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.