Author's Note: I originally wrote this and posted it somewhere six years ago. "Pastor" Anderson is in the news again, and I am posting this old document on my blog so I can link to it in reply to any web post that calls this goofball a "Christian Pastor" or his group of ignorant sycophants a "church".
From September 1, 2009:
Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in
Tempe, Arizona has been in the news lately, largely for publicly calling on God
to kill the President of the United States [Note: 12/1/2015 calling for the execution of all homosexuals
by Christmas]. I've been wondering
how a so-called Christian leader (we'll get back to the fact that probably both
terms are inappropriate) could say something so completely contrary to the
ethics of Jesus and the teaching of St. Paul.
Then, I looked at FWBC's website, and specifically their doctrinal
statement, and discovered that this is not, in fact, a Christian church. FWBC's doctrinal statement appears below:
Doctrinal
Statement
We believe that the King James Bible is the word of God
without error.
We believe all Scripture was given by inspiration of God,
and that God also promised to preserve his word. Divine inspiration is of no
value to Christians without God's promise of preservation.
We believe that salvation is by grace through faith.
Being born again by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is the only requirement
for salvation.
We believe in the eternal security of the believer (once
saved, always saved).
We believe that the unsaved will spend eternity in
torment in a literal hell.
We believe that Jesus is God, and that Jesus Christ was
begotten by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary.
We believe only in the local church and not in a
universal church.
We reject the teaching of Calvinism and believe that God
wants everyone to be saved.
We are Non-dispensational.
We believe that life begins at conception (fertilization)
and reject all forms of abortion including surgical abortion,
"morning-after" pills, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), birth control
pills, and all other processes that end life after conception.
We believe that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination
which God punishes with the death penalty.
We oppose worldliness, modernism, formalism, and
liberalism.
http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/page6.html,
retrieved September 1, 2009.
There's a lot of material in this doctrinal statement,
some of which I agree with and much of which I find questionable. Looking at the overall tone and structure of
it, the main thing I notice is that it is not an affirmative statement of
faith, but rather a reactionary statement of disagreement. There are a lot of propositional statements
and no supporting arguments, including scripture references. Point by point, here's what I gather from
this statement:
1.
Anderson believes the King James Bible is the
word of God without error. At first
glance, this statement is far outside the mainstream of Christianity. Taken together with the second statement, it
makes a bit more sense, so I'll analyze the two as a unit.
2.
Anderson links his first statement to a claim
that God has promised to preserve his word.
Does God's promise no longer apply, since 1611? How is the King James Bible inerrant while
modern translations are not so? If the
KJV disagrees with a scholarly interpretation of the proper translation based
on historical evidence and the oldest existing manuscripts of the scriptures,
does this mean we must accept the KJV interpretation and reject scholarship?
Even among fundamentalist Christians, the "logic" behind this pair of
statements is so far on fringe as to make it impossible to consider this
individual a leader, since the vast majority of Christians are going in a
completely different direction.
3.
Anderson believes in salvation by grace through
faith, which is as scripturally sound as he gets in this doctrinal
statement. He follows with "being
born again through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ", generally accepted
among Evangelicals. I can see nothing
wrong with combining the two concepts, as they are both used to answer the same
question, "What must I do to be saved?"
4.
Anderson (and presumably his flock) believe in
eternal security. One would assume he's
a Calvinist, since that doctrine is integral to Calvinism, but one would be
incorrect.
5.
He believes the destiny of those who do not
accept Christ is eternal torment in a literal hell. This statement does not place him outside the
big tent of Christian doctrine, just firmly to the right side of the tent. Personally, I believe only the believer is
promised eternal life, and "the soul that sinneth shall die." I think Anderson confuses terms, because he
sees no valid reason to look beyond the King James Bible's translation and
determine whether or not there are different words in the original text that
have all been translated "hell", and that these may be referring to
different things. But, I could be
wrong. Eternal damnation is not
mentioned in either of the historic creeds that define orthodox Christianity,
so his position on this issue does not place him either in or out of the
legitimate use of "Christian".
6.
He believes in the deity of Christ and the
virgin birth. Good. Otherwise, he would definitely be something
other than a Christian.
7.
He believes only in the local church, and not in
a universal church. This is a
problematic statement. Does he believe
Jesus was talking about local congregations (plural) when he told Peter he
would build "his Church (singular)"?
Paul's references to the Body of Christ actually refer to many bodies,
when he definitely said there is one body, and one head? By what authority did the apostles ordain
bishops, presbyters and deacons? WE believe
in one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic (built on the foundation of the
apostles, who ordained leadership in succession) church. THEY believe in a bunch of local churches,
with congregationally appointed leadership accountable only to themselves and
possibly free-market forces, free from oversight by bishops (overseers) in
succession to the original leadership.
This is far removed from orthodox Christianity and the clear teaching of
scripture. Paul ordained (consecrated)
both Timothy and Titus as bishops, and instructed them to ordain presbyters
(elders) in every city under their jurisdiction. The historic practice of the church, since
Paul's day, has been for bishops as representatives of the universal church to
oversee local churches. This point of
doctrine places Anderson firmly outside of Christian orthodoxy. He's a rebel, not a Christian leader.
8.
Anderson rejects the teaching of Calvinism, and
believes that God wants everyone to be saved.
This statement reveals much about Anderson's lack of consistent
principles based on scripture and sound reason.
Because he already stated he believes in eternal security (point #4), he
is lying when he says he rejects Calvinism.
