For those interested. An hour-long summary of the Steven Anderson situation.
Anderson is - diplomatically put - a controversial Christian preacher based in Arizona. He is one of the leaders of the "New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement". Note that they actually call themselves Fundamentalist?!
In 2019, Anderson planned a trip to Sweden, which gave him 15 minutes of fame in the Swedish media. In the United States, Anderson has been in the news far longer. He has called for gays to be executed, has prayed for the death of Obama, gives positively weird sermons and has people literally thrown out of his church in Tempe. He is also a de facto Holocaust denialist.
In the clip above, it turns out that Anderson has been "tased" by the police on a number of occasions, so he´s clearly not the law-abiding kind of conservative. His adult children recently came out and accused him of abusing them as they were growing up (the abuse was heavy beating). The pastor supposedly also beat his wife with an electrical extension cord. Anderson and his acolytes responded by preaching against the children from the pulpit!
The situation took a somewhat bizarre turn just a few days ago, when Anderson was suddenly committed to a mental hospital against his will. He was released after 24 hours. In a since deleted Facebook post, Anderson claims that a certain member of his own congregation had him committed. The name and photo of the person in question were shown, and this "Judas" was threatened with "imprecatory prayer" (a form of curse).
What´s going to happen now is unclear, and there is clearly a market for this kind of "religion", so another abusive fundamentalist preacher is probably waiting in the wings right now...
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