New IFB churches have caused controversy on several occasions because of their opposition to homosexuality, including praise for the Pulse nightclub shooting, a 2016 terror attack where an attacker murdered 49 people and injured 53 others at a queer nightclub in Orlando, Florida.[2] They are described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as "a loose network of independent churches concentrated in the U.S. connected by their belief in certain religious doctrines and a shared brand of deeply anti-LGBTQ and antisemitic teachings." According to the ADL, "Anti-LGBTQ bigotry and antisemitism are fundamental to New IFB ideology, as demonstrated by the doctrinal statements on their websites and the content of their sermons."[3] The group has been able to spread their views across the world through the usage of internet and social media.[4]
Some former New IFB pastors have charged the association of being a cult.[5]
History
The New IFB was formed by Anderson and other Baptist pastors in an attempt to revive what they perceived older independent Baptist churches once represented.[6][7]
A split in the New IFB occurred in January 2019, after Donnie Romero, pastor at Stedfast Baptist Church-Fort Worth (SBC), resigned after it was revealed he had hired prostitutes, smoked marijuana and gambled.[8] Adam Fannin, the lead preacher at SBC's Jacksonville satellite campus, refused to acknowledge the authority of Jonathan Shelley, another Texas New IFB pastor who took over SBC–Fort Worth following Romero's resignation. Anderson, Fannin and Shelley traded accusations of financial wrongdoing and running a cult. Fannin was later ejected as the lead preacher of SBC-Jax.[7]
In 2021, the NIFB-affiliated First Works Baptist Church in El Monte, California was bombed with an improvised explosive device. The explosion caused property damage but no injuries or deaths. First Works had previously been the site of protests by activists opposed to its anti-LGBTQ teachings, but police reported there was no evidence linking the protesters to the bombing.[9]
Auckland, New Zealand, New IFB pastor Logan Robertson was deported from Australia in July 2018 after being accused of harassing Muslims at two Brisbane mosques.[10] Robertson had previously stated that gay people should be shot and New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern should "go home and get in the kitchen".[11]
In 2021, Tarrant County, Texas preacher Dillon Awes advocated in a sermon that "every single homosexual" in America be lined up against a wall and shot in the back of the head. This led to calls to evict Stedfast Baptist Church from its location at a strip mall in Watauga, Texas. Landlord Cody Johnson later agreed not to evict Stedfast Baptist from the Watauga location after communicating with Stedfast's lawyer.[12][13]
Size
The New IFB currently lists 30 affiliated congregations on their website. 22 of the congregations are in 16 U.S. states, one in British Columbia, three are in the Philippines, two are in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland, and one congregation is located in the South African town of Middelburg.[14]
The New IFB has been described as antisemitic by the ADL.[4] Steven Anderson has made multiple sermons against Jews[29][30] and has protested against using a Hebrew-language name for Jesus, arguing that anyone who uses it is "not saved" and is trying to make "Christians into Jews".[31] They teach that people turn homosexual as a result of hating God, arguing that homosexuals are "reprobates" who cannot receive justification, instead teaching that the government should kill them.[32][33] The New IFB considers the modern nation of Israel to be a fraud, and it also teaches that Christians, rather than Jews, are God's chosen people.[6] Anderson has also produced videos in which he attacks Judaism and engages in Holocaust denial.[citation needed]
The NIFB has as its doctrine that Jesus was punished during the harrowing of Hell as a part of the atoning work.[34]
They have argued that the Christian Flag represents the religion of the anti-Christ.[35]
Despite the website's claims that each church is independent, some followers and former followers of the New IFB have accused Anderson of having complete control over the organization and ejecting anyone who has a minor disagreement with him.[7]
New IFB pastors have been the subjects of controversy on numerous occasions. The New IFB is strongly opposed to homosexuality, with several pastors advocating the belief that the government should execute homosexuals. Anderson and other New IFB pastors have praised the Pulse nightclub shooting.[36][37] On the weekend of the third anniversary of the shooting, the New IFB held a "Make America Straight Again" conference at an Orlando-area New IFB church.[38] Also in June 2019, Grayson Fritts, pastor at New IFB-affiliated All Scripture Baptist Church and a former detective for the Knox County, Tennessee, Sheriff's Office, delivered a sermon calling for the execution of gays.[39]
↑ ""Bible College" Christian Preaching (Baptist KJV sermon)". 2020-01-29. Archived from the original on 2020-01-29. Retrieved 2024-02-23. I think the biggest reason why, is the Bible College movement. It's Bible colleges, they're the problem. I'm going to preach about it right now, everything I'm going to say is Biblical, it's scriptural. You may disagree, this may offend you but honestly, everything I'm going to preach tonight is biblical based and take it and do what you want with it. I have a problem with Bible college, I have a problem with it. I don't agree with it. It's not Scriptural and I'm going to preach it. Someone talk about it. All the Bible colleges, they're out there advertising, they're going to churches, signing everybody up, sending them stuff in the mail.
