AN EXCLUSIVIST VIEW OF HISTORY WHICH DENIES THE BAPTIST CHURCH CAME OUT OF THE REFORMATION: A LANDMARK RECITAL OF CHURCH HISTORY

The pages of church history reveal that the great variety of Protestant denominations today had their genesis in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. However, there is a certain strain of Baptist belief, which had its origin in the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States of America in the nineteenth century, which asserts that Baptists did not spring from the Reformation. This view contends that Baptist churches and only Baptist churches have always existed in an unbroken chain of varying names from the first century to the present time. This view is known as Landmarkism. Landmark adherents reject other denominations as true churches, reject the actions of their ministers, and attach to them designations such as societies and organisations rather than churches. Baptist historians today do not espouse such views, however, a surprising number of church members, even among millennials, still hold to such views. This article surveys the origin and spread of such views and provides scholars the means to assess the impact and continuation of Landmark beliefs.