The Facade of False Flag Fundamentalism

Domestic violence is never the answer — unfortunately, there are too many prideful, pietistic people who oppose this statement.

If you’ve spent any time in fundamentalist circles, you’ve noticed a trend where accolades and accommodations are given innumerably to the leader as the systematic default. But when scandal, mischief, or blasphemy are pronounced in the church you attend and you decide to say something, you are the one cast aside as the evildoer.

Within the last year and a half, a fundamentalist camp hailing from the likes of Baptist preacher Jack Hyles has had to come to terms with the ultimatum every false faith faction must overcome — the fall of their prophet.

Following a 2024 preaching conference in Sacramento, Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church (Phoenix area) had his four eldest children speak out against him with accusations of serious abuse of both them and Mrs. Anderson.

Solomon, Isaac, John, and Miriam Anderson opened up online through a YouTube channel detailing the horrors inside of their home in Arizona. Growing up, they all described serious physical, mental, and verbal abuse.

In response, Pastor Steven Anderson prayed for his children to die publicly during a sermon and had the churches associated with him undergo a defining loyalty test.

The Bible calls for a pastor to be someone in the congregation who meets specific qualifications to hold the office, as outlined in 1 Timothy 3:1-7.

Pastor Steven Anderson is not qualified because he is guilty of being a brawler and being a striker, by his own admission. He first denied the allegations from his children, but then as more videos came out his tone swiftly shifted to one of undeniable pride.

“So what if I did everything that I’m accused of? I did nothing wrong,” Anderson said during his blitz of damage control sermons.

Within Faithful Word Baptist Church, the majority of the church body was not okay with this behavior and for them it was their final line in the sand against a man that was clearly losing his mind.

The church was losing members in droves by the dozen, including an even deeper separation from Paul Wittenberger, who had helped Pastor Steven Anderson produce doctrinal doctrumentaries that gave rise to his initial wave of fame.

One member of Faithful Word Baptist Church, Lionel Keros, became so concerned that he called for a mandatory psych ward hold on Pastor Steven Anderson for fear of imminent danger to both the preacher and his family.

After being released, Pastor Steven Anderson bragged about his time trying to lead souls to Christ “in the nuthouse” and divulged an entire sermon to his perpetually shrinking church when he realized the damage this was doing to his empire.

In shared descriptions of the ongoing abuse in the Anderson home, the children described the use of an electrical extension chord made in the fashion of a whip as well as verbal and physical abuse directed at the younger siblings by both parents.

The domino effect that this had was devastating to Faithful Word Baptist Church, but it also had a pulsing effect on sister churches. Prior to this scandal, Pastor Steven Anderson had been looked at as the main leader of a group of fundamental baptists who labeled themselves as the “New IFB.”

The qualifier of “new” was simply a way for those in the movement to distinguish themselves from the types of churches you would normally see from the manner of Jack Hyles.

A handful of distinctions between the Anderson movement and the Hyles movement include things like the timing of Christ’s return and a heightened zeal for an activity they call "soul-winning.”

By eerily similar means, the movement started by Steven Anderson has all of the marks of the Hyles movement, even down to the gravity of the scandal involving the leader.

Usually, something like this would rock the world of anyone involved — people wouldn’t just leave, the movement would die entirely. Instead, like with Hyles, several pastors rose to the occasion to defend their prophet at all costs — even when the evidence called for a biblically different response.

Walking back to the concept of the “New IFB”, pastors were only ever included in this group with the blessing, training, and ordination of Pastor Steven Anderson or movement co-founder Pastor Roger Jimenez.

At the core of the movement were three churches, with other churches in close proximity:

- Faithful Word Baptist Church (Phoenix; Pastor Steven Anderson)
- Verity Baptist Church (Sacramento; Pastor Roger Jimenez)
- First Works Baptist Church (Los Angeles/Anaheim; Pastor Bruce Mejia)

Outside of this inner circle, other churches were described as “not doing enough for the Lord.”

I have witnessed all three pastors question the salvations of undoubtedly saved people because of someone having a different standard in their own home or believing differently on a non-essential tenant of the faith and lie on those who spoke up against unbiblical behavior in their churches from those in leadership.

In like manner to Hyles, Pastor Steven Anderson built a movement from the ground up with the end goal in mind of having unlimited power. He wanted to be able to control multiple churches as a mediator-of-sorts without the obvious veneration shortfalls you see in Catholicism and other idol-based faiths.

Pastor Roger Jimenez shared in that vision, but within a matter of time, the two of them could no longer walk together because they did not agree.

Churches that left the movement to no longer associate with Pastor Steven Anderson included:

- Shield of Faith Baptist Church (now Heritage of Grace Bible Church - Boise; Pastor Joe Jones)
- Mountain Baptist Church (Fairmont; Pastor Jason Robinson)
- Hold Fast Baptist Church (Fresno; Pastor Jared Pozarnsky)
- Strong Hold Baptist Church (Atlanta; Pastor David Berzins)
- Verity Baptist Church (Sacramento; Pastor Roger Jimenez)

This left Pastor Steven Anderson with his church (dwindling attendance), his church plant south of Phoenix in Tucson, his church plant near Los Angeles, and a church that he had hijacked in Texas.

