Pastor Steven Anderson of Arizona’s Faithful Word Baptist Church often claims to have a monopoly on “true,” undiluted “Bible-believing” Christianity. In his mind, Christ’s message is not of redemption and forgiveness, but of visceral rage and damnation for a wide range of people on his hate list. Mr. Anderson has declared that homosexuals are better dead than alive and has called on any person who discovers that he or she is gay to commit suicide. In June 2016, he celebrated the ISIL-led terrorist attack against a gay night club in Orlando, which killed 49 people. “The good news is that there are fifty less pedophiles in this world,” Mr. Anderson said of the shooting, and then added: “That’s who were victims here, a bunch of disgusting homosexuals…The Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death, in Leviticus 20:13. These people all should have been killed any way, but they should have been killed through the proper channels. They should have been executed by a righteous government….The good news is that at least 50 of these pedophiles are not going to be harming children anymore.” There seems to be no issue more important to Mr. Anderson than homosexuality and fighting gay rights–so much so, that he often wears a “Straight Pride” t-shirt, presumably to underscore his own heterosexuality. He has referred to the abbreviation LGBTQ as standing for “let God burn them quickly” in his sermons, as captured in a BBC documentary entitled America’s Hate Preachers.
Steven Anderson wears a straight pride shirt.
In Mr. Anderson’s mind, homosexuality and pedophilia are inextricably linked. In his skewed private interpretation of Scripture, he also fails to consider that Leviticus does not refer to committed, monogamous same sex relationships (this concept is not present in Scripture), but rather to sexual encounters associated with idolatry. (For a detailed discussion of this from a progressive Catholic perspective, see the piece in the Liberal Catholic Digest.) While his worst vitriol is reserved for homosexuals, Mr. Anderson publishes anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic material as well, and his view of women (they are to eschew college and remain in the house) also raises eyebrows. In 2016, during a sermon, Mr. Anderson did an impression of the deceased Mother Teresa lying as a corpse in a casket, after which he started shrieking and flailing his arms, explaining to his congregation that “she’s burning in hell right now.”
Mr. Anderson is also a Holocaust denier. “I don’t believe that the official version of the Holocaust is true whatsoever,” he said in a video ominously entitled The Holocaust Exposed. He uses debunked writings of Holocaust deniers in his videos to argue that while some Jews, along with many other people, may have died in World War II, there was no Holocaust, no Final Solution and no concerted effort to annihilate Jews as such. He has also gone on to declare that Jews are the most “wicked” people in the world, holding them responsible for the spread of pornography.
Mr. Anderson’s hate speech got him denied entry to Canada in 2017, but previously he had also been banned from South Africa, Botswana and the United Kingdom. His genocidal language against homosexuals, especially after Orlando, is what got him barred.
The 36 year old Steven Anderson’s wife, Zsuzsanna Tóth, is Hungarian and the two met in 1999, in Munich, Germany. Zsuzsa had lived in both Germany and Britain and the young Steven seemed to be mesmerized by her “British” English. (She did not have much of a Hungarian or German accent, apparently.) The young Mr. Anderson was handing out Christian tracts in a public square and this is where the two first met. When Mr. Anderson returned to the U.S., the two remained in touch through email, regular letters and built a friendship. Yet Mr. Anderson believed he could never fall in love with her for a one very important reason. Mr. Anderson writes:
“She was still not saved, and I had absolutely no intention of ever falling in love with, dating, or marrying an unsaved girl, no matter how much I liked her…Every girl I ever dated was saved, and my first step was always to bring them to my church to see if they enjoyed the hard, biblical preaching.”
That very American and individualist understanding of Christian salvation as being a personal, one-time act of “accepting Christ into your heart” and the notion of “hard, biblical preaching,” was foreign to Christian culture in Hungary, be it Catholic or Protestant. Born-again Christianity was brought to the country, and to other parts of Eastern Europe, by American Evangelical and Baptist missionaries. Full disclosure: I am familiar with this first-hand. When I was living in Budapest with my parents in the nineties, they enrolled me in the International Christian School of Budapest (ICSB), located in the southwest Buda town of Diósd. The school was established by American born-again missionary groups, such as the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, Campus Crusade for Christ and a handful of others. The concept of being a “born-again Christian” was as foreign to me, growing up in a Catholic family, as it was to nearly every other student of Hungarian origins. The notion that somehow I, my family and Hungarian society writ large–built on the narrative of St. Stephen’s Christian state and historic Hungary as being a bulwark of western Christianity in the East–were not Christian, was incomprehensible.
