In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

9 Reframing the Past The Impact of Institutional and Ideological Agendas on Modern Interpretations of Landmarkism James A. Patterson The modern historical enterprise assumes a close relationship between memories of the past and the present-­ day identities of both individuals and or­ ga­ ni­ za­ tions. In other words, one of the widely acknowledged benefits of historical consciousness is that it sharpens memory and thus can contribute to an enhanced sense of personal or group character. At the same time, memory is not a perfect instrument for reconstructing what exactly took place in the past; nor do simple remembrances of bygone people, events, or eras necessarily guarantee sound explanations or interpretations of them. In recent musings about earlier periods in his life, First Things editor Joseph Bottum wisely counsels against placing too much of a premium on memory: “Memory may be our best tool for self-­ understanding, but only when we remember how weak a tool it really is: prone to warping under the narrative drive of storytelling, vulnerable to self-­ interest, susceptible to outside influence.”1 Although Bottum directs these remarks primarily toward autobiographers, his caveats should likewise be heeded by those who research and write about Christian movements and denominations —especially their own. As if to reinforce Bottum’s warnings, religious historian Lynn Neal adroitly illustrates that some skewed approaches to the past produce reframed , renarrated, and reenvisioned history with some unintended moral consequences.2 Although the Wake Forest professor focuses on the visual and verbal power of Pillar of Fire Church publications in early twentieth-­ century America, her portrait of imaginative memories that shaped a mythical past surely suggests broader applications. Indeed, both Bottum and Neal testify to regrettable abuses of history on the popular level that be- Reframing the Past 229 tray myopic and sometimes palpable agendas.Those who filter the past in these ways inevitably distort, confuse, or otherwise manipulate it. Nineteenth-­ century Landmarkers undoubtedly exemplified some of the worst features of a popularized history-­ as-­ apologetics approach to the question of Bap­ tist origins. In short, they seriously misused history to justify their distinctive ecclesiology and to posit a “trail of blood” that allegedly verified the perpetuity of Bap­ tists all the way back to apostolic times. After all, successionists argued, local Bap­ tist churches—like First Bap­ tist of Jerusalem—were the only true ones. Jesus himself prophesied that the gates of Hades would not prevail against his church (Matt. 16:18); hence, Bap­tist congregations had to exist in an unbroken chain since the first century of the Christian era.Successionist history radically reworked the contours of Bap­ tist history, allowed historical memory to be held captive to ideology, and jumbled the issues pertaining to denominational identity.3 At the same time, professional historians have not been entirely immune from apologetic mistreatments of the historical record. What is not readily acknowledged is that the historiography of Landmarkism, especially since the middle of the twentieth century, has been prone to more subtle historical reconstructions. Even some of the most insightful accounts of the rise and development of Landmarkism have at times succumbed to the projection of twentieth-­ century debates and interests back into the nineteenth century. While the Landmarkers creatively fashioned a fictional Bap­ tist heritage, their cultured despisers have attempted to fit them into suspect interpretive schemes that actually blur their historical identity. As three of the following sections of this essay will demonstrate, some Bap­ tist historians who have written about the Landmarkers share with them a susceptibility toward flawed or selective historical memories . The shortcomings of the historical scholars have not been of the same magnitude as the fantasies of Landmark successionist folklore; all the same, the more recent interpreters have sometimes set forth inadequate elucidations of the controversial nineteenth-­ century movement. Nineteenth-­Century Landmarkism Landmarkism emerged in the mid-­ South during the 1850s largely as an effort to set boundaries between Bap­ tists and other Christian denominations in the context of intense rivalry on what was then the Ameri­ can frontier. Landmarkists, moreover, sought to impart to the Southern Bap­ tist Convention, which was launched in 1845, a distinct ecclesiologi­ 230 James A. Patterson cal identity during its formative years. The movement’s founder, James Robinson Graves (1820–1893), was a transplant to Tennessee via Vermont, Ohio, and Kentucky. As the editor of the Tennessee Bap­tist, a post that he assumed in 1848, Graves became increasingly troubled by the successes of groups such as the Methodists and Alexander...

Share