Are religious people OK? Pastor smashes Barbie Dream House with Bible taped to baseball bat

A pastor has smashed up a Barbie Dream House with a Bible taped to a baseball bat in a supposed bid to “demolish” evil spirits.

Anti-LGBTQ+ pastor Greg Locke went into the bizarre frenzy while talking about “deliverance” to his congregation at the Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee.

After the Trump-supporting pastor read the Bible verse of 2 Corinthians 10:4 – “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds” – he told his congregation that “pulling down” means to demolish. 

“It means you demolish the house that the evil spirit left when you kicked it out. 

“So maybe in our Global Vision store we need to start selling Bible bats in the name of Jesus.”

He continued: “Because what some of you need to understand is that you’ve been delivered from the demon, but you’ve not pulled down the stronghold yet. 

“You’ve got to get rid of the triggers on that iPhone. You’ve got to get rid of the triggers on that Netflix. You got to lose her number. You got to lose his number.

“The demon comes out when you expel it,” he shouted.

“The stronghold comes down when you demolish it with the Bible!”

He then dropped the mic, grabbed the Bible-wrapped baseball bat, and franticly smashed the Barbie Dream House to pieces in a bid to to illustrate his analogy.

Locke has a long and tiresome history of making anti-LGBTQ+ comments including calling LGBTQ+ people “demonic” and “perverted”, and calling “transgenderism” “nonsense”. 

In February 2022, Locke threatened to expose six witches who were part of his congregation. That same month he held a book burning in which people set fire to Harry Potter books and Disney products. 

The demolition of the Barbie product could be linked to anti-LGBTQ+ backlash Greta Gerwig’s box office-dominating, live-action film has received. 

Right-wing Tennessee-based pastor Kent Christmas spoke out against the film prior to its release in July.

“I curse in the name of the Lord this new Barbie movie that has been released full of transsexual, and transgender, and homosexuality,” Christmas said, before calling for God to make a “holy judgement” on the film.

Gerwig’s summer blockbuster, which has received heaps of rave reviews, includes several LGBTQ+ references and queer-coded characters, but there are no explicit LGBTQ+ roles or themes in the movie. 

Despite this, the film was banned in Kuwait and has been accused by Lebanon’s culture minister Mohammad Mortada of contradicting its “moral and religious values”.

Barbie has also faced a backlash in the US, with staunch conservative pundits such as Ben Shapiro burning Barbie dolls and criticising the film for being “man-hating” and pushing an LGBTQ+ agenda.