To be sure, my time at ICSB was not characterized by the type of vitriol that forms the basis of Mr. Anderson’s preaching, even if there seemed to be a broad consensus that Catholics were not saved and anti-Catholicism most certainly existed in some circles. The American missionaries on the outskirts of Budapest worked hard to raise enough money in their churches back home to allow them to live quite modestly in Hungary. They often learned Hungarian, tried to integrate into Hungarian society and were clearly driven by a deeply held belief that they could bring eternal life in Christ for the people of this post-communist society by convincing them to perform a simple, personal gesture of faith.
When Zsuzsa visited the Steven and his parents in Roseville, California, “saving” this young Hungarian woman was clearly a consideration. The same day her plane landed, she was introduced to a most extensive collection of Bibles. Mr. Anderson explains:
“I showed her the big bookshelf in my room that I was pretty proud of which had 3 long shelves (I have always love books and done a lot of reading). The top shelf contained about 40 different King James Bibles…She thought having forty-some Bibles was a little bit excessive. I told her that at least if I were ever burned at the stake, there would be plenty of fuel, and that didn’t seem to make her feel any better about it…”
Mr. Anderson continues with his first impression of this young European:
“Being an unsaved girl from Europe, she had been brainwashed into believing a lot of left-wing ideology such as socialism, feminism, humanism, gay rights, etc., and she was definitely against spanking… I remember explaining to her why there was no way that evolution could actually be true. She had never in her life even heard of anyone questioning it.”
Indeed, even conservative Hungarian Catholics and Protestants would not generally question evolution–it was simply not a topic of debate in Hungarian society in the nineties…nor elsewhere in the region. But Zsuzsa was softening, as she was introduced to the Anderson family’s faith life. “On Sunday morning, we went to Regency Baptist Church with the whole family. This was her very first time in a Baptist church. She still wasn’t a believer, but she really enjoyed the service and said that she liked it a lot better than Catholic church,” recalls Mr. Anderson.
The young man had clearly developed feelings for Zsuzsa Tóth, but was troubled by the fact that she was not “saved.”
“I went to my room with a heavy heart. I had really become fond of Zsuzsa, and I was sad that she still wasn’t saved. I got on my knees and wept, praying to God that she would get saved. Little did I know that at the exact moment my tears were flowing as I prayed for her, she was upstairs in her room, asking Jesus Christ to save her.”
And there it is: Zsuzsa Tóth become a Christian. In Roman Catholicism, salvation is a life-long process and one’s relationship with the divine and indeed the mystery of the incarnation is more layered, multifaceted and much more communal in nature than to fit neatly into a one-time formula, invoked in private.
Despite her conversion, Zsuzsa, coming from a European background, was horrified by the death penalty in the U.S. and about Steven’s visceral hatred towards homosexuals. Mr. Anderson recounts:
“I told her that I believed that our government should give homos the death penalty. This made her very upset and became our first fight. It was not that she had a particular soft spot for homos, it was just that she had always been taught that the death penalty was wrong in general, and especially for something other than murder! Basically, she was just emotional because she considered me to be a nice guy and could not believe that I would condone of such a “violent” measure. It seemed like a contradiction to her at the time. Keep in mind that she had just gotten saved only 6 days before…”
The two spoke a fair bit about marriage as they got to know each other better. Somewhat oddly for a born-again Christian so serious about his faith, they tried to get married in 2000 at what they believed was a 24/7 wedding chapel in Reno, Nevada, which turned out to be closed by the time they got there. In the end, they had a 2-minute wedding ceremony at a place called the Chapel of the Bells, without even Steven’s parents present or knowing about it, upon which they “headed back to Roseville to consummate the marriage.”
