If you have read any of my articles or listened to a podcast, you have no doubt recognized that I am speaking out specifically against the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) churches. For those who are not familiar with the IFB, I will clarify that, while the organization shares many basic beliefs with the traditional Baptists, they are very different both in practice and application. I am not anti-Baptist. I am a Baptist and a member of a Baptist church. My protest is specific to the IFB and New IFB churches.
The IFB churches are, by name, independent, meaning that each church is independently governed and does not have a higher denominational structure. Even so, the churches that identify themselves with the IFB acronym have many similarities. A few notable similarities are 1.) adherence to King James only position, 2.) pastors with a very high level of authority and control within the church, 3.) similar “standards” or rules for dress and daily living, but most concerning is the consistent patterns of abuse of women and children that pervades the churches.
There are about 6,000 churches identifying themselves as Independent Fundamental Baptist. In 2005, Pastor Steven Anderson jump-started the New IFB movement from his church, Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona. The New IFB has about 30 churches in the US, most of those being founded in the last 5 years. They maintained most of the IFB theology but add hatred of the LGBTQ and the Jewish people. While the Baptist churches as a whole would recognize homosexuality and trangenderism as sin, the New IFB takes an extreme position, as stated by Jonathan Shelley, a Texas based New IFB pastor,
“I wish every fag and tranny would kill themselves right now. All of them. And if they won’t kill themselves, you know what? Our government should take them out and stone them to death. I’m not going to apologize for wanting all these people to be put to death. It’s wonderful. It’s righteous. It’s great.”
Following the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, the gay nightclub in Orlando, FL, in which 49 people were murdered and another 50 were injured, multiple New IFB pastors applauded the gunman. Steven Anderson said the following in a sermon meant to celebrate the deaths:
“the good news is that there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles.”
New IFB pastor, Roger Jimenez echoed Anderson’s words at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, CA:
“I think that’s great. I think that helps society…The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is—I’m kind of upset that he didn’t finish the job. I wish the government would round them all up, put them against a firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out.”
Homosexuals are not the only target of murderous rage. The antisemitic script preached by the New IFB pastors is more of the same hate. New IFB pastor, Adam Fannin, verbally attacked Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman in a video clip that went viral:
“[Silverman] is a witch. She is a jezebel. She is a God-hating whore of Zionism. I hope that God breaks her teeth out, she dies. She is a wicked person. And she is, like, the perfect representation of religious Judaism.”
Additionally church leaders deny the Holocaust. Steven Anderson asserted that Holocaust survivors, who recall Jews being burned in crematoriums are “paid liars”, who’s purpose in lying was to justify creating the State of Israel. Fannin clarifies the position of the New IFB saying,
“There is a group that claims to be Jewish today. They’re of the Devil. They’re literally of Satan. They are doing the Devil’s work.”
But the condemnation isn’t limited to those outside their church. It is targeted within as well. Here are some sermon excerpts demonstrating the low value they place on women:
From Bruce Mejia, Faithful Word Baptist Church, El Monte, CA
“Don’t let your wife work…Much of adultery that takes place in marriage is when a woman is working out in the world. That happens all the time. Why? Because women are weak. I’m not downplaying them. It’s a fact. It’s in the Bible. They are the weaker vessel…That’s why my daughter will never work. Ever. I mean she’ll work at the house, but she’s never gonna work a secular job. Over my dead body would I ever allow my daughter to work a secular job. Why? Because my daughter’s gonna be weak. She’s a woman. She’s weak.”
From Grayson Fritts, All Scripture Baptist Church, Knoxville, TN
“Very early on it is drilled in little girls’ heads that they’re equal with boys: ‘you can do anything you want, you’re just as good as a boy.’ They have their gender identity blurred from birth…God wants women to get married, to have children, and to guide the house. That is what he says. And to say that ‘God wants your little girl to be a softball start, God wants your little girl to be an astronaut, God wants your little girl to be a senator’ is to spit in the face of God.”
From Steven Anderson, Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, AZ
“Today we have ‘women’s rights’…What do you think they mean when they say women’s rights?…The right to rebel and disobey your husband, the right to divorce him, the right to go out and get a job and make your own money, the right to tell him what to do, the right to vote for our leaders-as if women should have any say in how our country is run.”
