Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona, will celebrate his 10th anniversary as pastor on December 20, 2015. If you are not familiar with Anderson, please read, Understanding Steven Anderson, Pastor Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona. Anderson is a poorly educated, homophobic, King James Only, homeschooling, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher. He is known for advocating violence against homosexuals and praying for President Obama’s death. His wife Zsuzsanna is a world renowned clothing designer best known for the King James Virgin Bathing Suit® design.
According to a website set up by several Faithful Word church members, the church hopes to send Anderson on vacation for his 10th anniversary. I thought, hey, why not encourage readers of this blog to help support the effort to send Anderson on vacation. While the church is asking for every supporter, which they number at a million or more, to send at least one dollar, I plan to send Anderson one penny, letting him know how much I think of his hate and bigotry. Perhaps you would like to do the same. Here’s what the church’s website says (site no longer active) about their vacation-sending effort:
Pastor Anderson strongly believes rather than only preaching about church attendance, to actually be an example to his congregation. That is why he has never missed a service for a vacation or work and has only in 10 years missed a handful of services for either horrible sickness or a child birth. Keeping in mind that growing this church has been a whole family effort in the last decade, we think it’s time to send Pastor and his family on a real vacation. Operation Send Pastor Packing!
The location of the vacation will depend largely on how much money we can raise. Ideally, if sufficient funds come in, we would love to fly the whole family to a fun destination for 2 weeks.
We are asking every online listener to please donate $1. What a fun way and story to tell that would be, if we could raise enough money with everyone pitching in $1. Please simply take $1 bill, and mail it to the following address:
Anniversary Appreciation Fund
P.O Box 10384
Tempe, AZ 85284If you are mailing a check or money order, please make it out to “Anniversary Appreciation Fund” and mail it to the above address, as this is a surprise, and not a donation to the church.
Or you can send your donation through PayPal. This is a special fundraising account we have set up in Zsuzsanna Anderson’s name, since they ultimately will be the recipients.
Of course you may donate any amount you would like, but with the amount of online listeners Faithful Word has around the world, even if everyone donated $1 that would make a great vacation. In order for this to work though we need to get this website in front of all those listeners so please SHARE, SHARE, SHARE on all your social media accounts. Don’t forget to use the hash tag #fwbc10year
To be clear this is not a tax deductible, donation to the church. This is a GIFT, a fund raised by Faithful Word Members to give the Andersons to be used for a vacation presented to them at the Ten Year Special Service. We would be so grateful for your help in making this happen!
**Note- Anybody who donates $20 or more will receive a special postcard from the Anderson Family from the surprise destination!
Anybody who donates any amount, will have their name listed in the documentary credits. Thank you!
Here’s a video that details what the church is trying to do. Please watch it. You will laugh, and then you will feel a deep sense of sadness for those who think that Steven Anderson is a great man of God, a man worthy of praise and adulation. For those not schooled in the IFB way of life, pastor appreciation services/events/fundraisers are quite common. They are used as reminder to everyone of who really matters; not Jesus, but Pastor MVP.
The church is also asking for testimony videos from those who support Anderson. Here’s another way readers can let Anderson and his church know what they think of their “ministry.” Make a short video and email it to fwbc10year@gmail.com. According to the church’s website, these videos will be made part of a documentary film. I plan to make a video, and when it is finished I will share it in a blog post.
The church asks that people publicize Anderson’s 10th anniversary. I am so glad they asked. Please share this post far and wide. Let’s give Pastor Anderson the celebration he so richly deserves.
I think Pastor Steven could do great work in the north of Iraq.
Or in Palestine or Syria or Iran or…
Bruce an honest question , where did this King James only stuff come from , as I don`t live in the States its not something I have heard of until this I visited your site
It is not a new belief by any means. After all, from 1611 to the first non-KJV translation in the late 19th century, there was no other Bible but the King James. Modern textual criticism has certainly changed how Bible translations are viewed, and I think King James onlyism is a reaction to what they consider an attack on the Bible. There are, BTW, several different strains of King James onlyism.