Zsuzsa returned briefly to Germany, so the young couple were in a long-distance marriage for the next three weeks, until her return to the U.S. Zsuzsa was then baptized at Regency Baptist Church, one month after being “saved.” Mr. Anderson initially worked for a residential alarm company, installing home alarm systems. Zsuzsa gave birth to nine children and Steven established his church, Faithful Word Baptist Church, in 2005. He emphasizes that he never completed college or university, but is disciplined about memorizing large parts of the Bible–and has memorized nearly half the New Testament.
Zsuzsanna and Steven Anderson
Mr. Anderson’s church is housed in suburban strip mall, but his reach extends far further than Tempe, Arizona, thanks to his thousands of YouTube videos–many inflammatory. The pastor lives in a very modest home with his large family and brags that he can hardly wait to be sued, because he has no money that can be taken away from him. He has also commented that he is so poor, that all of his clothes are second-hand and most are now thread-bare.
Mrs. Anderson seems to mostly avoid her husband’s inflammatory language. Zsuzsanna runs a blog entitled Are They All Yours–a reference to her nine children. She mainly uses this page to share snippets and photos of Anderson family life, offers cooking, baking and health tips and explains how to live frugally. We also learn that Mrs. Anderson teaches her children basic German, but not Hungarian, as she is too rusty in her mother tongue, even though she cherishes her old Hungarian children’s books and has introduced some of them to her readers. One issue that she has written about at some length is women’s suffrage. Mrs. Anderson believes that women should not vote and she explains her position like this:
“Most anyone would agree that in a democratic republic such as the US, the voting citizens are the final authority, not some monarch or ruling class (at least in theory). Hence, I do not wish to be part of the voting pool, because I do not believe it is right for women to be in charge…Having women rulers/politicians is mentioned as a curse in the Bible. I DO NOT support any women politicians. They are way outside the natural role that God intended for them, and as such, are not qualified. It is not because women are inferior or less intelligent. They simply fulfill a different role. Man was created by God for a certain purpose, and so was woman. If each fulfilled his God-given role, they would be happier in life, and our society would greatly benefit. I wonder if Sarah Palin would have chosen to stay at home and rear her own children rather than run for political office if it would have saved her daughter from being a single teen mom.”
This brand of fundamentalist Christianity is still rare in Hungarian society. Nearly all practicing Catholics, Calvinists or Lutherans in Hungary would balk at many of the beliefs espoused by the Andersons. Though, of course, even in American Christianity, Mr. Anderson’s preaching is seen as extreme. It also seems to bolster the argument against the private interpretation of scripture, especially when the one doing the interpreting neglects context, history, historical soci0-cultural realities and the complexities of translation and language.
Steven Anderson is what you can call well over the top in many of his beliefs. But his opinion of the ‘Holocaust,’ with a capital H is one of the only things Mr. Anderson is correct about. Anyone who still believes… [MODERATED.]
[Some 600,000 Hungarians were killed in the Holocaust. We cannot tolerate Holocaust denial on this site. — The moderator]
Anderson (Reverend ??) appers to be a sanctimonious ingrate with a mindset stuck in the middle ages, – similar asperations of ISIS minded Muslims in the quest for long aspired Califate. Optimistically, people like Anderson will wear out their welcome mat among 21st century headsets. It is a free country to be a jackass of choice. It is sad that Steven missed the core of Christ’s message he deeply wants to bring forth of “love thy neighbor”.
Not much of a Hungarian connection. The language and some beliefs of this dangerous jerk are pretty close to those of some Hun mad dogs (one promptly popped up here), but the extreme right and the clerico fascists everywhere share these. Is his fathering of nine children an attempt to suppress a homosexual drive, another Ted Haggard?
I think he is trying to reach Hungarian audiences. He subtitled one of his films into Hungarian:
Good luck with that “reaching”. We have enough deplorables masquerading as priests of various denominations. But who knows, after Maria Schmidt & co invited Milo Y ….who btw is a very nice guy compared to this jerk.
