The Death Of The NIFB: An Op-Ed On The End Of The Anderson Era
Spanning the course of the last decade, few cults have been as captivating as the one headlined and pioneered by Pastor Steven L. Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona. Through valiant efforts, Anderson managed to establish an ensemble of so-called fundamental baptists that know a thing or two about how to keep a cult alive.
Rule number one above all else is never question the leader.
Think back to groups led by men such as David Koresh, Jim Jones, and Warren Jeffs — cult icons in their own right that proved to be both unforgettable and unforgiving.
L to R:
Pastor Jared Pozarnky, then-pastor Roger Jimenez
Beneath the practiced charm hides a spiritual den of grievous wolves looking to do anything they can to defame the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sake of going viral on the internet.
Both laymen and preachers alike found a home in the group created by Steven L. Anderson - but he didn’t lead this alone.
The New Independent Fundamental Baptist (NIFB) movement presents themselves as everyday Christians who want to follow the Bible simply as it is written and who are willing to actively oppose all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Foreign enemies were more obvious to spot — clear biblical outliers who never would be found within sitting distance of the pew or spitting distance of the preacher.
Domestic enemies were more subtle, with the preaching always aimed at making us feel like we might be next.
Accompanying Steven L. Anderson in his attempt to reach the world with the NIFB gospel was his long-time friend and counterpart Roger Otoniel Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento.
In the summer of 2016, a mass shooting took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida where Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and injured over 50 others — at the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
Data Courtesy of NPR (2016)
In that same summer, then-Pastor Roger Jimenez went infamously viral for encouraging the shooting.
Pastor Steven L. Anderson stood by his friend and doubled down on all of Jimenez’ comments while throwing of his own into the fire. Fueled by a hate aimed at their perpetual boogeyman, Anderson and Jimenez had the catalyst even that threw them fully into the spotlight.
To show their support, like-minded pastors joined in with Anderson and Jimenez by preaching in Sacramento at Verity Baptist Church together — this event would become memorialized annually as the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
As PR trained as they come, Roger Jimenez made a calculated appearance in front of the cameras while protests drowned out any noise from the outside world with all eyes on Verity Baptist Church.
Some wanted him to clarify his comments on the Orlando massacre, others wanted to give him ample space for an apology — instead, he chose the express lane to fame and made his bed in infamy.
In addition to amplifying their joy in the death of nearly 50 spiritual adversaries, Anderson and Jimenez continued to work together with preachers like David Berzins, Manly Perry, and Donnie Romero to circle the wagons in year two of the conference.
Their defiance reached international news, with Jimenez thanking the mainstream media for their “free publicity” before disappearing behind multiple security guards with his signature smirk on his face.
L to R
Former pastor Roger Jimenez with Pastor Bruce Mejia and Pastor Aaron Thompson
Collectively, the birth of this conference became a beacon of light within their dominion of independent fundamentalism — and the inflammatory preaching didn’t stop on the Orlando issue.
Instead, it ballooned into a safe space for Steven L. Anderson to use words like “faggot” and “homo” to get clicks on the internet. Dressed in his Sunday best, Anderson also preached on his fear of sodomites regularly to the point where it wasn’t precautionary preaching — it was full-blown paranoia.
Scripture is abundantly clear on sin — especially sodomy, homosexuality, and so on — but scripture also reminds us as believers that we were not given a spirit of fear.
And when the mask falls off, you come to find out that’s all Steven L. Anderson and company ever had in their pocket.
L to R:
Delfin Bruce Mejia, Jim Wiebe, Aaron Thomson, David Berzins, Steven L. Anderson, Roger Jimenez, Jonathan Shelley
In no uncertain terms, the Red Hot Preaching Conference was the equivalent to a fundamental Baptist championship game.
For those who grew up in or around fundamentalist churches that derived from Jack Hyles, the NIFB was branded as a way to fix areas where the “Old IFB” fell off doctrinally.
Sermonettes at the Red Hot Preaching Conference centered around subjects like sodomy, idolatry, and inspiration to become or remain part of the group — as you can imagine, their egos inflated enough to the point where they became an isolated cool kids club.
