Lutheranism, but Methodist, other Baptist sects, and other Protestant denominations. I started reading John Wesley and it kind of exploded from there.

I discovered the Apostolic Church Fathers, the Church Fathers and Desert Fathers and read as much as I could; I then read as much of the Ecumenical Councils as I could. By this point I was way past anything Protestant, so I turned my attention to Roman Catholicism. I took about 8-months of RCIA classes and before I decided to swim the Tiber, I needed to give an objective look at Eastern Orthodoxy, so I took a year of Catechesis.

In all this journey took me a little over 5 years to the day my family and I were Chrismated last Pentecost in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church. After 5 years, I can say I am satisfied with my decision. I didn’t rush and I did this prayerfully and God lead me to His Church, just as the verse says, seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you. God is good.

Then again if you want to save yourself 5 years, I can show you a short cut...:thumbs:

In XC
-

 

Trail of Blood is bad history, extremely biased and inaccurate and is the product of the ecclesial equivalent of the tin-foil-hat brigade. By all means read it, but with a large dose of salt; if nothing else, it will show you that you can do a darn sight worse than Lutheranism...

 

Its actually a pamphlet which you can read online. It is funny because of connections "baptist"supposidly had with obviously heretical movement. I suggest that you look at history and view it objectively with the pamphlet. I don't think its good history.

 

No historian would ever recommend that little booklet by J.M.Carroll, The Trail of Blood. It doesn't hold any academic weight at all. Like I said before, even Bob Jones University and Pensacola Christian College don't subscribe to Carroll's booklet published posthumously in 1931.

 

The main reason mainstream Christendom must call "Trail of Blood"bad history is because the book shows a connection from the Book of Acts to present day New Testament Churches without going through Rome or Wittenburg. The book shows all churches to be man-made with the exception of the ones Jesus built starting on the shores of Galilee. Jesus gave authority to His churches only. Such a notion has never filtered well through the paradigm of ecclesiology promulgated by the various religious glee clubs which have controlled the world for over 1600 years.

Carroll even steps on some so-called Baptists regarding the origins of their authority.

The apparent misreference to certain letters attributed to Cardinal Hosius has caused a lot of consternation. Apparently J.M. copied a bad source. Check out Hosius #150 for interesting information about what Hosius may have said.

The Tof B is not history per se, but a collection of sermons, whatever that is worth. It is a good outline for an adult training course.

Who has the authority to carry out the commission? If Rome has it, did she delegate it to Luther etal? Martin was defrocked with several others. What if Rome has no authority at all? A lot of baptisms would be null and void. Such is all bad history anyway. Right? Sure makes for interesting reading.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Trail of blood is pulp. The only thing it's good for, is holding up you table leg, when it's wobbly.

It is just one more attempt by people to say "our church is THE church"...

 

Then you haven't read it correctly, if at all. I don't believe Carroll believes "The Church," as you put it, or a universal church. He believes that there were "churches" local churches or assemblies of like faith and practice as we Baptists are today throughout every generation right down to the Apostles. He demonstrates this through history by showing how various groups of people believed the same as we do. It is not Apostolic Successionism. It is what some might call a spiritual kinship theory. God has never left himself without a witness, and it is not found in a denomination such as the Orthodox or the RCC. It is found in local churches which have held true to the Word of God throughout the ages. They have been called by different names, but have been true to the Word of God nevertheless. There is no "Church," only churches. Read the book again.
He may have some of his history wrong. But there is nothing wrong with his overall thesis.

 

Bang on, DHK. Trail of Blood is no different than reading any history text. They all include private opinion mixed with some fact, and often leaning toward the denomination of the writer.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Jim

I have read Trail of Blood many years ago. Apparently it was written by the brother of B. H. Carroll who I believe was founder of the Southwestern Seminary.

I also believe that God has throughout history always had churches faithful to the doctrines of the New Testament. Does that make me a Landmarkist?

 

Prolly as much as me. I had two professors in seminary who were Landmarkists..Maybe I was just brainwashed........

Cheers,

Jim

 

My guess is that the biggest objection to Landmarkism is the view that there is no "Church," only local congregations. This view messes with a lot of eschatology, particularly dispensationalism, which distinguishes between Israel and "The Church."

DHK's "spiritual kinship" view is the right one, in my opinion. Successionism may be difficult to document, Jesus himself guaranteed perpetuity when he said "The gates of hell will not prevail against it.?

The problem is not the existence of New Testament churches; it is giving them names.

 

A collection of six of his lectures actually, and this was not compiled by J. M. Carroll, but rather by some friends of his, notably including Dr. Clarence Walker of the Ashland Avenue Baptist Church of Lexington, KY [which incidentally still holds (or at least did hold, unless the book has by now passed into the public domain) the copyright to the book], after the death of Dr. Carroll, which book was actually published in memorium, as I have previously posted.

One really might check my link given back in post #3, here. I referenced to Bro. James, in that response, as well.

Ed

 

The Trail of Blood theory is also used by the Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of Christ and various sabbatarian groups (where I first heard it articulated). That should show it is ridiculous. Each group that does this basically strings together every sect condemned or persecuted by the Catholic church. The usual ones are the Waldensians, Albigenses, Catharii, Lollards, and Anabaptists, leading into the beginnings of their movement. But they ignore that these groups had vastly different doctrines and practices, from each other, from the modern groups claiming them, and even from doctrines we all agree on, such as them being gnostic or ascetic (matter is evil, etc). Yet some here argue that this was all lines by 'the persecutors'. But that's just thrown up with absolutely no evidence, other than this book's own suppositions. If all the history was erased then, how do we know who to believe on them? (why didn't Rome accuse all of them of the same things? Like the Waldensians weren't accused of a lot of that stuff). The Waldensians were just regular Roman Catholics who opposed the additions Rome was continuing to make, and the Adventist published book "the Waldensians' is even honest enough to show they had monks, nuns, priests, and the rest of the liturgy of the time. Yet they are using them as representatives of sabbatarians!

 

By the same reasoning, the Bible is useless because it, too, is used by the cults.....

If you don't like the Trail of Blood, don't read it. No one is forcing it on anyone. Some of us like it.

Cheers,

Jim

 

I'm sorry, but I'm not trying to put down the book so much, as the overall theory as it is used to seriously claim one's modern organization goes all the way back to the apostles.
I actually always liked the idea, and did embrace it briefly when I first read it in the form of Herbert Armstrong's "Mystery of the Church" chapter of Mystery of the ages. I just came to realize that it was not one organization or movement linking all those groups.

 

To deny the overall thesis is to deny that God preserved his churches at different points in history. Seems to me that denial says that there were periods of time when New Testament congregations didn't exist.

If that's not what you're saying, I'd appreciate a clarification.