Steven Lee Anderson (born July 24, 1981) is an American preacher and conspiracy theorist. Founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement, he is pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He has received international notoriety and condemnation for advocating the death penalty for homosexuals and praying for the deaths of former U.S. president Barack Obama and media personality Caitlyn Jenner. He produced a documentary titled Marching to Zion in which he "championed a wide range of anti-Semitic stereotypes", according to Matthew H. Brittingham of Emory University.
He has been banned from many countries, including Jamaica, Canada, the Schengen Area—which is made up of 22 of the 27 European Union countries, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. As of 2019, Anderson has been banned from more than thirty countries, including every English-speaking developed country other than the United States (his home country); and most English-speaking African countries. In September 2016, after he had announced his intention to travel to South Africa, Malusi Gigaba, the Minister for Home Affairs banned Anderson and his followers, citing the Constitution of South Africa and stating "I have identified Steven Anderson as an undesirable person to travel to South Africa"
Anderson established Faithful Word Baptist Church as a fundamentalist Independent Baptist church in Tempe, Arizona. Members of the church meet in an office space that is located inside a strip mall. Anderson is part of a connected but "...diffuse group of theologically-focused, anti-Semitic Christian conspiracists who deny the Holocaust." In May 2015, he posted a YouTube video, titled The Holocaust Hoax Exposed, promoting Holocaust denial.
Anderson made national news following a confrontation with United States Border Patrol agents at an interior checkpoint on Interstate 8, about 70 miles (110 km) east of Yuma, Arizona. He refused to move his car or roll down his windows, triggering a 90-minute standoff and the calling of Arizona Department of Public Safety officers to the scene. The confrontation ended when authorities broke Anderson's car windows, tased him, and forced him out of the vehicle. Anderson said they beat him while he was lying prone on the ground.
As of 2019, Anderson has been banned from more than thirty countries, including every English-speaking developed country other than the United States (his home country); and most English-speaking African countries.