I could fill pages with hateful quotes uttered from New IFB pastors, but I believe this is enough to understand their position. While these offensive quotes may not be publicly endorsed by the “old” IFB, it is not hard to understand how a person immersed in IFB teaching could be drawn into the New IFB.
IFB pastor, Paul Chappell, holds the women in his congregation responsible for the thoughts and action of men, even insinuating that men will be incapable of being godly if women are not covered;
“I’ve counseled too many men to know that if we don’t have everything covered just right, they aren’t going to be thinking about the wonderful grace of Jesus.”
This is a commonly held position in the IFB. Dress standards are passed down from the pulpit to instruct women how to dress so as not to be responsible for the sins of men. Bill Gothard, the founder of the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP), an organization accused of “raising little predators”, taught male superiority and female obedience. He is accused of sexually harassing over 40 young girls, some of whom he was “counseling” for sexual abuse. He taught girls to see the “blessings” in sexual assault. Ironically, the young ladies that he is accused of sexually abusing were, in fact, dressed in the manner he prescribed for ensuring the sexual purity of men.
Another public disgrace to come out of the IBLP, is Josh Duggar, oldest son of the TV reality show, 19 and Counting. Duggar’s admission of sexual abuse against his sisters had almost faded from public view, when he was arrested for possessing child pornography. As if that were not enough, it became public that he had video of an infant being tortured and sexually abused. Josh Duggar is a father of six and public advocate for Christian values.
The IFB has a sick preoccupation with sexuality. Jack Schaap, once pastor at First Baptist Church in Hammond, IN was known for surprisingly, shockingly sexual sermons. In one such vulgar sermon, entitled the Polished Shaft, he simulated masturbation. In front of an audience, including thousands of teenagers, he moved the bottom of a long stick near his groin and angled it away from himself. Head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth gaping, he began rubbing the shaft rapidly with a silver cloth, up and down, up and down...all the while a row of high-ranking church leaders sit in their suits on the stage in silence.
One member said of Schaap’s preaching,
“it was so vulgar sometimes that it was just a grief to my spirit.”
Tom Brennan, an IFB pastor who attended Schaap’s church for six years said,
“He would just repeatedly talk about sex and repeatedly talk about women, how they were dressed and body parts… in graphic detail.”
I hesitated to include this next quote because of it’s offensive nature, but I want to demonstrate the true depravity of this leader. Schaap wrote a book called, The Divine Intimacy, in which he likens the Lord’s Supper and salvation itself to the sexual relationship between man and woman. Many statements from the book are too graphic and vile to quote, but consider this excerpt:
“When a person takes the bread during the Lord’s Supper he is not actually eating Christ’s body. That person is saying, This element represents something. The person who deeply loves Christ understands that when he receives Christ as Savior it is a spiritual intercourse. A person receives the body of Christ. A Christian is the female gender in this spiritual realm and God is the male gender of the spiritual realm. When a person receives Christ as Savior he is receiving Christ as as lover” (page 51).
I doubt it will come as a surprise to hear that Jack Schaap was sentenced to 12 years in prison for taking a 16 year old girl across state lines to have sex with her. Also, not surprising is that he blamed the victim for his actions. He is far from the first or last IFB pastor to blame a child for his own criminal sexual behavior. One girl’s parents stood in front of her Connecticut congregation to accuse their daughter of sin after she was sexually abused by the youth pastor.
Both Jack Hyles (of Hyles-Anderson College) and his son David Hyles have faced accusations of adultery and child sex abuse. Both men also had their start at First Baptist Church in Hammond, the largest IFB church. More recently, Jordan Webb, an IFB missionary, also connected to this church was sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexual abuse and incest, in which he gave a four year old gonorrhea.
This church is a model to smaller churches in many ways, but not the least being sexual sin, shifting blame and cover-up. In 2018, the Fort Worth-Star Telegram launched an investigation into sexual misconduct in IFB churches in 40 states. There was an astonishing 412 accusations of abuse in nearly 200 churches. In all, 168 leaders faced abuse allegations and more than 130 have been found guilty of rape, kidnapping and sexual assault, with most victims being children. Many of those convicted were pastors and some very prominent in the IFB churches.