I'm going to advertise tonight. I'm going to advertise why you shouldn't go to Bible college. Why I'll never send any of my kids to Bible college, why I don't approve of Bible college and they can get up and advertise their belief, I'm going to advertise my believe tonight and it's biblical. The first reason that I don't like bible college is that number one, it has replaced the local church as being the institution that teaches Bible doctrine. If you want to learn Bible doctrine today, go to bible college, going to seminary and it's not taught in the local church. What happens is, Bible College becomes the place where people think of as being a place where Bible doctrine is being taught.
↑ ""Animal Rights in Light of the Bible" KJV Bible Preaching". 2022-04-19. Archived from the original on 2022-04-19. Retrieved 2024-02-23. Pastor Anderson: Not only did Jesus show a disregard for animal life in Mark 5, but all throughout the Old Testament, God has a pattern of showing disregard for the lives of animals. Now, a lot of people will try to quote this verse out of context or that verse out of context to try to foist on us an animal rights agenda and to try to tell us that we need to do all these measures to protect animals and all these things, but wait a minute. If you read the totality of the Bible, you get a much different picture about God's view of animals. You say, "That's just your opinion". No it's not. I just finished proving it to you from the Bible. Don't get sucked in to this brainwashing of animal rights. It's not scriptural. It's not of God.
↑ Different Wills in the Trinity – Pastor Shelley (Sermon) | Stedfast Baptist Church
↑ Nothing But the Blood – Pastor Anderson (Sermon) | Faithful Word Baptist Church 21:35 "It turns out that all kinds of Protestants are out there with the same junk saying “oh Christ’s body isn’t divine." You got Manly Perry saying Christ's body isn't divine for crying out loud. You got all these people out there that are saying this stuff. You got Protestants who are saying this stuff. They’re all wrong…it's absurd."
↑ ""Communion or the Lord's Supper" KJV Bible Preaching (Christian Sermon)". 2022-04-19. Archived from the original on 2022-04-19. Retrieved 2024-02-23. Therefore, according to 1 Corinthians 11:20, when it says, "When ye come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper." Yet, at most churches, when do they do the Lord's Supper? When the whole church is come together in one place. People would even come to our church and say, "I came on Sunday morning. Why was the Lord's Supper not served?" Well, because according to this verse it says, "When ye come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper." If you would, go back to 1 Corinthians 11. Here's my evidence tonight. Exodus 12, it's eaten in the houses, not in the congregation. Jesus institutes it, it's eaten in a house with only 13 people. Not the whole church. Not the whole congregation. Then, when we go to book of Acts, if you accept these references in Acts 2, what does it say? In verse 46, "And they continuing daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." If you accept that, that is yet another consistent proof of this. Then when you get to 1 Corinthians 11, where he's rebuking a church for doing it wrong, he says, "When ye therefore come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper." That's one, two, three, four pieces of evidence for the fact that it's not to be done in the church service, and one, two, three, four pieces of evidence that point to the house as being a place for this to happen. Zero evidence for the whole church coming together as a congregation and doing it.