Eternal security is the logical caboose on Calvinism's soteriological train
of thought, the TULIP express. At the
head of the train is the doctrine of Total Depravity, which states that by
virtue of Adam's fall (original sin) man is incapable of attaining salvation
through any meritorious action on his own part, even if that action is only a
choice to accept God's offer of grace.
Logically, if man is depraved, and salvation is by grace, then it is
God's choice and God's action based on God's own will, apart from any
meritorious condition on our part (Unconditional Election) which brings about
our salvation. To be consistent with
basic theological concepts like God's omnipotence, Christ's death and
resurrection fully accomplished exactly what He intended - atonement for those
whom God has chosen (elected) to save (Limited Atonement). Since it is God who has elected those for
whom Christ has died, and God is omnipotent, he calls those whom he will save,
and they respond (Irresistible Grace).
Because it is all God's action that saves us, our action cannot and will
not override God's action, and therefore our salvation is eternally secure
(Perseverance of the Saints). In saying
that Calvinism is logically consistent, I'm not attesting to its objective
truth. Anderson has a problem with at
least one of the bases of Calvinism, which he identifies: God wants everyone to be saved. If God wants everyone to be saved, then
Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and salvation is offered to
"whosoever will." It is the
doctrine of Limited Atonement, the central point of Calvin's doctrine of
salvation, which must give way to the clear witness of Christ's own words, and
the other four fall right alongside it.
You can't have Total Depravity and have people capable of choosing to
accept Christ. Unconditional election
becomes conditional, based on God's foreknowledge of who would accept his offer
(consistent with Paul's teaching).
Limited atonement is now universal, consistent with John 3. Irresistible grace is no longer - anyone who
is free to accept is free to reject. And
eternal security is the final casualty of this return to rationality based on
scripture. Does he mean that once you
accept Christ, you are no longer free to reject him? The writer of Hebrews would beg to
differ. (As a side note, "God wants
everyone to be saved" must logically be followed by the question, "If
God wants it, and Jesus paid for it, why is it not going to happen?" Calvin clearly perceived the danger of
dropping the "L" was the slippery slope toward universalism. The only thing that prevents most non-Calvinists
from boldly declaring that Christ's sacrifice has accomplished universal
atonement is their belief in eternal damnation.
If hell is not eternal punishment, then everyone will eventually be
saved, although they may have to go through hell to get there.)
9.
Anderson's "church" is
non-dispensational. That doesn't really
say anything substantive. It translates
to "there is something unspecified about dispensationalism we don't agree
with." That's like saying we're not
Baptist. You could agree with all points
in the Baptist Faith and Message except one.
10.
The most detailed point of doctrine they hold is
their unconditional opposition to any form of abortion. If they'd provided this level of detail in
points 8, or 9, one might have some indication of what they really
believe.
11.
Homosexuality is a sin AND an abomination...and
God punishes it with the death penalty.
Really, Steve? Since when? Are we talking orientation, or behavior? And by "God punishes" do you mean
"God allows horrible consequences like AIDS" or do you mean "God
kills gay people"? Perhaps you
mean "God approves of killing gay people simply because they're gay, and
doesn't consider it murder, so feel free to kill a queer for Christ." What happened to "God wants everyone to
be saved?" Is it because it's an
abomination, that it's OK to kill those people?
Does that mean it's OK to walk into Red Lobster an open fire with an Uzi
because people are engaging the abomination of eating shellfish? Are Christian's under obligation to obey
Levitical law, or just the ones you've decided are moral in nature? I'm pretty
sure you'd have never been born, were that the case, since there's probably a
goat-fucker somewhere in your family tree...
12.
Anderson's church opposes a bunch of undefined
things: worldliness, modernism,
formalism, and liberalism. What they
really mean is that pop culture is unacceptable, unless it was the pop culture
of 50 years ago (anything since the 60s is suspected of being worldly, if not
satanic); while it's expected of the pastor to reject any convention, tradition
or authority other than his own interpretation of the Bible, the conventions
and traditions taught or practiced under the authority of the pastor are not to
be evaluated by any standard whatsoever; any liturgical practice from any
tradition other than our own is to be rejected as formalistic, but don't dare
change the way we've always done things; and pay no attention to any political
figure or social commentator that is calling for environmental stewardship or
concern for the poor, or health care, or prison reform, or loving your neighbor
as yourself - they're just liberals, and God hates liberals almost as much as
he hates gay people.
FWBC's doctrinal statement, combined with its pastor's
public call for God to kill the President of the United States (I guess
Anderson's copy of the KJV is missing the pages with Romans 13:1-7 and 1
Timothy 2:1-3) reveal the problem with much of American evangelicalism: lack of respect for authority. When you don't have leaders in local congregations ordained by and
accountable to overseers or bishops, who are in turn accountable under some
form of higher ecclesiastical authority, whether a synod or a convention, you
get this kind of rogue leadership, damaging the consciences of their flocks,
damaging the reputation of Christ's followers in the community, and defining
the faith by what they in their limited understanding reject, rather than by
what they believe.
I'll leave with another quotation from FWBC's website.
Pastor Steven Anderson started Faithful Word Baptist
Church on December 25, 2005.
Pastor Anderson holds no college degree but has well over
100 chapters of the Bible committed to memory, including almost half of the New
Testament.
The legitimate leadership of the Body of Christ in this
community (those who, like it or not, realize they're part of the one holy
catholic and apostolic church) needs to come out forcefully and call this
pastor and his congregation what they are:
a income generator for a con-man who calls himself a pastor and is not
part of the church.
