This is the one hundred and fifty-ninth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Bob Larson in the 1990s hawking Lifeline telephone service as an answer to children calling 1-900 sex lines. Produced by Everything is Terrible.
I don’t remember if 10 cents / minute would be a good rate back in those days though you could probably just turn off 900 access. My family did L.C.I., which appealed to the fundamental instinct for fairness with 6 second rounding, rather than a full minute.
Bob Larson always trying to raise money. I suppose his dramatics might have got people to open their checkbooks, but then again he isn’t around anymore (or is he?) Asking for money is necessary though, and every church does it. The collection plate is a public spectacle and part of a religious service for a reason.
Be still my beating heart. Conman, fraud and just plain greedy SOB Bob Larson. I used to listen to his radio program when he begged for cash on a daily basis and did exorcism’s on the radio. I saw him twice in person. However he’s really a 2nd or 3rd class huckster. He was promoting Lifeline back in the 90’s on his radio program. It’s a hoot that he is trying to make money based on “teaching” exorcism.
All dear old Bob has ever worshiped is cold hard cash and lots of it.
I think Bob Larson is sincere with the caveat “hey, I have to pay the bills”, and I’m doing the LORD’s work.
As with many preachers, Larson started out with good intentions — saving teens from evil rock music. ? But then he became popular, and the more his fame spread the more it went to his head. Getting divorced really set him back. Evangelicals will tolerate just about any sin except divorce. Ask Sandy Patty and Amy Grant. Larson wanted to maintain his fame (and income) so he did things that would attract crowds. And so it goes….
As someone who dabbled in the occult (briefly and not seriously), I was impressed that Bob Larson was well educated about it. This is why I suspect he is (or was) sincere. This would contrast with Pat Robertson’s 700 club, that would have rather naive and reactionary pieces about the occult which were obvious to anyone who knew anything about it that they knew nothing about it. I suppose we see this in a lot of preachers that condemn that which they do not know. This is a bit like celibate priests giving relationship advice. When known scientific phenomena like hurricanes and eclipse are still considered mysterious acts of God, frankly they lose all credibility and become a laughing stock like a flat earther I saw today on Facebook.
(As a postscript I’ll mention I totally want one of those big exorcism crosses that Bob is hawking on his web site, but at $100 I’m not going to bite!)