310 thoughts on “Smashing Televisions”

  2. He starts by saying the TV has destroyed our testimony and robbed our homes, but then he goes on to list other things the TV has destroyed:

    Monopoly
    family time
    husband and wife fellowship
    good readers in your home
    picnics
    checkers
    Scrabble

    Let’s all have a moment of silence that fewer families are playing checkers together because surely that is worth mourning. (I jest, of course.)

    (Also, he asks, “What happened to Scrabble?” I think it’s called the internet and Words with Friends. 🙂 )

    1. Actually it is worth mourning, at least a little bit. 🙁 There’s a quiet pleasure in checkers that I hope we don’t lose.

      1. I love checkers (unlike chess which takes a LOT of mental effort!) and reading and Scrabble. It’s just that this is church and he’s mourning these very trivial and mundane things. It seems like quite misplaced outrage.

        1. Hmmm. It seems to me that checkers and Scrabble, Monopoly and picnics are all worldly things. They aren’t mentioned in the Bible.

          Whatever happened to “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”?

          Ohhh… He thinks the Scripture means, don’t love the *present* world, love the world as it was in the 1950s. The 1950s is the standard. He forgets that the 1950s gave rise to the 1960s! (wiggles eyebrows)

    2. Noone plays monopoly because better games have replaced it. Family games like Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride etc and huge epic games like Twilight Imperium, Eclipse etc.

      1. How dare you point out that correlation does not equal causation! Anyhow, haven’t families stopped playing Sorry as well (lamest popular board game ever)? Yes there are much better games out there these days. We like to play Acquire as a substitute for Monopoly.

  3. Anybody else see the irony in video taping an anti-TV and anti-internet sermon?

    Also, does this guy read his bible? Does he really think all those sins come into people’s lives because of TV? Pretty sure Jesus said it wasn’t what goes into us that defiles us but what comes out of us.

    2. Yes. Legalists are either blaming the apple or whitewashing the tomb. Unsurprisingly, He cut right to the central point of human existence: we cannot run from sin, we are cesspools of sin, in need of His grace and mercy.

  4. “If you wanna know why we have the blaspheming and the vulgarity and the permissiveness and the materialism and the worldliness and the carnality and all the dirty, rotten things, more than anything in the world, you’re looking at it right there.” — the TV

    Because of course before the television none of those things affected humanity. The Bible doesn’t even have to warn us about those things because the TV is why we have them.

    NOOOOOOOOO! Those things exist because of sin not because of a box with moving pictures.

    1. Don’t challenge their propaganda and rhetoric with facts and logic, it only makes them shout louder and get even more animated.

      Hey, Billy Sunday built an empire out of making sin something external to be fought against. In the end, these Elmer Gantrys are selling Moral Perfection wrapped in Christian garb in order to line their own pockets and store up treasure (be it wealth, influence or power) for themselves.

      1. I kept thinking he was saying “go firewood”, which puzzled me — surely he didn’t think the TV could burn in the fireplace. I finally figured out “go forward”…

      2. Dear Don:

        You wrote, ‘Billy Sunday built an empire out of making sin something external to be fought against.’.

        I reply, ‘in other words, Billy Sunday held a Manichaean theology and was therefore an heretic’.

        Agreed! And ditto for as Larry Brown.

        Christian Socialist

    2. Aaah, he said “blaspheming.” I thought he was trying to say “blasphemy” and it came out “blaspheemy.” I just figured that was another preachah mispronunciation.

  5. What horrible advice: suddenly grabbing an axe, smashing the TV while your children are watching, while dancing, shrieking, even gibbering with rage?

    Behavior like that shows no self-control or reasonableness. It shows no respect for your wife, with whom you should talk through decisions about changing your family’s entertainment choices. It shows that you don’t care if you terrify your kids or if you provoke them to wrath.

    1. Like I said upstream, there is something going on with the passive aggressive Axe murderer routine. Is this his way of showing how he keeps his family under his control?
      I mean Pedobear Jack showed the world his secrets in public with the “Shaft” sermon. So these antics make me think, what is going in Larry’s home life???