Marfin,
Here is link that should help you (or anyone interested) understand the lineage of King James Only-ism.
I found this while still a Christian. Our pastor had preached a series of messages from a horrible book by Gail Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions. I was in the middle of realizing that the KJV wasn’t the only Bible out there, so I started researching the obviously bogus claims she had made. I found this website, specifically this page.
There is a lot of good information on this site, as well as a few funny posts. The one about “not one jot or tittle” is my favorite.
I hope this helps.
Do they believe that this version somehow inspired , and what do they believe people did before this version, or is this inspiration is only valid for English versions, are other language versions inspired for other languaged people , sorry for all the questions but this belief seems so bizarre.
I’ll contribute to sending him and his family somewhere, but only if they promise not to come back.
Here is another idea…send the penny with postage due! That way he will need to spend the cost of a letter to get that one penny. Yeah, I know the math does not work out too well for him, but he believes in a God that can multiply anything. If Jesus can multiply loaves and fishes…how difficult could it be to magically turn that penny into a hundred dollar bill!! Ha!
That’s iffy, because that happens when the originating post office doesn’t catch the lack of enough postage. (I used to work for USPS.) It’s more than likely to just come back. On the other hand, this is going into the holiday season where the USPS is really busy. Might be worth one try, at least. 🙂
King James onlyism is a “fundamentalist” precept. Christian fundamentalism as known today with its dispensationalist theology began as a reaction to German liberal theology. It gained momentum with Scofield and his famous bible with references to premillenialism and rapture theology. Scofield did not want any “new” translations from those liberals. Thus, a hard stance on King James, the private pedophile and public homophobe, and his error-ridden translation front Hebrew and greek. Btw, James took his translation not from the original languages but front the latin, Roman Catholic Vulgate.
The fundy mvmt in the US is an American phenomenon that has migrated via evangelism.
Another fact is that the translators only used a small number of extant manuscripts and relied heavily on existing translations. The Greek manuscripts were collated into a set of manuscripts called the Textus Receptus (received text). Some proponents of King James Onlyism focus on the Textus Receptus, saying that the King James Bible is the best, most reliable translation for English speaking people. Coursing through the various schools of King James Onlyism is the notion that God, from the original manuscripts to today, has preserved the Word of God. You’ll hear fundamentalist preachers call the King James Bible the preserved Word of God for English speaking people.
Lots of crazy in the King James only movement. They go to great lengths to prove that the King James Bible is the true Word of God. There’s also a lot of debate over the Greek text, some believing only the Textus Receptus is correct, others believing the majority text is correct. They fuss and fight over every word. The followers of Peter Ruckman even believe the italicized words added by translators to improve the reading of the text are inspired. Ruckmanites call the italicized words an advanced revelation from God.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
he translators appear to have otherwise made no first-hand study of ancient manuscript sources, even those that – like the Codex Bezae – would have been readily available to them. In addition to all previous English versions (including, and contrary to their instructions, the Rheimish New Testament which in their preface they criticized); they made wide and eclectic use of all printed editions in the original languages then available, including the ancient Syriac New Testament printed with an interlinear Latin gloss in the Antwerp Polyglot of 1573. In the preface the translators acknowledge consulting translations and commentaries in Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.
The translators took the Bishop’s Bible as their source text, and where they departed from that in favour of another translation, this was most commonly the Geneva Bible. However, the degree to which readings from the Bishop’s Bible survived into final text of the King James Bible varies greatly from company to company, as did the propensity of the King James translators to coin phrases of their own. John Bois’s notes of the General Committee of Review show that they discussed readings derived from a wide variety of sources and versions, including explicitly both Henry Savile’s 1610 edition of the works of John Chrysostom, and also the Rheims New Testament, which was the primary source for many of the literal alternative readings provided for the marginal notes.