IFB pastor, Paul Chappell acknowledged:
“When a spiritual leader or a church refers a fallen pastor to another church, it is fair to blame those who knowingly referred him.
While those words are certainly true, the reality is far different. IFB pastors admitted that they have shuffled suspected abusers among churches instead of calling law enforcement for years. At least 45 abusers in this study were moved to another IFB church and continued in ministry. One music pastor, who molested a young girl in North Carolina is an example of this. He was simply moved to another IFB church in Florida, where he was free to victimize again.
The convictions included a pastor who raped 11 girls in his congregation and a youth pastor convicted of sexually assaulting girls in the youth group. One pastor, Pastor Matthew Patterson, formerly of the Nolensville Road Baptist Church in Nashville, was arrested on eight counts of aggravated sexual battery, with each count representing a different child. This abuse spanned two decades in IFB churches. Following his arrest, IFB parents reported “weird” behavior from Pastor Patterson towards their children, including asking children to sit on his face and stomach, sometimes in only underwear. A pattern of sexually inappropriate behavior that had been ignored for many years emerged following his arrest.
I could fill pages and pages with reports of abuse from IFB pastors and organizations. Among those, Lester Roloff and the Roloff homes for troubled teenagers, that were known for their strict and often abusive methods of discipline and rehabilitation. These homes, which included Rebekah Home for Girls, Roloff Homes for Boys, and Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises, were accused of various abusive practices.
IFB leaders are not unaware of he reputation they have. Todd Cook, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of Bensenville, IL, whose two children attended Camp Joy, an IFB camp where two church volunteers abused young girls. says,
“Within our churches We are very aware this is becoming a public issue”
On a national level, it is estimated that only 12% of child sexual abuse is reported to the authorities. Now transfer that percentage into church cultures that are notorious for blaming the victim, hiding the abuse and protecting predators. Those that courageously come forward and report to law enforcement are a small fraction of the abused population.
There is a core belief within the IFB teaching that is essential to the control and spiritual manipulation of the congregation. That belief is that each pastor, at each independent church, is the highest authority in the life of the church members. The pastor’s authority is complete. The following is from a statement of faith copied directly from the church website at Anchor Baptist Church in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina:
For purposes of the Church’s faith, doctrine, practice, policy, and discipline, our Pastor and Board of Trustees are the Church’s final interpretative authority of the Bible’s meaning and application.
The “final interpretive authority” for this church is not God-it is a man. A man or group of men has usurped God’s authority and made themselves the final word. They have freedom to twist Scripture, misinterpret the meaning and apply it in whatever way they chose. The church is the bride of Christ-they have stolen the bride for themselves because ultimately they want the glory due God. John 14:23 says:
For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
Isn’t this the same sin we see at the very beginning in Genesis? Satan, the serpent, tempted Eve with the same false promise-you can be as wise as God. Pastors that grant themselves authority to mandate or enforce anything that God did not, are demonstrating that they believe God’s Word to be inadequate and their own knowledge to be superior to God’s.
The Bible does not require a man to mediate:
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. 1 Timothy 2:5-6
Not only is the Priesthood of the Believer a baptist distinctive, but it is a key element of the of the New Testament. Because of Jesus substitutionary death on the cross, sinners can can be forgiven and stand before a holy God as if they have never sinned. They can be sanctified through personal and direct relationship with God. The Bible is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12) and able to teach and correct (2 Timothy 3:16) it’s readers without interpretation from an intermediary.
It is an act of arrogant disobedience to elevate the authority of a man over God. Acts 5:29 says
But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than man.’
Galatians 1:10
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Not only is this self-imposed authority a sin for the pastor to demand, but it is a sin for the member to give. Christ-followers follow Christ and obey His Word. They have no higher authority than Him. Jesus could not have made it more clear than when He says of Himself in Matthew 28:18
Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’
The statement of “final interpretive authority” is not unique to Anchor Baptist Church, it is commonly taught by IFB churches. It is this teaching that has prevented so many victims and their families from reporting to the police and getting justice. It is this teaching that has stood in the way of them receiving truth from the Bible-truth that directly contradicts what is coming from the pulpit. They chose to remain under the pastors authority, even when it is contrary to the Bible.