      1. I saw the 1st Jack at my old fundy church, about 25 yrs. ago, rant and rave from the pulpit, throw his bible to the floor, then proceeded to kick all the microphone stands off the platform, as he declared his “righteous indignation” for those who have little regard for God’s Word!

        I didn’t like Hyles before seeing that insane display, but afterward, I was convinced he was a whack-job! And, I never again attended another service when he came to our church.

        This guy is just following in the footsteps of ‘The Masters’ of xIFB sensationalism.

    2. Of course, if this nutbar preacher actually smashed a TV with an axe while his kids were watching it, dancing and gibbering or not, there’s a good chance it would be the last thing he’d smash. He’d run a considerable risk of being electrocuted. It’s not only bad advice, it’s a great way to traumatize your family for life.

        1. And the little woman will not say a thing…but she will go back to the kitchen and call the police to haul you to the loony bin.

    3. Not to mention his effeminate prancing and frolicking around after showing what a macho man he is by destroying an inanimate object that has never, to my knowledge, put up a fight to defend itself.

    4. I can’t smash my TV set yet:
      Mad Men still has one more season to go, and Walking Dead comes back this fall.

  6. Playing WwF with people all around the world – Not Evil. Forcing my teen boys to play scrabble with me – Evil.

  8. This guy’s a complete idiot! He’s gone off the deep end. The best thing his wife can do is grab the kids and get away from him! 😮 👿

    1. Agreed! Anyone who jokes about destroying his family’s property or brandishing an axe to intimidate his wife is NOT well-adjusted.

  9. Wow … this guy is disturbing. I seriously worry for his wife and children.

    “Dirty rotten computer”? Has this man ever used a computer? God, even the most hardline fundamentalists have adapted to the technological age and use the Internet and social media in their efforts. Get with the times!

    I think Brown is hostile to televisions and computers because they offer people a glimpse of the outside world. And we can’t have his flock getting outside ideas and thinking for themselves, can we?

      1. Agreed. An inanimate object cannot be a source of sin, carnality, or temptation. If Brown is really worried about computers, that marvelous one built by God and placed between his two ears is where the problem lies. Instead of taking an ax to an object, he ought to get concerned about that computer in his cranium. If bombastic theatrics is all he’s really after, no defragging of his organic computer will work.

  11. TV has destroyed Monopoly, a game whose premise is to bankrupt your fellow competitors and leave them homeless. Yes, Brother Brown, you’re onto something here!

      1. One comedian said, “I don’t think it’s fair that only one company gets to make the game Monopoly.”

  14. O Larry boy,
    the TV tube is smashing.
    From Iowa
    to Indiana’s shores,

    O woe is me,
    What shall I watch at dinnertime?
    The CRT
    is smashed to smithereens.

    O glory be!
    The world is rid of one TV.
    The preacher-boys
    All wave their KJVs.

    And God is free
    to speak to those unhindered souls,
    who cannot watch their sinful
    TV shows no more.

  15. I know I sound like a broken record by now. This preacher is teaching males that to be a proper male (without having to perch on the bedpost, whatever that means) the male must exert absolute control over the home. Even with an ax. Even to the point of violence. Control the wife or you’re not a real man. If you don’t like it take an ax to it.

    1. @BJgrad,

      This is real southern, good ol’boy lingo. The “perch on the bedpost” goes back to him saying something about most of the men there are “hen pecked”. Instead of the Rooster(aka: man-of-the-house) over-lording the hen (aka: the little-woman), the opposite is true. So, that Rooster can’t even perch on the bedpost, possibly alluding to male dominance in the home/marriage??? Also, “git some grits in yer craw” basically means; get some balls, guy, and “Go faward!”

      I’m not from the south, but this sounds a lot like lingo from some of my country kinfolk.:wink:

      1. I appreciate the translation. I’ve lived in the pacific northwest too long and lost my language abilities!

  16. I remember seeing a documentary film of an errant woman in Afghanistan being beheaded by the Taliban. Larry Brown and his cronies represent the ‘christian’ Taliban.