Beginning in 2020, prior to any preaching in favor of abuse, I had made the decision to relocate to Los Angeles to join Pastor Bruce Mejia’s church and to be closer to family in the area. Due to the pandemic causing a career change, I had to leave California after just over a year but planned to return to First Works Baptist Church.

In that year with Pastor Bruce Mejia, I worked alongside both him and the men in leadership at First Works Baptist Church on various projects, and was part of the decision to go live with what is now called the Rod of Iron podcast. I did all of that under the guise that they shared the same zeal to reach others with the gospel that I had on my own in my time preaching at the Salt Lake City temple.

When I came back to California in 2023, everything was still as I remembered it and there were even more people attending now. I didn’t pay much attention to what churches outside of First Works were doing because (and this was preached regularly) we were supposed to be an independent church.

During that time together, I got to see all of the people that I hadn’t seen in a long time and it was a breath of fresh air in the moment.

After a few months of attending, though, there were times where the preaching was hard to digest. I was told that this happened to everyone and that any uncomfortable feeling I had was just because God was working on that part of my understanding of the Bible.

But it wasn’t a misunderstanding — Pastor Bruce Mejia was beginning to blur the lines.

While I had spent time away from the congregation, the original church building in El Monte had been targeted with an explosive device. This came during several protests from local groups in the city of El Monte, who were protesting Pastor Bruce Mejia for preaching his application of Romans 1.

Instead of approaching the protests with grace, mercy, or truth, he did the only thing he knows how to do well — get a negative reaction. Pastor Bruce Mejia did not hesitate to instigate, hoping for a reaction from the protesters — and ultimately, he got what he wanted.

Any time that the bombing would come up at church, we were not allowed to ask any questions. It was always the same regurgitated answer of “they [the FBI] have no leads in the case” and “we don’t know who did it, but it must’ve been a sodomite.”

I had seen this pattern of behavior from Pastor Bruce Mejia before when investigative reporter Todd Ferguson died under suspicious circumstances. Both Ray Flores and Mark Barfield from First Works Baptist Church had openly bragged that their prayers had something to do with Todd’s passing in 2021.

Ferguson had been investigating Pastor Bruce Mejia as well as Pastor Roger Jimenez up until his death — both Pastor Bruce Mejia and Pastor Roger Jimenez had also been praying for Ferguson to die.

As he did with Ferguson’s death, Pastor Bruce Mejia took the attention he got from “being bombed” and ran with it. He claimed that the reporters were not being honest about the extent of what happened and eventually was able to speak with Owen Shroyer of Infowars — this was the turning point for his social media platform.

Something didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it — looking back, I should’ve been paying more attention to what was going on in the sister churches, because the answer was right in front of me.

In January 2024, I traveled to see Pastor Bruce Mejia preach at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona and he promised to meet with me after the service. At that time, I sought advice for how to process and handle a deep betrayal that had happened and had expressed that I wanted to get plugged back into a church somewhere but wasn’t in the right headspace given what had happened.

When he heard that another pastor was involved, his tone immediately shifted to dismissive, disconnected, and uneasy.

Being that he knew who was involved, I should’ve seen it for what it was in that moment, but I refused — I didn’t want it to be true, but I felt that gut feeling again that something just wasn’t right.

Fast forward to 2025, I find myself visiting again and treating First Works differently than Faithful Word because, again, we’re independent — right?

When work would allow me to be in the area, it was good to see a lot of the same faces from five years ago — at first.

Naturally, in the process of catching up to what had been happening in the sister churches, Bro. Cody Hauk informed me about the churches who broke fellowship over the accusations against Pastor Steven Anderson. Hauk described anyone who believed the Anderson children as “evil”, an “infiltrator”, and “worthy of death according to the Bible.”

I held how I really felt inside, but that was the aha moment for me.

None of these people were actually rooted in the biblical gospel that says you’re saved from your sins by grace through faith in what Jesus accomplished for you. Instead, they were rooted in a religious system of human achievement that gave them the green light to do all matter of evil in the name of the Lord.

Later on, I saw Bro. Maury Lemons share a social media video depicting a woman being forced to walk off a plank and drown with a caption supporting the idea stating that it was an appropriate punishment for a loud and rebellious woman.

This came in light of preaching from the church in Texas, Stedfast Baptist Church (Pastor Jonathan Shelley), who openly called for women to have their hands cut off for getting involved in public arguments. Pastor Jonathan Shelley also praised UFC founder Dana White for “slapping his wife down” in public while saying he would “look the other way” if a man did that to his wife in his congregation.

Shortly thereafter, Pastor Bruce Mejia shared on social media that he accepted an opportunity to preach in Texas at Stedfast Baptist Church. I had not been in the area for some time, but after speaking to multiple pastors who had left the movement, I decided to formally step away from anything to do with Pastor Bruce Mejia or First Works Baptist Church.

In my text to Pastor Bruce Mejia, I clearly stated that I was separating from any association with them and him for the fact that he was now fellowshipping with and condoning domestic violence, rape, and other heinous things from the pulpit and that we had none of those disturbing views in common.

Pastor Bruce Mejia responded by threatening to publicly mark me from the pulpit under the label of “someone who needs to be destroyed,” as he pointed out in the most recent episode of the Rod of Iron podcast.

This is to mark Pastor Bruce Mejia, as believers are called to do when someone preaches doctrines contrary to the scriptures.