Landmark Baptists

After a brief presence in northwest Georgia before the Civil War, Landmark Baptists returned to the state about 1900. They have produced a unique combination of ideas and practices, some of which are common to other Baptists as well, including the priority of the local church in sponsoring missions, the succession of Baptist churches from the New Testament to the present, and baptism and the Lord's Supper as ordinances of the local church, as well as the refusal to accept open communion, immersion baptisms administered by other denominations, and pulpit affiliation. Since 1946 the majority of Landmark churches in the state have united in the Georgia State Association of Missionary Baptist Churches. Over the years at least 66 Georgia churches have been of this variety. In 2005 the number stood at about 39 churches and missions with an estimated 2,564 members.