      1. Yes, men. The way to get your wife to “not say a thing” about you destroying the TV is to grab the ax and act like a raving lunatic about to plunge it into her.

        No, she won’t say a thing. She might, however, have a lawyer say it, serve you with a protection order telling you to stay at least 100 yards away from her and the kids.

        It’s only temporary, though. Until the divorce.

        Yes, Larry Brown’s 2011 Pastor’s School gave handy hints on how to get your wife to divorce you. Maybe that was the real thrust of the piece!

        2. We have young guy around town who does exactly that, with his ipod and earbuds in place. I’ve heard people refer to him as crazy, but for me, it’s a happy day when I see him dancing down the street. 🙂 I didn’t know he was on the cutting edge of fitness!

      2. If you go to her website, the weird grows. She has invented a form of religion and exercise based on horses and their movements.

  19. I tried that once with my own tv, but when the glass shattered it cut my left eye. The head deacon rushed me to the hospital, while my wife took the kids home. When my head deacon dropped me off he stopped and stared at the giant flat screen in my living room. I told him the tv was for me to watch my blu-ray copy of Sheffey.

  20. I don’t if anyone else has said this, but I saw this act in person, more than once, when I was a teenager. The glass flew into the alarmed front row’s faces. I believe this is the guy who ran the tops of the pews. My husband didn’t believe my description until I found the video a few weeks ago! However, this more aged Larry Brown is positively calm and docile compared to back then…a full-fledged yelling rage fit. Yikes.

    1. I too saw him do this in person. I recall seeing it at least twice. The first time I had no clue what was coming.

      1. Maybe we were at the same youth conferences, first half of the nineties? Our volleyball team had teal t-shirts with hot pink, billowy culottes…hard to miss. :^)

        1. Could be. I often wonder how many SFL commenters I have been seated near in real life.

  21. If my husband did something like that, you can bet I wouldn’t say anything. I would, however, silently gather the children and drive straight to the police station. An axe-wielding maniac is someone law enforcement takes very seriously.

  22. If you see me and my wife at a restaurant we might not be talking to each other. Instead we will be staring intently at our phones since we are usually involved in fairly cutthroat Scrabble games with each other.
    I like playing with a board and tiles but playing online is so much easier. You don’t have to lug a board around, tally up the scores or get into arguments about how much the score should be or whether a given word is valid. Plus we can continue our game when we are not even in the same room together.

    Outside observers probably see us and bemoan the modern world. “Look at those two people ignoring each other”.

    1. Plus…when you want to send those hot, flirty text messages, it’s more appropriate in a public place than actually saying it out loud! We sit and giggle with our phones, while others think we are ignoring each other. 😳

        1. Nope. Haha. Just agreeing that it’s fun to communicate with my spouse while in each other’s presence – whether through games or texts. 🙂

  24. SQUIRREL a.k.a. Darrell seems to have an easy time of it. He surfs the net and uses others work to display on this site. Then mindless reprobates and apostates entertain one another with comments that are little more than blasphemies. SQUIRREL then enjoys high traffic as a result and uses the numbers to sell advertising on his site. SQUIRREL uses the high traffic to sell his booklet at Amazon. So congratulations reprobates and apostates for helping SQUIRREL take advantage of your ignorance. There you go SQUIRREL, that is your blog in a nut shell. Bro. Ray 😆

    1. Brother Ray McIntire — may I call you Bro? How about BROMINE, as BRO ray McINtirE? You can look up Bromine here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromine

      No? Well, okay. Back to your post.

      Darrell, from what I can tell, is a fine individual. Most of the people who gather here are refugees and escapees from the tyranny of fundamentalism.

      We aren’t a large group. If you looked at the numbers, Darryl’s website here would be very modest. And no, I was not aware that Darryl had a publication for sale. Thanks for telling me. I will need to look into that.

      But I come here to remember what I have come out of, and to know I am not alone. I still have nightmares on occasion. Fundamentalism, with its angry God and angry, dried up old men (have you looked in a mirror lately?) imprinting their hatred and nastiness on others and calling it Godliness.

      We just need a reminder of how ridiculous it all really was.

