Power Dynamics Of Pietism
While a broken clock might be right twice a day, it only becomes an issue if you allow it to be how you chose to tell time.
In the same way, when we look at the New Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, we can see the same dynamic play out in real time.
Within the Steven Anderson support group, there is an ideology at the root of the movement that didn’t show itself for the majority of time that the movement was relevant in the early stages.
The righteous anger soon became unhealthy rage.
The righteous indignation against wickedness soon became irrational paranoia.
And ultimately, a movement that had mimicked the ways of the Lord to recruit both wheat and tares to the same harvest became a group of men who beat their wives, pray for their children to die, and cover up predatory behavior at the top of their spiritual pyramid scheme.
Anderson managed to lead this type of movement all while distracting the average laymen and most of the previously associated pastors. He accomplished this with grand distractions such as being constantly kicked out of countless countries, producing documentaries that were being distributed left and right, and the exchange of biblical shame for internet fame.
Part of what drew a good number of well-intentioned people to the movement was the fact that Anderson, and those associated with him, preached hard on the reprobate doctrine from Romans 1.
If you saw this from the outside looking in, you understood a long time ago what the dangers of someone with this type of inflammatory nature are. The smoke and mirrors weren’t there for you the same way if you weren’t looking for something that gave the appearance of the pursuit of holiness and the practicing of the Word of God more perfectly.
Outside of correctly calling out mainstream churches for their effeminate trajectory, including fundamental Baptist ones not related to the NIFB, Steven Anderson also sounded the alarm on the dangers of dispensationalism and called on the average Christian to read their Bible and trust what it said instead of blindly following popular ideologies.
This was true, until he became the popular one.
Following the 2024 Red Hot Preaching Conference at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, Anderson’s four eldest children came forward with accusations of child abuse and domestic violence.
When they initially raised these concerns, I was among one of the people thinking that there’s no way this could be true.
I had seen the good of the movement, what I thought was the heart of the movement, and genuinely thought that this must another attempt by the devil to take out the leader of a great work for God.
Because of the New Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, my wife and I had been reinforced on the doctrine of being King James Version-only, as opposed to reading modern versions. We were both encouraged in our soul-winning efforts to lead people to the Lord and we had also worked through some situations that felt otherwise irreconcilable if not for the help and encouragement of the people and pastor of our church.
Pastor Bruce Mejia of First Works Baptist Church was that pastor for us.
We visited the church while they were still in the El Monte building, shortly before protests began over sermons that Mejia had preached on the subject of sodomy.
After visiting First Works, we made the decision to move down from Salt Lake City and to be as involved as time would allow. Pastor Steven Anderson visited every now and then, and we have positive memories of the time spent with those people before the bombing.
As a result of the pandemic, I was laid off and we decided to move back to Salt Lake City due to the fact that it would not be financially possible to stay in California until things sorted out with everything going on at the time.
Over the next five years, we were only able to visit First Works periodically while in the area visiting family. During those visits, we remaining encouraged and edified by the congregation as well as Pastor Mejia to continue enduring the good fight of faith in the Christian life.
Every time we came back we saw that the church was growing and that the core people had remained faithful.
This further solidified my understanding at the time that I was leading my wife in the right direction by remaining around those people — but I could not have been more wrong.
While the Anderson scandal unfolded in its own light, I remained under the impression that First Works was a fully independent church. Yes, it was planted by Anderson, Mejia and Anderson spoke well of each other, and were friends in their private life — but the business of Faithful Word was not the business of First Works.
Or so I thought.
Following some poor decisions by my wife, things at home reached a point where I finally told her to leave and to spend time with her father in Sacramento to get things right.
We had just been to Sacramento for the 2024 Red Hot Preaching Conference, her father close enough to Verity Baptist Church, and then-Pastor Roger Jimenez was aware of our situation and had offered to help through counsel.
I returned to First Works, with people wondering where my wife was — and when I told them that she was with family and attending Verity, I tried to leave it at that.
In October 2025, I broke fellowship with Pastor Mejia and First Works Baptist Church after Mejia publicly endorsed Pastor Jonathan Shelley and shared that he’d be going to Texas as a guest preacher for Stedfast Baptist Church.
At the time, Pastor Shelley had recently preached that he applauded men slapping down their wives, even in public, and gave the example of Dana White slapping his wife in public while encouraging the men of his congregation to do that to their wives if they were disobedient.
This was far from the only domestic violence Shelley had condoned from the pulpit, but it was the example I saw before Mejia made his announcement about preaching in Texas.