The Bible is clear that we are to expose the “works of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11) and submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1). God has left no room for us to cover up criminal activity within a church. I believe that there are pastors who might say they do so out of a desire to protect God’s reputation, but it is in actuality a desire to protect their own. God wants our obedience (1 Samuel 15:22) and He is wiser than we are (Isaiah 55:8-9).
The hatred spewing from the pulpits against the LGBTQ does not reflect the heart of God. God doesn’t forbid homosexuality from a position of disgust, murderous rage, or hate. Quite the contrary, God established an order for the world He created and He urges His followers to live in the manner that He instituted for their good and for His glory. Not a single saved man or woman earned their redemption because of behavior they did or did not do. We all, regardless of our sexual sin or sexual purity, arrive as equals at the foot of the cross. The path to Jesus is very exclusive, but Jesus is very inclusive. He is not willing that any should perish. We cannot know who He has chosen to be His beloved for all eternity, so He gave us clear instruction of how we are to behave in this world. Luke 6:32-40 says:
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Jesus was Jew, and so were many of the authors who penned His inspired words contained in the Bible. It is ludicrous to imagine that anyone reading the Bible has concluded that God has declared the Jewish people to be a product of Satan. The love, discipline and protection of the Jewish people is a theme from beginning to end through the pages of the Bible. At the institution of the Israelite people, God said this of the Jewish people:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
In the New Testament, Paul clearly states that God has not rejected the Jewish people. Romans 11:1-2:
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
Many times throughout the Bible, God declares His love for the Jewish nation. They remain an important element throughout end time history. All-both Jews and gentiles-who come to faith in God must believe that Jesus is the Messiah, who paid the price for sin on the cross in place of sinners. The church, who has been commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), can hardly declare one nation to be excluded from the commission-at least not without elevating their own authority over God’s.
Finally, in response to the teaching of the church on the role of women, this is arguably one of the most pervasive and dangerous fundamental teaching in the IFB church. Dangerous because it is this harmful framework that opens children and women to unchecked abuse. I could fill many more pages on this issue, but I will limit myself to a brief response and expand more in future articles.
The assertion that a woman should never work outside the home and the claim that “it’s in the Bible” is a direct contradiction to the Bible. The Proverbs 31 women, who is a model for Christian womanhood is clearly a women who works secular jobs outside her home (Proverbs 31:16-18, 24). The Bible tells about women who worked in trade, agriculture, milling, shepherding, textiles, perfumery, cooking, midwifery, nursing, domestic service and mourning.
In the New Testament, women are recorded to be supporters Jesus ministry, as well as, valued friends. Lydia was a business woman, Demaris was an intellectual, Pheobe was a benefactor, Priscilla was a tent maker, Junia was a Jewish insider, to name a few.
Rahab’s military intelligence and courage earned her mention in the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1, along with three other women. Deborah was given the highest political position in the Israelite nation and God used her position as judge to bring a military victory. God used another women, Jael to drive a tent peg into the enemy commander and Esther saved the Israelite nation from extermination. God hasn’t chosen to exclude women from military and political victory.
There was a reference made to 1 Peter 3:7, where Peter refers to women as the “weaker vessel”. The meaning of “weaker” is in regard to physical strength. Men are to use their increased physical strength to protect and care for women. The Bible is meant to be understood as a whole, not broken into sections and twisted into weapons to diminish the value of half the population.
Over and over through the Bible, God demonstrates His deep love for all people. These pastors are in grave error and they are making a mockery of the true God. So much of their heinous behavior has happened on a public stage and the result is that the name of God has been slandered and blasphemed. I hesitate to even call myself Baptist because I don’t want any association with the IFB’s public image. It has been suggested to me that not all IFB churches are like this. Perhaps, but I have to wonder why they would want any association with the IFB movement. Romans 16:17 says
I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.
Proverbs 1:15 says of sinful men
My son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths;
Why am I speaking out against the Independent Fundamental Baptist churches? Because they are at best, misrepresenting God’s Word and character, and at worst, they are abusing thousands of children and protecting child abusers. Either way, this is an assault to the true kingdom of God and I can’t be silent. To put it into the words of famous preacher Charles Spurgeon:
When the devil opens his mouth in slander, it gives me the opportunity to ram the sword of truth down his throat.