      When I was in the thick of it, everything was so serious. God wanted you to do this, not do that, touch not, taste not, handle not and voluntarily submit to and revere the exalted “pastors” — angels of light (with their ministers of “righteousness”). Many of these turned out indeed to be devilish disasters. I know.

      It helps to sit back and laugh — and cringe. Yes, it even helps to mock and hold such things and people in derision (God does that, too, you know!). Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not that I was fundy-fied.

      So in looking to the pit from which I have been pulled I gather strength to go out to love and serve the Lord.

      Now if you think that my mocking of fundamentalism means I am apostate, a heretic, and a reprobate, that is fine by me. I will own those titles gladly. After all, I actually believe God loves the world. Since I came out of fundamentalism I can dare to believe that God cares about *me* more than he does my transgressions (real or imagined).

      You know, I have been blessed far more since leaving fundamentalism than I ever was inside it.

      So here, have a mirror you can look into so you can have a serious audience as you preach judgment. God isn’t listening to you. And frankly, neither am I.

      Have a nice day.

      1. “Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not that I was fundy-fied.”

        That’s the hardest I’ve cracked up over anything here yet. Here’s my first comment to say thanks for the laugh!

    2. Bro. Ray, for all his analysis of Darrell’s posts and motives, seems to have spent quite a lot of time reading the posts and the comments. Kinda like all those preachers back in the 70s who beat up on the Beatles, claiming there were “codes” in the music and such. I always wondered, “Why if it’s so bad for us, is HE listening to it?” Regards

      1. Because back in the day Fundy preachers were the only ONLY ones who had special, backward-spinning record players! so of course they were the only ones in the entire country who could hear the hidden messages. :mrgreen:

      1. In Scientology circles, “squirrel” is a specialized term for ex-Scientologists who continue Scientology practices without the Church of Scientology’s approval.

        Not that I think Darrell is doing that, but it gives us a hint what kind of circles Bro-Ray has been hanging out in. :mrgreen:

  25. SQUIRREL a.k.a. Darrell seems to have an easy time of it. He surfs the net and uses others work to display on this site. Then mindless reprobates and apostates entertain one another with comments that are little more than blasphemies. SQUIRREL then enjoys high traffic as a result and uses the numbers to sell advertising on his site. SQUIRREL uses the high traffic to sell his booklet at Amazon. So congratulations reprobates and apostates for helping SQUIRREL take advantage of your ignorance. There you go SQUIRREL, that is your blog in a nut shell. Bro. Ray

        1. This fundy troll is using SFL to promote himself and his blog! Didn’t he take from SFL the other day and post on his blog? What a hypocrite!

          I repeat, no matter how “deliciously indecipherable” his comments are, don’t feed the troll, please!

    2. Darrell gets most of his material from other people. They send him stuff they see.

      He doesn’t make much money off this site. You could display ads on your site too, did you know that? I mean I don’t know how many hardcore, borderline cultic IFBers out there can afford to pay for internet advertising, and fewer of them having the technical ability to do it, but if there are in fact some then you can advertise for them.

    3. Bro Ray, the more you come here, the more your followers are going to wonder what’s so interesting. And that means some of them just might come check SFL out. And that means some of them just might get to thinking, wondering about things…. 😉
      just saying

        3. I look at it like this, rather than merely engaging him I hope to be speaking to anyone who happens along and reads his blog. His juvenile and non-response responses should be seen for what they are (except by those who are similarly inebriated on the anti-intellectual, KJVO kool-aide).

  26. In the days before television, people got their mindless entertainment from the freak show at the circus, from travelling theatre bands, or from crazy evangelists with bizarre antics.

    Bro Larry is just mad the TV has ate into his market.

  27. I have seen this movie before. It is just plain painful to watch this man. It seems as though he is blaming and mocking his wife. The poor woman is probably sitting in the front row–mortified.

    1. Doubt she’s sitting watching, or is mortified, because her husband has ‘arrived’ in IFBdom by being a speaker at this pastor’s school. From what I’ve seen in my too long a stay in fundystan, those wives don’t attend, but she’ll anxiously await the check$$ he’ll bring home for this performance. Some have been known to redecorate their entire living rooms with it! Minus the TV, of course. That’ll be behind the bedroom armoire doors! Seriously.