↑ ""Why We are Baptist" KJV Bible Preaching". www.faithfulwordbaptist.org. Retrieved 2025-03-16. Why is it important to be a Baptist? Because Baptist churches aren't part of that corrupt lineage. They don't have that corrupt doctrine. Sadly some Baptist get influenced by the protestants and influenced by the Catholics, but in general it's the one that tells people the most that we're not part of that group, we're not part of these people. I wish I had time to preach to you the error of the universal church, but suffice it to say I've done many sermons on it. I covered in the revelation series in chapters two I believe, but suffice it to say that the word church according to the bible means congregation or assembly. We're not assembled with all believers my friend. We're only congregated with 100 and some people here today. We're not congregated with every person. The problem with believing in this universal church where they say, "Everybody who's saved is part of the church." The problem with believing that is that it leads to applying scriptures about unity in the church to saying let's unify with all believers. Let's be Catholic. Let's be universal. Let's all be united and. In reality that's not what god wants us to do because the bible says we should have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather … First of all in a lot of these denominations the people aren't saved. They don't believe in salvation by [inaudible 01:08:11] Not only that, but even amongst those that are saved the bible says that we should withdraw ourselves from every brother that walked disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us.
↑ "Defending the name of JESUS against the Yeshua crowd". faithfulwordbaptist.org. Retrieved 2024-02-22. Oh, well, who cares. You know, Jesus, Yeshua, same thing." No, it's not the same thing. First of all, I don't believe that anybody who attacks the name of Jesus is saved, because "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved... they want to creep in and they want to destroy the foundation of our faith, which is the New Testament, which is written in Greek, and they want to turn us all into Jews, is what they really want to do. They are satanic, false teachers who are creeping in and pretending to be Christian or messianic. They are unsaved false prophets, lying devils, whose real goal is to get us wrapped up in the satanic religion of Judaism.
↑ "Faithful Word Baptist Church – Text". faithfulwordbaptist.org. Retrieved 2024-02-22. 1. Can Sodomites Be Saved? Next God gives us a roll call of the attributes of the Sodomite (homosexual): "Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." – Romans 1:29–32 God defines the word "reprobate", used in Romans 1:28 in regard to homosexuals, the first time it is ever mentioned in the Bible. The first reference to the word "reprobate" in the Bible is Jeremiah 6:30, "Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them." God has already rejected the sodomites. He gave them over to become the filthy animals they are. Although God initially loved them ("God so loved the world") and wanted them to be saved and died on the cross for them, they refused to be saved or even acknowledge God, and God finally gave them up. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. – Jude 7 The word "queer" is a very Biblical description of the homosexual since here God refers to them as "strange." God did not send a preacher or soul-winner to Sodom, he sent two angels to examine the situation and to remove Lot from the city. His only solution to the problem of homosexuality was to pour out literal Hellfire and destroy the city as an example of what he thinks about sodomy.
I believe that the GOVERNMENT should put them to death as the Bible lays out in Leviticus 20:13. We as Christians should NOT accept homosexuals. Am I going to harm homosexuals? NO. Should they be put to death by the legitimate authorities (i.e. our government). YES
↑ "The Truth about the Sodomites". www.faithfulwordbaptist.org. Retrieved 2024-02-28. That's a good word. What happens is when a person becomes reprobate, according to the Bible, when a person is rejected by God after repeatedly refusing God, hating God, it's like God just removes that restraint or removes that constraint that says, "Hey. These are gross things. These are weird things. These are things that you just don't do." It's like he just removes that and then they just do whatever. That's one of the things that they do is men with men. But they do other things. I mean, I don't want to go into it all tonight, but Leviticus 18 is chalked full of things that they do that are even worse. Things with animals ... It goes down the list in Leviticus 18. I'm not even going to go into it tonight. This sermon's already nasty enough without having to go verse by verse through Leviticus 18. I don't think I can handle that one tonight.
↑ Clout, David (2017). What about Steven Anderson?. Way of Life Literature Incorporated. ISBN978-1-58318-234-5.
↑ "The Christian Flag Exposed". www.faithfulwordbaptist.org. Retrieved 2024-02-28. It seems obvious to assume that the modern-day Christian flag will someday represent the one world religion of the anti-Christ, and we are certainly not allegiant to that. As if that weren't reason enough, the Christian flag is just another religious icon that has no place in a Baptist church.
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