Wilderness Of Lucifer: The Collapse Of America’s Ultimate Death Cult
As more continues to be revealed about the money laundering, missions fraud, and “moral sin” of disgraced pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California, it is more important than ever to not forget how we got here.
Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in the Phoenix, Arizona area has not been quiet since Jimenez dishonorably discharged himself from the ministry via Facebook — but why does that matter?
Faithful Word and Verity are two independent churches, in different states, and with very different congregations — yet Anderson has not been shy about his criticisms of Pastor Jared Pozarnsky, who was installed this year as Jimenez’ replacement.
Issues brought up by Anderson about Pozarnsky include that he has a history of destroying his previous church in Fresno and that taking over in Roger Jimenez’ stead will only cause more damage to what’s left of a splintered congregation.
Anderson has also latched on to the idea that Verity Baptist Church would be better under “New IFB leadership” and has even participated in a podcast with Pastor Jonathan Shelley of Stedfast Baptist Church to propagate that position.
Steven Anderson has always had his thumb over Roger Jimenez, even dating back to when they started the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement together.
Jimenez had faced large protests in 2016 as a result of praising the mass shooter at Orlando nightclub, even adding that he was upset that the shooter didn’t “finish the job” and that “Orlando’s a little safer tonight.”
True to fashion as a good friend, Pastor Anderson stood by then-pastor Roger Jimenez and the two of them started to host an annual Red Hot Preaching Conference shortly thereafter in Sacramento at Verity Baptist Church.
Hundreds of people would come from around the country and around the world to hear the preaching lineup at Roger Jimenez’ church and, internally, it was seen as the NIFB equivalent to the Super Bowl.
Other pastors who have been tied to the conference in the past have tried to downplay the significance of the Red Hot Preaching Conference within the New IFB, including Pastor Anderson and Pastor Shelley, but that only came after Jimenez finally distanced himself from what he called the “New IFB fan club.”
Within the last year or so, Jimenez finally broke his silence on the domestic violence and child abuse allegations against Steven Anderson that surfaced at the end of 2024 following what would be the final Red Hot Preaching Conference.
In sermons openly stated as an attack on Steven Anderson, Roger Jimenez made the divorce public and broke off what both have said was a friendship of at least 20 years that goes back to before either of them were even pastors.
Pastors Jonathan Shelley and Dillon Awes have also flipped their public praise of Roger Jimenez from one of the greatest pastors in the world to a nobody, a scumbag, and as of March 10, 2026 - a felonious criminal.
It’s not unlike the New IFB to play spiritual hot potato when it comes to accountability, but that won’t stop them from continuing to be predictable.
When Jared Pozarnsky recently admitted that when he took over Verity Baptist Church just weeks into the new year that there were concerning financial problems brought to his attention by Deacon Oliver Gonzalez.
One of those being that Pastor Matthew Stucky had not been receiving 100% of the tithes that had come in earmarked for his ministry abroad in the Philippines.
Pastor Stucky was previously the Chief Financial Officer for Verity Baptist Church before being fired by Pastor Jared Pozarnsky last month via video call ahead of a missions trip.
Following this soul-winning trip to the Philippines by the Sacramento church, Pastor Stucky decided to publicly break all fellowship with Verity Baptist Church, including changing the name of his church. In his public statements breaking fellowship, Pastor Stucky revealed with documentation that Roger Jimenez had stolen north of $100,000 through keeping tithes that had been designated by the giver to go to the Philippines.
Pastor Stucky provided receipts of email conversations with Roger Jimenez about not receiving the full amount of tithing support as well as inadequate financial support as a missionary — his documentation supports this being an issue back to 2018.
This mens that, allegedly, and for the better half of the church’s existence, Jimenez was actively blocking money from reaching the Philippines and the overseas missions while representing a very different reality to his in-house and online audiences.
According to Pastor Stucky, Jimenez ignored repeated requests for the money to be processed correctly, and at one point even pretended like the church was having issues processing transactions to dodge accountability.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though — let’s talk about why installing “NIFB leadership” is the ulterior motive of Pastor Steven Anderson.
To think that Pastor Anderson would be “best friends” for at least two decades with someone and not be aware of what was really going on behind closed doors is about as asinine as saying Donald Trump doesn’t know who Jeffrey Epstein is.
All things considered, that’s not to say the two situations are comparable, but the point I’m making is that Pastor Anderson insists he knew none of this was going on all while being heavily involved with Roger Jimenez from before day one in the ministry for either of them and his father attending Verity from the beginning.
It comes down to one thing that both men want more than anything — absolute power.
While pastor, Jimenez displayed similar selective amnesia when the four eldest children of Pastor Anderson accused both Mr. and Mrs. Anderson of child abuse with additional accounts detailing how Pastor Anderson allegedly beat his wife at home.
Jimenez chose to stay silent because he did not want to completely fracture his church by making a hard, uncomfortable stand for truth when it comes to differentiating disciple from abuse, but his church fractured anyway.
On the March 10, 2026 episode of the Baptist Bias podcast, Pastor Stucky made an observation about Pastor Pozarnsky and pointed out that his behavior was concerning to the point where it appears as if Roger Jimenez might still be pulling strings behind the scenes.
Pastor Pozarnsky has said publicly that he both knew about the issues with payments not fully getting to the Philippines on his first day as the new pastor and that he’s just as surprised as everyone else about Pastor Stucky’s allegations at the same time.
Both of those things cannot be true.
Based on Pastor Stucky’s allegations, there are at least a dozen potential violations of federal law and California penal code related to business conducted by Verity Baptist Church and its officers.
In addition to these violations, Pastor Jared Pozarnsky was also recently made aware of terroristic threats made by members of his church and was asked to condemn the behavior publicly after it was reported to the FBI.
This was done via email and was also sent to Pastor Anderson, Pastor Shelley, and Pastor Bruce Mejia, my former pastor of five years at First Works Baptist Church.
Pastor Mejia has also lied about my reason for no longer being part of his congregation, insisting that he kicked me out for railing despite texts that show I left on my own after raising concerns that he had supported rhetoric from Pastor Jonathan Shelley that endorsed domestic violence.
Pastor Mejia also supported similar rhetoric from Pastor Anderson and when he was confronted with proof, told me that I was not allowed to leave and that when he returned from Stedfast Baptist Church in October of last year.
Since then, he’s resorted to middle school keyboard warrior behavior and has refused multiple offers to meet in person to address his railing of me from the pulpit. If he left it at name-calling, I can handle that — what I won’t tolerate is him calling for my death based on false information.
Pastor Mejia has told his church on more than one occasion that those who have left his church have left “because they are not of us”, alluding to a verse about wolves in sheep’s clothing who assimilate for the purpose of hijacking a church.
These calls for the congregation and online audience to pray for my death came after he named me in a sermon titled “Fear” and presented falsehoods as facts regarding me no longer being part of the body.
As a result, I will be pursuing a case against NIFB for the purpose of demonstrating that the group is acting as an unincorporated association and actively engaged in illegal behavior.
This will hold them legally accountable as a group while also holding the connected pastors accountable.
