Steven Anderson Is a False Teacher Who Believes and Preaches a False Gospel

For various reasons, Steven Anderson has risen to national prominence over the last five or ten years from his home in Tempe, Arizona.  I understand his popularity.  He is very good at self-promotion and in these postmodern times, Anderson speaks with absolute certainty.  I am certain too, that Anderson is a false teacher who believes and preaches a false gospel.  He does not preach a biblical, true, or historical gospel.

Steven Anderson purports to be the pastor of the Faithful Word Baptist Church.  I give zero credence or recognition to that as a church.  It is not faithful word.  It isn't faithful, nor is it based upon the Word of God.  It is built upon a false gospel.  It can't be truly Baptist or a church, because historic Baptists have preached repentance as necessary for salvation and since the church is built upon the gospel, it can't be a church either.  I feel sorry for him and his adherents.

Whatever Anderson might be known for, his holocaust denial, the pre-wrath rapture doctrine, his King James Bible position, those cower in the face of the false gospel he preaches and he encourages others to preach.  He calls this preaching, soulwinning, which is also false.  Anderson also operates the repentance blacklist online, where he lists men he knows are preaching repentance as necessary for salvation, as part of the message of the gospel.  Anderson preaches against repentance for salvation; therefore, he leads people to hell, making them twice the children of hell they once were.  Let Steven Anderson be accursed.

I'm dealing with Steven Anderson here and now, because of his growing influence in the country.  I hear about him now all the time.  Many receive offers by email from the film business associated with him, Framing the World.  The films made by Paul Wittenberger have also advanced his false teaching everywhere.  There is a unique mix to his teaching that is attractive and possesses enough truth, that looks legitimate, so it works as a counterfeit.  He understands the power of film and especially for today's audience, which grew up on television and movies.

Anderson teaches that repentance is a work and is only for people after they are already saved.  He uses many of the same bad arguments that false teacher, Jack Hyles, did, and he uses Hyles extensively on his repentance blacklist website.  There were a lot of Hyles fans while Hyles was alive.  People who liked Hyles could also like Anderson.  The Hyles movement was huge in its day and still exists in many different factions.  The old Hyles supporters might embrace Anderson, because he takes many of the same positions that Hyles did before he died.

The false gospel of Anderson has been called different names through the years, since Jack Hyles perfected it -- easy believism, easy prayerism, or 1-2-3-pray-with-me.  Once someone has prayed the prayer, Anderson counts the person as saved, and then, even if the person never shows fruit of salvation, says he has eternal security -- once saved, always saved.  He is pushing the same methodology all over the country, continuing to scorch the earth for anyone who wishes to preach a true gospel.

The hermeneutic for Anderson's false gospel could be called, exegesis for morons.  He is depending on a certain amount of simpleness and superficiality and gullibility in his listeners to swallow his garbage.  When you open up his repentance blacklist website, it greets you with two minutes of a sermon, what he might consider to be his prize argument, his most devastating point in very succinct fashion, starting and really buttressing his teaching on Jonah 3:10:

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Anderson says that God saw their works, and their works were that they turned from their evil way.  He says that turning from your evil way is works, and people are saved without works.  That's major for him.

If you were just even slightly curious, you could push back against Anderson's argument there, and ask, if that's so bad, then why is God happy about it?  What?  Why is God happy that the Ninevites turned from their evil way if God doesn't find that acceptable?  God repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them, when they turned from their evil way.  Shouldn't God have been angry over their self righteousness?  If they were really working to be saved, as Anderson is saying, then why would God have averted His destruction of them?

Anderson doesn't explore this any further in his little presentation.  He just pulls out this small disjointed observation to piece together with other verses to pound into people his false gospel that tries to rid the message of repentance.  He wants that.  He doesn't want people repenting.  If you follow him out further, no one needs to ever repent to be saved.  It just doesn't work if you care at all about what the Bible says.

Steven Anderson says, as if his salvation teaching is some elevated position with the exclusion of repentance, that he sees it as faith alone and not works.  I say faith alone too, if it is in fact faith.  True faith would include repentance, which is not a work.  Faith means something, or, believe means something.  It is not mere acquiescence to facts, for instance.  It is more than just "trust" too, although trust is included.  As well, it must be faith in Christ, belief in Christ (Jn 20:30-31).  Christ is the Messiah, He is King, He is Lord, the Lord of Psalm 2.  Anderson removes that from the identity of Jesus so that Jesus is not Lord, and he replaces it with the strawman, "making Jesus Lord," as if he's quoting someone who thinks that, so that believing in Lordship is a work.  Jesus is Lord, but believing in Jesus Christ, must be Christ.  Anderson has a different Jesus, because He removes the Lordship (Messiahship) of Jesus so someone can have Jesus as Savior without His being Lord.  He will find a lot of sympathy unfortunately in that major omission and perversion among those who claim to be independent Baptist.  What I'm saying is that Anderson doesn't really actually preach belief in Jesus, because his Jesus is another Jesus and his belief isn't belief.

This post is not intended to deal with everything bad about what Anderson preaches on repentance.  There is plenty on that.  It's really to be clear about who this man is and what he teaches.  He is wrong and he should not be heeded or followed.  Run away from him as fast as possible.