I texted Mejia and the other men in leadership on October 18, 2025 that I was breaking fellowship with them because I could not be part of a movement that promoted domestic violence. Given the connection between Mejia and Shelley and the continuing situation unfolding in Arizona, I was stepping away from them over this.
In response, Mejia tried to take control of the narrative and told me that I wasn’t leaving, but was being kicked out.
This didn’t make sense in the moment, but him being willing to “kick me out” while he endorsed abuse from the pulpit showed me that he really was in ministry for all the wrong reasons.
Additionally, after I came back, Mejia had publicly named Bro. Robinson Ortiz for similar behavior at home towards his wife and had sent him away for six months while emphasizing he was not church disciplining him or kicking him out but that Robinson was unrepentant and that he didn’t want to deal with that behavior in his church.
So again, Mejia’s embracing of Pastor Shelley given his comments on the same situations just didn’t make sense — but it wasn’t a conflict of interest, it was his true character finally coming out.
Shortly thereafter, I revisited the allegations against Roger Jimenez and decided to look into it more because my wife was still receiving counsel from both him and Sister Jimenez.
I had previously tried to meet with Pastor Jimenez about these allegations in 2024 while my wife and I briefly both were in Sacramento. This request for a meeting with Pastor Jimenez was made to Bro. Shah Rahdari, as is custom at Verity Baptist Church if Pastor Jimenez or Deacon Oliver Gonzalez are unavailable, after a mid-week leadership institute class.
According to Pastor Jimenez during my call with him on January 8, 2026, Shah never told him about my request for a meeting.
I had also tried to call Pastor Jimenez after I left Sacramento and he never returned my calls on the issue.
This leads us to where we are now — Jimenez has resigned within ten days of the article coming out about the Loewen grooming allegations.
And even now, he continues to remain silent on the matter and has essentially ghosted his church after fifteen years.
That being said, now let’s get into the power dynamics of pietism — the idol, the icon, and the infidel.
No matter how you want to try to frame his preaching, there’s no denying that Pastor Steven Anderson has a way of capturing a consistent audience.
On one side, you have those that glean some self-righteous spiritual crumbs from the message.
Across from them, you’ll find those that can’t look away because of the energetic, entertaining antics.
If you’ve spent any fair amount of time inside of the New Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, you’ve spent time on both sides of this aisle.
In-between boasting of their good works and beating their wives, this free-for-all within the fundamental Baptist world took two steps towards hell after the allegations came out against Steven Anderson from inside of his own home.
Not only did he respond by publicly praying for the death of his children, but he also doubled down behind the pulpit by preaching that even if he did what he’s accused of doing, he did nothing wrong, sinful, or disqualifying and there’s nothing further than his word that needs to substantiate that.
Pair that with the boasting and beating doctrines and you have a three-piece meal every Sunday evening on repeat.
Anderson has tried to distance himself from the Roger Jimenez grooming scandal, but the reality is that the idol he’s become to people wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the icons along the way.
Both Anderson’s best friend for decades in Roger Jimenez and the wife of Anderson’s right hand man in Arizona are connected to sexual crimes against children.
For Jimenez, it’s allegations — for Chris Segura’s wife, it’s felony counts of sexual activity with a minor, according to reporting from the San Mateo Daily Journal.
Here’s an excerpt from the article on Chris Segura’s wife, published September 22, 2005 and last updated April 1, 2025:
“Sladky originally pleaded not guilty to multiple felony counts, including four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, one count of unlawful sexual penetration with a minor under 16, and one count of oral copulation with a minor, but later changed her plea. Prosecutors said her remorse would be a significant factor in sentencing.”
This took place while she worked as a schoolteacher between December 2003 and January 2004.
Now that Jimenez has to to answer for his own disqualifying behavior, swept under the vague umbrella of “moral sin”, Anderson has no trouble discarding him like trash despite bragging about such a strong friendship for so long.
According to a video interview, Anderson is quoted as saying the following about those who prey on children:
All that to say, Anderson has built himself nothing short of an empire. The icons beneath him do most of the dirty work and the heavy labor, while he reaps every single reward he can lay his eyes on.
And if we reference the scandal surrounding the ministry of Jack Hyles, it’s not hard to see that Anderson followed the blueprint that would buy him enough time and enough terrified church members to get away with anything.
Understanding that within the framework of a cult, the driving force behind the crazy train is always tied to the leader’s private interpretation of the Word of God mixed with charisma, conviction, and a superficial charm.
What’s hiding behind the mask is something most of us cannot fully fathom unless you experience it for yourself.
While claiming to be of the spiritual special forces, or Baptist hall of fame, the skeletons in his own closet would give those still in their grave goosebumps.