I have noticed that the more viciously anti-gay people like this are, the higher the probability that they are what they hate. There are numerous examples over the past few years. This guy is a homosexuality, although he may be repressing his desires … but for how long.
“I think he is trying to reach Hungarian audiences.”
Interesting. His views would certainly tie in with many of the pro-Fidesz journalists (Echo TV, Magyar Idok, Magyar Hirlap, Bayer and his ilk).
Indeed it is not mentioned in the piece but I guess his attitude towards “mixed race” relationships would be similar to that of PM Orban?
I wonder if he has actually visited (ie been permitted to visit) Hungary?
Whatever he may be, or whatever he, or any one else in this world may think or feel, has the very same right.
And whatever any one, or even every reader may think, his, and any one else’s right is guaranteed in any free society.
Yes, even to be weird, or gay, or whatever else. No one is in need of your or any one’s approval.
As long as that does not limit, obstruct or harm any one else’s basic rights.
Accept of course in a totalitarian (am I allowed to say; international socialist) society.
There is much speculation on the internet that “Pastor” Anderson is indeed a closeted gay man. And prior examples have shown that men who are so viscerally angry at homosexuals, those who drown in their own rage at the gay community, are perhaps most angry at themselves and struggle to live a lie. Only Steven Anderson knows the truth about his own sexual orientation, of course, but maybe it would be helpful for him to engage in some honest self-reflection on the root causes of his rage.
No doubt Anderson would be one of those who the Donald would list among the good ones in the Neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville. He and his wife, along with Bendy-goose are made for each other. Love is not only free – it’s also blind.
Steven Anderson expresses publicly that he is not a Donald supporter. But he is a KJV Bible supporter.
Ha ha. Wow. Another grossly inaccurate article but that’s no surprise because the target audience recycle lies to try to defend their perverse dysfunctional lifestyle.
From the very first paragraph this author is full of it. He claims that pastor Anderson never preaches of Jesus and forgiveness.
Say what? I guess this author fast forwards through the 99% of the sermons which are about soul winning, which is the focus of the church, and dwells on the 1% which is about the wicked Sodomite agenda.
That’s ok. While you and your miserable audience stay behind your keyboards and exaggerate your numbers within the population, we at Faithful Word Baptist and the like-minded churches will continue to knock the doors and give the gospel.
BTW… You have to knock a lot of doors to find a same sex couple. Your true population is sub 1%.
But sadly you’ve got a lot of ignorant people brainwashed to support your agenda (which you’ve wrongly associated to the piles of black equal rights) so at least we can and do wake some of those people up to realize the filthy satanists that you are.
Yeah. I’ve sure you’ll censor this post as you do to anyone who dropped some truth here.
Truth is hate to those that hate the truth.
Dear God, Guts and Glory:
Sweetie, did you ever learn the following verses in Sunday school at your strip mall church?
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? (Matthew 7:1-3, NRSVCE)
and
“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” (John 14:2, NRSVCE)
Verse 5 says for you to take the speck out of your own eye FIRST and THEN you can see clearly to take the log out of someone’s eye. Jesus says judge, but ensure that you are not judging hypocritcally first.
Dear Lanark,
First off read the real bible which is the KJV and not your HIV bible. second here is a list of scriptures telling us to judge. John 7:24 1 Corinthians 2:15-16, 1 Corinthians 5:3, 12, 1 Corinthians 6:5, 1 Corinthians 14:29, 2 Corinthians 11:1-4, Ephesians 5:11, 2 Peter 2:1, John 4:1, Revelation 2:2, 1 John 2:18-20. and third shut your mouth, you obviously don’t read the bible for your self but regurgitate what people tell you. your an idiot.
OMG!
As I thought, some psychos there.
The movie mentioned above, has just recently been DUBBED into Hungarian already:
Gee Gee:
God, Guns, Guts and Glory ? Perhaps you meant to say Gory instead of Glory ? I sure as hell would not send my kids to Sunday school with fanatics like you, who use God’s name as a lubricant for spreading your perverted, inhuman fantasies. Why don’t you come clean, and send Mr. Trump an inflatable doll rather than provide cover for his sinful behavior ?