Under the shadow of Anderson, Roger Jimenez gave the impression that he had fully arrived in terms of the Christian life. On the surface, you see a spirited man with a smiling family and a shining church.
That’s because it’s all he ever wanted you to see.
Former pastor Roger Jimenez
In a world framed by the every breath of Steven L. Anderson, the NIFB began to expand outside of the scope of the few founding members of the conference.
In due time, Steven L. Anderson would go on to ordain David Berzins, Bruce Mejia, Corbin Ressl, Donnie Romero, and Jonathan Shelley.
Jonathan Shelley would also ordain Salvador Alvarez and Dillon Awes into the ministry.
Likewise, Roger Jimenez ordained Aaron Thompson, Matthew Stucky, Jared Pozarnsky and Joe Jones.
Each of these ordinations carried their own slice of the NIFB rhetoric into new territory while maintaining the claim that they were completely independent churches acting of their own accord.
Pastor David Berzins was sent out to start Word of Truth Baptist Church in Northern Arizona before relocating to Georgia where he is currently the pastor of Strong Hold Baptist Church.
Delfin Bruce Mejia
Pastor Bruce Mejia was sent out to start First Works Baptist Church in El Monte before relocating to Anaheim.
Pastor Corbin Ressl was sent out to start Straight Paths Baptist Church in Tucson.
Former pastor Donnie Romero was leading Stedfast Baptist Church in Texas before Jonathan Shelley was installed by Steven L. Anderson.
Pastor Aaron Thompson was sent out to start Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Vancouver and has since also planted several churches under the Sure Foundation umbrella and NIFB network.
Pastor Matthew Stucky was sent to the Philippines to start a Verity branch overseas that has recently rebranded to Soulwinning Baptist Church.
Pastor Jared Pozarnsky was sent out to start Hold Fast Baptist Church in Fresno before returning to Verity Baptist Church following the disqualification of Roger Jimenez.
Pastor Joe Jones was sent out to start Shield of Faith Baptist Church in Boise and has since rebranded to Heritage of Grace Bible Church.
2024 Red Hot Preaching Conference
Seen as the central command center of the New IFB because of the Red Hot Preaching Conference, Verity Baptist Church grew in stature to the point where leadership began to display signs of feeling untouchable.
According to both former members and former leaders at Verity Baptist Church, the culture of fear, shame, and secret sin began to manifest after Roger Jimenez moved the church to a $4-million, four-acre property in the heart of California’s capitol.
The move was Jimenez’ chance to finally gain clout for himself without needing to be the right-hand-man to Steven L. Anderson — and the change in his approach with people spoke volumes about that shift.
For Verity Baptist Church to complete this move successfully, Roger Jimenez needed to secure incremental amounts of funding through donations to the church — one of the main ways that Jimenez accomplished this was through a special time of giving that he called the “Vision Offering.”
“Banned Pastor” is an account representing Pastor Jonathan Shelley (Stedfast Baptist Church)
During these specific calls to go above and beyond in giving, then-pastor Jimenez pulled in an excessive amount of resources. According to public testimony by Pastor Stucky, Jimenez was able to pull this off in large part due to a misrepresentation to the donors.
This misrepresentation played out where Roger Jimenez made it appear as though donations earmarked for Pastor Stucky and the church in the Philippines would go towards their congregation and overseas efforts.
In both a recent sermon and podcast appearance, Pastor Stucky details what he describes as “illegal” behavior from Roger Jimenez by way of “missions fraud” in excess of $100,000.
According to Pastor Stucky, then-pastor Jimenez violated regulatory laws that would include California Penal Code §503 in addition to a direct breach of his fiduciary duties owed to the donors.
Without settling this outstanding debt to Pastor Stucky, Pastor Jared Pozarnsky, who is now the leader at Verity Baptist Church, has agreed to a private deal where money will still be sent to the Philippines but without paying it all back at once.
