Steven Anderson is "Falling Down"?

When unbalanced patriarchs stan for movie villains....

“Feminist crap? huh? Because you cannot manipulate some of us women it enrages you. “Teenage rebellion” even as what we’re talking here is young adults more than teens. None of this would matter if you’d just take accountability for your behaviors Mr. Anderson!

One very interesting thing has happened in the last few weeks on the social media accounts of Steven Anderson, head of the NIFB and pastor of Faithful Word Baptist. He has gotten rather insanely over the top in his attempts to smear the reputations of his four eldest children, and make at least a small attempt to shore up his besmirched reputation after their allegations of child abuse.

Who deliberately throws their own children under the bus as collateral damage? A narcissist. Most of us when in conflict with our adult children will seek remedy, even if the child chooses to go ‘no contact’ for a time. Only a sick individual will decide their own reputational needs are greater than a relationship with a beloved child.

This is a man that threatened to kill the pets of these four kids, and for me personally it’s not possible to come back from that. Threatening the life of animals never has a place in child rearing, much like many of the other allegations of extreme physical abuse and emotional abuse.

In that time Anderson has published the words of a girl from London who spent a mere week or so at his home with his children and others with very limited family interactions. The only thing it proves is that anyone can keep a facade, a mask, or a false self if you will, in place for limited lengths of time. No one can do it all the time. Reality television knows this, knows that the longer the filming days go that the more likely ego depletion will happen, and things will spin out of control. Much of what Solomon, Isaac, John and Miriam Anderson have described is that crazy out of control happenings instead of the sweet family meals and kindly interactions posted by supporters.

But every now and then Steve’s mask slips and we get to see the most unhinged things, like this week when Steven posted the above graphic.

So what is this graphic that Anderson has remade to say he’s not stepping down as pastor of Faithful Word Baptist church? It’s a silly bastardization of the movie poster for “Falling Down” It’s a film from 1993 starring Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall. The main character of Bill “D-Fens” Foster that Anderson posits is like him. There’s just one problem, this character is no hero, he’s an everyman on the worst day of his life who has lost all control, and started soldiering his way through the Los Angeles of the early 1990s with ever increasing violence. By the end you see that this man is no hero, no anti-hero, in fact he’s something of a monster. This monster is who Steven Anderson is seeing himself as, which is so ironic because you just know that Anderson does not see the evil of this character flipping out and wrecking piles of people and things.

Look, I get it, we all have bad days, very bad days. Heck I’ve had a handful of them including the day I was interviewing for a job I really wanted at a local college. In my walk from the parking lot I snapped a heel on a shoe, banged my shin against the car door ripping my pantyhose before ripping my blouse. I limped into the interview and surprise, surprise, didn’t do so well. I shrugged, said “oh well” and went home to change before cooking dinner. That’s what adults do, they suck it up, go on with their lives with maybe a tear or two in your pillow, or a comedic retelling of your bad day.

Oh, not Anderson. He relates to the guy walking around Los Angeles with a semi-automatic weapon maiming and killing folks. At first Bill’s reactions are understandable to being overcharged for a can of coke, but soon enough he enters into a one man crime wave.

This seems to suggest that Steven’s ideas of Jesus, pastors and religion are merely about what type of control it gives him over others. After all, he’s a guy that started his own religion because he couldn’t handle any sort of being under the authority of anyone else, or critique or pushback. Sounds like someone with a weak self-image and some sort of narcissistic personality disorder from here. This isn’t a diagnosis, as I’m not a headshrinker and I don’t play one in the movies or on television.

If nothing else it’s been interesting to watch how he’s handed this issue in his family being exposed. He needs to confess, apologize and step down. Get counseling and learn good stress management skills along with parenting classes. But we know Anderson isn’t likely to do any of it. I fear what he is capable of in keeping the false fragile self in place.