How the hell did this article about Anderson who does not like Trump BTW, become about trump?
It would be appropriate for decent residents of Tempe, Arizona to picket this horrendous church. Anderson is engaging in the most vile hate speech and his followers, apparently rotten to the core, are soaking up every minute of this. But at minimum, SOMEONE NEEDS TO CALL CHILDREN’S AID, because there is no excuse to have children exposed to this type of violent and abusive language, yet we know from Andersons videos and from photos, that children are present during his preaching every Sunday.
SHAMEFUL! Arizona children’s aid authorities–it’s time to act!
Pastor Anderson is accurate concerning what the bible says about homosexuals. I would expect the homosexuals to have a big problem with him, but it is really sad when people call themselves Christians, then deny the bible and those who preach it. We’re supposed to be hated by the world for preaching the word of God, but not our supposed brethren. Any preacher who is not hated by the world and the compromised “Christian” should probably step down and let the big boys do the job that needs to be done. He who hates nothing loves nothing. If you love one thing, you will hate another. God hates all workers of iniquity, do you? If not, then you do not a person after God’s own heart.
Mr. Chri,
Regarding: “God hates all workers of iniquity, do you?”
On the Internet you can find thought-provoking scholarship around Biblical translations that result in the word “hate”.
A word must be interpreted consistently with the entirety of scripture. In this case, I cannot think of examples where Jesus encourages us to ‘hate’ in the way that word is used today. It would be an anomaly.
I will take one example: When Jesus says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters-yes, even their own life-such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26 NIV), He surely is not encouraging his followers to enjoy, nourish or wallow in intense anger and negativity towards one’s relatives. If He were, He would actually be wishing that we ourselves suffer, because “hate” is not a pleasant feeling for most people.
Rather, in this example Jesus is using a figure of speech to make the point that IF a choice must be made between God and one’s blood relatives, the former should far outshine the latter. I believe He meant we should distance ourself from anything that really holds us back from Him. And we should.
Likewise, the passage you cited cannot possibly mean that Jesus approbates our wallowing in negative, derisive feelings about those we consider “workers of iniquity”. For one thing, Jesus Himself did not demonstrate hatred towards those who were ‘off track’ (sinning). Rather, He approached them, tried to establish a rapport that reminded the individual of their intrinsic value, AND invited him/her to repentance. This pattern is repeated over and over and over in the New Testament. Surely Jesus would not encourage us to an approach entirely different from the one He himself took.
Finally, the idea of “workers of iniquity” is one that I leave to the judgment of God himself. I cannot know all the factors that lead an individual to demonstrate a given behavior, nor can I ascertain the degree to which the person is responsible for those influences, nor can I factor in the motivations of that person’s heart because I do not see it. This equation is far beyond my capacity, so I entrust it to God.
Here is another example: I knew someone who, although charismatic and kind in many ways, had also engaged in deceit in business, legal and personal affairs. I observed this for many years until the individual was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Then, he sought rebaptism and spent the rest of his life trying to address the prior, problematic lifestyle, meanwhile preparing for death.
By the end of his life, it seemed he had squarely faced his regrets and had sought forgiveness. He had reversed most of the shady dealings, but not all. He died surrounded by Christians and said he was not afraid.
After he passed, his acquaintances learned that this man had been raised in a family that not only praised him for finding ways to get one over on the system, but also they became very angry with him if he “was stupid enough to let go of his money” via legitimate taxes, debt repayment, or fair distribution to a business partner or spouse. In other words, he was raised with reverse conditioning to the message of Christ, and very strongly so. They even seemed angry that, by dying, he could no longer provide extra income to them.
So here is my question to you: When he was alive, should we have hated him as a “worker of iniquity”, maligned him, avoided him, and denigrated him? Or might it be true that our having stayed near him, respectfully called him to the carpet for his misdealings, and shown him love to the very end helped lead him to Christ? If all Christians had abandoned him while he was “working for iniquity”, how would he have known what to do when he was ready to stop that work? Or would he have ever become ready?