A number of Bible verses in the King James Version of the New Testament are not found in more recent Bible translations; where these are based on modern critical texts. In the early seventeenth century, the source Greek texts of the New Testament used for the production of Protestant bible versions depended mainly on manuscripts of the late Byzantine text-type, and with minor variations contained what became known as the Textus Receptus.[137] With the subsequent identification of much earlier manuscripts, most modern textual scholars value the evidence of manuscripts belonging to the Alexandrian family as better witnesses to the original text of the biblical authors,[138] without giving it, or any family, automatic preference.
he King James Only movement advocates the superiority of the King James Version of all other English translations. Most adherents of the movement believe that the Textus Receptus is very close, if not identical, to the original text. They argue that most modern English translations are based on a corrupted New Testament text that relies on the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Some adherents also believe that the translation process itself was also inspired by God in some way.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement
Even the KJV wasn’t an original English creation, as about 85% of it was taken from the Geneva Bible, the bible used during the reign of Elizabeth I and the version favored by the Puritans. It is indeed true that James VI and I had an eye for handsome young men, and his wife was none too pleased about it. From what I understand, the Reina-Valera edition was one drafted in Spanish by Protestants that fled Spain. The Douay-Rheims Bible was the Catholic bible intended to serve as a riposte to the KJV. Most evangelicals tend to use the New International Version.
Actually the D-R bible predates the KJV by quite a bit, at least the New Testament portion does. The Old Testament of the D-R was published in 1609 or thereabouts.
It was the Catholic response to the English reformation. Designed to allow English Catholic priests trained on the continent to minister to recusants back in Blighty.
The extent to which the D-R influenced (they’re quite similar in parts) the KJV is unclear and the subject of some dispute.
I was not aware the D-R New Testament predated the KJV. Thank you for correcting my error!
Here’s what Wikipedia says:
The Douay–Rheims Bible (pronounced /ˌduːeɪ/ or /ˌdaʊ.eɪ ˈriːmz/[1]) (also known as the Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, and abbreviated as D–R and DV) is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the English College, Douai, in the service of the Catholic Church.The New Testament portion was published in Reims, France, in 1582, in one volume with extensive commentary and notes. The Old Testament portion was published in two volumes thirty years later by the University of Douai. The first volume, covering Genesis through Job, was published in 1609; the second, covering Psalms to 2 Machabees plus the apocrypha of the Vulgate was published in 1610. Marginal notes took up the bulk of the volumes and had a strong polemical and patristic character. They offered insights on issues of translation, and on the Hebrew and Greek source texts of the Vulgate.
re: KJV of the bible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHevy5UhTdw
Manifold Greatness King James Bible by Bart D. Ehrman
(~1:20 video of Ehrman’s presentation about bible translations for a museum exhibit. first ~10 minutes other’s introducing ehrman.)
in it, he points out that an earlier translator, tyndale, was executed in 1536 for translating the bible into english (~16 min mark). then the KJV in 1611 was ~92% word for word from the tyndale translation (~23:30 to ~26 min mark)
been a while since i watched it, but informative and ehrman’s videos usually are.
re: sending pennies….
i think i recall that coupons are required by law to have a cash value, so they usually have “cash value 1/20 of a cent” on them somewhere. in case any of ya’ll think $0.01 is overpaying mr anderson. or in case you’re short of cash, but have plenty of coupons from the local paper and circulars, and god has touched your heart and lead you to contribute to his vacation. just sayin’ ….
forgot the link to ehrman’s blog post which describes and introduces the video mentioned above:
http://ehrmanblog.org/what-kind-of-a-text-is-the-king-james-bible/
Better than sending him 2 cents would be what is known as a glitter “bomb”. Copy the top of a dollar bill (just the edge above the serial numbers) so it looks like money when opened. Fill the envelope with glitter folded into the phony “bill”. Upon pulling it out the recipient gets glitter everywhere. They’ll be finding bits of glitter for months.
He’s gonna need a vacay. Zsu’s pregnant with baby #8 in that teeny tiny house of theirs..
Great idea Troy!