The cover up culture isn’t foreign to Steven Anderson, as he’s had to do this multiple times before with other scandals.
Donnie Romero, the former pastor of Stedfast Baptist Church, resigned after admitting to behavior that disqualified him. Anderson oversaw the entire transition process, and ultimately installed Jonathan Shelley into his position to secure a back-up lap dog.
By default, the idol cannot survive long or have a legacy of any sort without functional icons.
Icons are distinguished from idols in the sense that they are never the number one focus at any given time. Instead, they operate out of different modes on behalf of the idol in order to keep the system tied to the idol running.
In this case, Steven Anderson fits the role as the idol here because of the fact that the do-or-die mentality of the movement rises and falls on the whims of one man — and it’s not Jesus Christ.
You could make the case that Roger Jimenez was an icon of the NIFB — but regardless of that, the icons have hidden agendas from day one to become the idol. However they either fall short of their goal or when they become the idol the framework of the movement looks nothing like when it started.
When Roger Jimenez attempted to break away from the idol by finally publicly separating from the NIFB, it took less than three months for him to resign and leave his church.
Mejia may never fully break away because he knows what’s waiting on the other side of turning on Anderson.
Both Mejia and Jimenez share a zeal without knowledge that translates into pietism.
Within a pietistic power dynamic, you have to produce at a steep, infinite interval with no room for steady growth or slower seasons. In the eyes of a pietistic preacher, the Lord can only be with their ministry if it’s growing, going great all of the time, or never slowing down.
This process ultimately leads to a doom-and-gloom death spiral as the result of spiritual burnout.
The pastor in this case doesn’t rely on Christ to give the increase in their ministry. Instead, it becomes the duty of the people to hit a metric or else — it’s a lifetime of fear instead of real fruit and it doesn’t reproduce, it recruits.
When you choose to pursue this hamster wheel sanctification cycle, you are choosing to do good works but for the wrong reasons.
It’s easier for this to happen in a church when you consider the elements of internet infamy and a celebrity pastor culture that prefers to keep Jesus Christ as a footnote to keep people coming back.
Even in 2025, Pastor Mejia had to deal with the fact that as the year was coming to a close he was nowhere near the goal he’d shared with the church for souls being saved through his ministry.
This doesn’t mean the work isn’t important, but again the priority was on hitting a magic number instead of just getting the work done. To ultimately reach his goal, Mejia had to implement soul-winners on apps and websites similar to Omegle where you talk to strangers and cycle through conversations over a video call with someone else.
Again, nothing wrong with that— a conversation about the gospel can absolutely take place on the internet — but what’s your motive?
In this case, you have the poison of pietism creeping in and becoming the foundation that the movement is relying on for validation. As a result, they care more about what they can brag about before God instead of working the harvest with love for the Lord and love for their neighbor as their motive.
When they then use the pietistic system they’ve designed to shield themselves from accountability, it spits in the face of what a biblically-based church should be.
If you were to think of a double-minded man, you wouldn’t have to go far to find the last two brain cells of Jonathan Shelley. It’s not that he can’t handle the business of running a church either — it’s that he shouldn’t.
Shelley was installed following the fall of Donnie Romero, but he was not selected by the congregation of Stedfast Baptist Church in a biblical way.
As a result of being the one chosen to lead Anderson’s movement from the Texas front, Shelley clearly has a public and a private persona that doesn’t match.
When allegations first came out against Anderson, Shelley also seemed willing to do his due diligence as a pastor to find out what was really going on with someone he thought he knew.
In a private meeting with his church that was leaked, Shelley was clearly against the idea of Anderson staying in the office of pastor, but backtracked shortly after the audio of the meeting came out.
Throughout the life of a cult, there are moments you can look back on and identify them as times where those in leadership had to make the conscious decision of blind obedience — this is one of those times for the NIFB.
If Shelley had come out publicly with what he told his church privately as it relates to his position on Steven Anderson’s qualifications, he would’ve faced an onslaught from the fruitless faithful of Arizona.
Anderson would’ve undoubtedly ripped him to shreds from Faithful Word Baptist Church’s pulpit, as he had done to the other previously associated pastors who broke fellowship over the abuse allegations.
In an effort to put that kerfuffle behind him, Shelley has come out openly advocating for men to slap their wives down, even adding at one point about his home life that he does “whatever is necessary to keep [his] wife in line.”
Shelley is very much not an icon, and he’ll never be the idol.
He doesn’t get the responsibilities of a true icon and he doesn’t have the charisma to be the idol.
And if you’re not relevant enough to be an idol, icon, or infidel in the group— you’re just an infiltrator they haven’t reprobated yet.