      1. You are probably right–I didn’t think of that side of it. I just can’t get over him turning a church service into a circus–what an egotist. Although I wasn’t exposed to an awful lot of that kind of preaching (if you want to call it that), I don’t miss it one bit.

  28. All this is too painful to watch. I’m taking a break.

    I liken it to watching a boxing match soon after I’ve been pulverized myself. The wounds are fresh and this stuff just opens them up again.

    God bless you all according to His rich grace and mercy!

    B.R.O.

    1. Dear BigRedOne:

      Grace and peace to you, brother and friend. May you find all the healing you need.

      Christian Socialist

      PS: SFL isn’t always this painful. Blessings!

    2. For a long time, I wouldn’t watch any of the videos on SFL. I didn’t need to hear the angry tone and the ridiculous accusations and the unbiblical ranting that was passing as “Biblical preaching.”

  29. Reminds me of a story I grew up with but hadn’t thought about for years:

    It seems that sometime in the 50s my small-town SBC First Baptist Church surprised the pastor with a television in honor of a birthday or anniversary or something. TVs were still rather rare and definitely a luxury item, and said pastor received it with joy and appreciation.

    A few weeks later, and evangelist visited the church to conduct a series of revival meetings. One version of the story says that it was Lester Roloff himself, I have my doubts. At any rate, one night during the PROtracted meeting, Evangelist opened up about the evils of TV, condemning all who owned one. Story goes that Pastor turned every color on the platform.

    Apocryphal story? Dunno. Sounds too good to be true, but it was oft-traded coinage around the church house when I was a lad.

  30. This is why Fundyism is in the shape it’s in– hysterics and insanity masquerading as “preachin'”.

  31. when you’re going to sunday night church, wednesday nigth prayer meeting, Saturday soulwinning, thursday visitation, tuesday ladies Bible study, friday Sailor ministry, and on and on it goes . . . when are you supposed to have time to sit and play scrabble? What actually blows my mind about this video in the inconsistency in him suggesting that game nights with family are good, when we know he’s going to turn right around and guilt people for spending any time at all away from church.

  32. Why do Bro. Ray and those of his ilk always have to resort to name calling? They can never make their point in a gentle loving way. It’s just makes him look like a fool.

    A word to the wise, Bro. Ray, from the good ole KJV 1611AV

    Proverbs 15:1-2

    15 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

    2 The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.

    1. It’s a logical fallacy. When somebody can’t argue with what you have actually said, they call you names instead.

  33. Good ole Larry Brown…. he is definitely a hero, a man’s man back in my old fundy church. The pastor would have me make copies of his sermon on “wolves” and he would give them to selected folks! I’m sure you could find it online. It’s his most famous sermon 🙁 I probably made 50 copies of it over the years. Us inner circle types would gloat over who got the wolf sermon and why they needed it. God forgive me….

    PS. I believe his wife has passed on last I heard.

    1. I was wondering that myself. Is he euphemistically referring to getting some nooky? Or does he have bad coffee, casseroles, and slide projectors shows in mind?

  35. Back in my fundy days I heard preachers mis-handle this verse to excuse these kinds of foolish antics in their preaching:
    1 Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (In KJV, of course.)
    “The foolishness of preaching, ay-men?” The goofballs actually thought this foolish, asinine behavior was advocated in scripture. Or they quoted the verse tongue-in-cheek. Not really sure. I like to picture this guy capering about the stage…er, platform wearing a multi-colored three-pointed cap with bells. Seems a good fit.

  36. This guy is a clown. He also climbs on top of pulpits. He sounds like Ernest T. Bass. He was a Jack Hyles disciple. That’s all you need to know about Larry Brown the Clown.

  37. I watched this demonstration live. At the time, I was just beginning to wonder if I had been raised in a strange “cult”-ure. I also watched the Schaap demise live. Going back and watching a video of the old Pastor’s School is painful. I really can’t wrap my brain around why that was ok….

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