Oh, SDA's have much more in common with Baptists than with Catholics and usually run to attack Catholics with even more vigor than 'fightin fundies' and I have noticed that on this board the real team up over the years has been a joint SDA/Baptist attack.. SDA's use the same kind of argument that they are part of a remnant church trying miserably to link themselves to the Apostolic Church. The fact that there is no historical proof for their theory simply shows to them (and many Baptists) how good the Catholic Church was at persecution and cover-up. Baptist/SDA Successionism can never be disproved because all that is required for their succession to be transmitted was a small group of faithful people somewhere at some time who kept the flame of the true faith alive. The authors of this "history" skim happily over the heretical beliefs of their supposed forefathers in the faith. It is sufficient that all these groups were opposed to, and persecuted by, the Catholics."
Thankfully intellectually honest Baptists, such as James McGoldrick who was once himself a believer in Baptist successionism are conceding that this "trail of blood" view is, frankly, bogus. McGoldrick writes:
'Extensive graduate study and independent investigation of church history has, however, convinced [the author] that the view he once held so dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the contrary, surviving primary documents render the successionist view untenable. . . . Although free church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the 17th century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the reformers'. (Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History [1994], 1–2)
