There is an organization called “The Anabaptists [sic] Church Worldwide” that supports a “Street Preacher Fellowship.”   It is a cult, a false religion.

This blog post will not focus upon peripheral problems, such as the poor English grammar evident in the fact that the organization’s name does not appear to understand the role of the apostrophe and the many grammatical errors in its statement of faith and other documents.  

Nor will it focus upon the fact that the cult rejects the congregational church polity of Anabaptism for a form of hierarchicalism with a “Biblical presbytery rule [sic]” and “national bishops” and so is not Anabaptist, but would be better called Episcopalian than Anabaptist, although it may not even understand what episcopalian, presbyterian, and congregational church polity are.

Nor will it focus upon the fact that the cult does not understand that the church of the New Testament is not universal or invisible.  Nor will it focus upon affirmations in its doctrinal statement such as that Christians are “at point [sic] of salvation baptized by the Holy Spirit of God into one body . . . and that body being not all [sic] figurative, but altogether real, physically . . . that body is Christ’s . . . each born again child of God is literally made to be . . . members of Jesus Christ’s body, of His flesh and of His bones.”  The members of the organization do not, however, literally disappear into the ascended human body of Christ to become part of His literal bone marrow, and, remember, the statement is allegedly literal,  “not at all figurative.”

Nor will it focus upon the cult’s extreme Ruckmanism, through which it denies Christ’s promises to preserve the Greek and Hebrew words which were dictated by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 5:18) and denigrates study of the preserved words of God in the original languages. Nor will it focus upon how the cult undermines confidence in the King James Bible through its extremism.  Nor will it focus upon the bizarre idea in its doctrinal statement that the Bible actually is God in written form, an idea which the pseudo-Baptist cultist Steven Anderson has also adopted.

Nor will it focus upon the cult’s tendency to name-calling and careless study of Scripture, nor upon the fact that the section in its doctrinal statement on (the wicked sin of) sodomy adds ideas not present in the Bible; nor on the fact that the cult also follows Steven Anderson and rejects Scripture by teaching that sodomites cannot be saved (with the “Anabaptists Church” cult making certain qualifications to this), nor on the fact that it spends more time on sodomy than it does on the nature of God, and that only its statement on sodomy, but nothing else in its doctrinal statement, ends with the affirmation: “This section of the Articles of Faith of the Anabaptists Church [sic] Worldwide is not subject to revision, and shall never be changed by any presbytery without the dissolvement [sic] of the Church Worldwide.”  Apparently even the bad grammar in this section of the cult’s articles of faith cannot be changed; but that is not the focus of this blog post.

What is the worst false doctrine of this cult? The worst false teaching is its rejection of the Trinity and of the incarnation of Christ in favor of a bizarre, blasphemous, and ignorant form of modalism.  Its article of faith on the Trinity includes the following:

The statement that “Jesus Christ is God the Father” is modalist heresy and idolatry. It is a damnable false doctrine.  It proclaims a false God, a denial and rejection of the true God.  Jesus Christ is the Son, not the Father.  By teaching that Jesus Christ is God the Father, this cult shows that they are antichrist, denying the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22).

The affirmations in 2.5 make a crazy confusion of Christ’s human spirit with the Holy Spirit. By denying that Christ’s human soul and spirit were separated from His body at His death, instead claiming that the Holy Spirit was present instead of Christ’s human spirit, the “Anabaptists Church Worldwide” cult denies the true humanity of Christ.  Only if Christ had a true and complete humanity, body, soul, and spirit, could He represent and save sinful mankind.  Section 2.5 denies Christ’s true humanity by claiming that the Holy Spirit replaced the Lord Jesus’ human spirit, something similar to the ancient heresy of Apollinarianism (although if the cult’s members cannot even write in English properly, and think Anabaptists held to presbyterian church polity, it is not likely that they have much understanding of early Trinitarian controversies).  By denying the true and complete humanity of Jesus Christ, the “Anabaptists Church Worldwide” cult shows itself to be of the “spirit of antichrist,” and its members to be deceivers and antichrists (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7).

Various parts of their doctrinal statement also teach the idolatrous idea that God is body, soul, and spirit like people are–the Holy Spirit is allegedly God’s eternal spirit part, based on a confusion of the use of the word Spirit for the third Person and also for the human spirit. The words for spirit, ruach and pneuma, are also used for the wind in the Bible, but the Holy Spirit is not God’s eternal wind.  God’s eternal body part is allegedly the Son, denying His true incarnation in time (1 John 4:1-3) and thus evidencing itself as antichrist. God’s eternal soul part is allegedly the Father, something for which Scripture gives not a scintilla of evidence. The cult claims Biblical support for its idolatry by assuming that since man is in the image of God, God must be body, soul, and spirit, ignoring the fact that the image of God in man is “righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24) and that the image is being progressively renewed in believers through progressive sanctification (Colossians 3:10), so the image of God in man has absolutely nothing to do with the wicked blasphemy that God is an eternal Son-body, spirit-Holy Ghost, and soul-Father.

There are a number of things that a born-again child of God, and a member of one of Christ’s true Baptist churches, could find attractive about the “Anabaptists Church Worldwide” cult.  It claims to stand for the KJV; it believes in modesty and gender distinction; it (pretends) to be part of the Anabaptist/Baptist line of true churches; it takes a strong stand against sins the world is promoting, such as homosexuality; it claims to be fearless and bold in its preaching; it practices street preaching, which is very good, and so on.  One can hope that perhaps some of the members of this cult are too ignorant to realize that their articles of faith deny the Trinity and the true humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ in favor of modalism and a form of Apollinarianism. Regrettably, none of the above nice things justify its wicked rejection of the true God and of the incarnate Christ.  Who cares if you are modestly dressed if you are a blasphemer and idolator?  Those that actually believe its doctrinal statement will find themselves in hell with the Antichrist.  Those that are too ignorant to understand its heresies have no business preaching to anybody (1 Timothy 3:1) until they learn the rudiments of Christianity on the nature of God.

If you are a member of the “Anabaptist Church Worldwide” and “Street Preacher Fellowship” cult, I call on you to repent of your idolatry and other sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved (Mark 1:15), and then separate yourself from this cult and join one of Christ’s true churches.  Learn more about Christ’s true gospel and His true church here.

–TDR