In the meantime, Pastor Pozarnsky is now soliciting a new “Vision Offering” for Verity Baptist Church and claiming similar language including ongoing overseas missionary efforts. Pastor Pozarnsky has also stated from the pulpit that both Roger Jimenez and Oliver Gonzalez were aware of the donation fraud and that it wasn’t addressed until he took over the church.
Pastor Stucky further shared concerns surrounding how Roger Jimenez was dispersing large checks from donors intending to give towards Stucky’s church — one of those donors being Pastor Jonathan Shelley.
According to the email exchanges with then-pastor Roger Jimenez, Pastor Stucky recalls Jimenez telling him that instead of paying what was due at the time to the overseas church that Jimenez reserved the right to use funds from the allocated account at Wells Fargo for events and activities at his sole discretion.
Despite Jimenez trying to separate from the NIFB and from Steven L. Anderson before resigning, the fraud allegations create a problem for the group when the amount of control and influence that Anderson has on sister churches is properly weighed.
Following the resignation of Jimenez, Pastor Anderson demanded to be the one to decide who would take over at Verity Baptist Church with Pastor Shelley echoing those sentiments. Anderson even went as far as to call Oliver Gonzalez and demand that a NIFB-leaning pastor be put in place.
In addition to the alleged fraud taking place at Verity Baptist Church under Roger Jimenez, a leadership whistleblower has come forward from Stedfast Baptist Church with documentation they describe as proof of potential criminal activity involving the finances of the church.
These allegations include potential violations of Texas Penal Code §32.45, a state statute that defines criminal violations of fiduciary duty.
Beyond that, in October of 2025, I broke fellowship with First Works Baptist Church and specifically Pastor Mejia because of the fact that he had began defending the use of domestic violence in the home against women.
Both Pastor Shelley and Pastor Anderson had preached that domestic violence was an appropriate response to a rebellious wife and even went as far as to push the idea that marital rape was condoned by the Bible.
My concerns to Pastor Mejia were brought up through text message ahead of his trip to be a guest preacher at Stedfast Baptist Church and in those messages I shared that I was disturbed with the direction of the movement and that I was breaking fellowship specifically for that reason.
Pastor Bruce Mejia and Pastor Aaron Thompson
As a result, Pastor Mejia told me I was not allowed to leave but instead that he was going to kick me out of the church for “railing” and that he would publicly mark me from the pulpit when he got back.
During one of his sermons in Texas, he alluded to our October conversation and mocked me for bringing it up to him.
As controversial as Pastor Anderson has been throughout the years, marital rape and domestic violence were not core doctrines of the group and only became doctrines of the group after Anderson’s four eldest children spoke out publicly against him in late 2024 with those specific accusations.
These testimonies led to broken fellowship across the NIFB, including amongst multiple pastors separating completely from anything to do with Steven L. Anderson.
Pastor Mejia had maintained that First Works Baptist Church would remain independent even if that meant breaking ties with Anderson. When that proved to be false, I made the decision to walk away from the movement that I’d been a part of for the last eight years.
In January, an article was written by me about allegations of inappropriate behavior by then-pastor Roger Jimenez.
He called me the day after my article was published, calling me a terrorist, a reprobate, and promising that he’d be suing me. Since the article was based only on public testimony of a woman who grew up with Jimenez, he was told that the story would not be taken down and he was asked to condemn her publicly if the allegations were untrue.
Within a week of that phone call, Jimenez resigned and refused to give specifics.
Following that resignation, I received multiple threats from members of Verity Baptist Church and Pastor Pozarnsky was notified and asked to condemn the behavior.
No action was taken.
Pastor Mejia then began to perpetuate the lie that he threw me out of church for railing. When our messages were made public in the NIFB Archives online group, Mejia doubled down and named me publicly and also called for others to pray for my death.
This is similar behavior to what happened with Todd Ferguson and The Reason Files before he was murdered and was behavior that was seen across the NIFB-inspired pulpits, including at Verity Baptist Church under Roger Jimenez.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 373, this behavior can be considered as a potential federal offense.
Following the completion of a formal review of the whistleblower documentation, further action will be reported to the appropriate authorities.