I especially ask that you think of this in terms of what we learned about his family after he died. Upbringing is not an excuse for wrong behavior. However, only after he died did we, his acquaintances, comprehend how far God had brought this man. He had started with Pavolvian training into corruption administered by HIS PRIMARY CARETAKERS. As a child he would have felt that his very survival depended on compliance. And by the end of his life he realized he had been serving the wrong master (money and his family’s demands for same), and he rejected that in favor of Christ, even standing up to his family about these matters.
I see dumb people and wise people!
Read the bible from Genesis to Revelation,and,after speak about Christian believes! Crazy article,stupidity really causes blindness!
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Julia G. Stone: Hate is a normal emotion, and Jesus did indeed hate.
Revelation 2:5-6, where Jesus is speaking:
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.
Here he is in an emotional agreement with the Ephesians, that of hate.
As I said above, the Greek and Hebrew words that translate to “hate” in English are heavily debated among scholars. I maintain that nowhere in Scripture does Jesus encourage us to hate in the sense of having negative, festering, disparaging emotions towards others.
When they translate Jesus’ words into the English “hate”, the meaning is to reject or eschew. There is no linguistic or contextual implication that we should allow our hearts to wallow in the darkness described by the English word “hate”.
I can’t believe Christians even argue about this. The thing that was so amazing about Christ – the thing that caused people to flock to Him and listen to Him, and change their lives for Him, and that caused Nicodemus to give Him his own tomb – is that He approached the depravity of the human heart in a way no one had before. He addressed sinfulness head on, and called on everyone to face their transgressions and repent, regardless of their nationality or social status or denomination or anything else. But his manner of doing this was divinely unique: He did it with honesty, and love, and connection, and courage and intellect and wisdom. He interacted with individuals and with groups large and small. He sometimes withdrew on his own. He used scripture so astutely that even at age 12 he had a captive audience of trained Jewish scholars. Beyond all this lie a grander plan, which was to demonstrate his love by allowing himself to be sacrificed, i.e. to submit to something incredibly dark and frightening in order to save us. I don’t profess to understand how that equation works, I just believe that it does and I stand on the fact that it was an act of love.
This man, Jesus Christ, whom I have come to know through scripture, prayer, fellowship, study and worship, was not a hatemonger. It shouldn’t even be up for discussion.
“For God so LOVED the world that he gave his only begotten son…” John 3:16
“For God so LOVED the world that he gave his only begotten son…” John 3:16
That’s right LOVED .. which is in the past tense form. God at one point in time loved everyone, but if they are yet redeemed and “… knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”(Romans 1:21), there is a point where he will give them up and they are reprobate or rejected. Who did the darkening? God did.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient (Romans 1:28).
This is my final admonition.
@ Thought Crimes:
I resolutely reject your admonition. Not only do you have a faulty understanding of verb tenses (I doubt you even know what I’m referring to here), but more importantly you and I don’t know the same God. I will always advocate for the massive outpouring of love attributed to the Christ of the New Testament, Who has also manifest in my life and in others’ over the centuries.
@Andras Gollner
1.) If you are suggesting that I have not adequately studied the origins, history, apologetics and tenets of my faith, or that I’m not capable of evaluating those, then you are wrong on both points.
2.) I am well aware of the use of the word Logos in the Greek original of the introduction to the Gospel of John. I disagree that this homologue weakens the text. Rather, “Logos” was a brilliant choice that cleverly served the author’s purposes and adds richness to the text.
3.) I love the Bee Gees and always appreciate a reminder to tune in. Will do so right away 🙂 Although my personal favorite is one of their love songs. Take care.
Julia, did your Mom ever tell you never to trust everything that you read ? I also love what John has to say, but I would not bet my mortgage on it. What I love most about the Baptist is this: “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God” Isn’t that super ? I bet my mortgage, that it was this line that gave birth to the “linguistic turn” in philosophy á la Wittgenstein, Russel, and later, that of Derrida, Lacan Lyotard, Baudrillard, and the other post-modern wunder-kinds. Listen to the song “Words” by the Bee Gees, and then see how you feel.