Greg Locke

Locke in 2023.

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“”If Greg Locke thinks there are witches in his church, real witches should show up to scare him.

—Jory Micah, responding to Locke's claims that "witches" had "infiltrated his church."

Greg Locke (1976–) is an American transphobic, homophobic, climate change-denying Baptist pastor and professional grifter at the Global Vision Bible Church, in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.

Locke's first notable foray into the public sphere (after his many arrests, of course) was an example of the "stopped clock" saying: it was a takedown of Palestinan faith healer Benny Hinn in a 2005 self-published book entitled Blinded by Benny.

Locke uses his substantial online following on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to transform his childhood propensity as a class bully into the literal bully pulpit, with his vision of "always being filled with hate and rage" directed toward transgender people, gays, and cross-dressers, just as he thinks that Jesus surely would have wanted him to.^{[citation NOT needed]}

Locke came to prominence when he criticized Target's decision to provide gender-neutral toilets. Locke's prophetic and godly status was somewhat tarnished when it was reported that he cheated on his wife with the church secretary and packed the wife and children on a bus out of town so he could focus on the sinful delights of his new girlfriend. He eventually divorced his wife to marry his girlfriend, so no doubt he thinks that God has forgiven him for his breach of the Ten Commandments.

If so, however, some of his fellow Christians have not. He has been roundly criticized for among other things abandoning the Church of the King James Version, but much more seriously for having allegedly abused his wife both physically and psychologically.

Earlier years

Locke was born in 1976 to a broken family; one of the pastor's earliest memories are of his dad being locked up on armed robbery and drug charges. Locke had a troubled childhood; he resented his stepdad (Locke's mother remarried when he was 5), failed several grades, and had gotten arrested five times by the age of 15. In school, Locke had a reputation for being an extremely angry "loose cannon".

After the fifth arrest, Locke ended up at Good Shepherd Children's Home, a "Christian-based home for disadvantaged boys and girls facing difficult circumstances in their lives", in Murfreesboro TN. According to Locke, an encounter with a preacher at this home who stayed calm and collected while he raged and ranted help convert him to Christianity. After this conversion, Locke traveled around the world preaching on behalf of the Independent Baptist movement. In 2000, Locke obtained a certificate from a "correspondence" Independent Baptist school called the Baptist Theological School of New England, a tiny operation run by the Pascoag Community Baptist Church in Rhode Island.

Locke founded Global Vision Baptist Church in 2006. The church formally split with its affiliation with Independent Baptists in 2011, and changed the name to Global Vision Bible Church. In addition to his church duties, Locke was a personal fitness speaker during this period.

Even in the early years of his pastor career, true to his "charismatic" church affiliation, Locke had a predilection for attention-seeking stunts. However, many of his "stunts" were for much more worthwhile causes than what he eventually became infamous for. In 2012, Locke spent four days and three nights in a scissors lift 30 feet in the air to solicit donations for the homeless. In 2014, Locke began to use cycling trips (including one cross-country trip) for various causes, such as raising money to expand the church or raising money for victims of sex trafficking.

Hints of his future reactionary style, however, showed up every now and then. For instance, in 2015, Locke made a video accusing (without evidence) the Wilson County school system of brainwashing students with "Islamic indoctrination".

By 2016, Locke shifted his attention to social media and viral videos, and Locke's stunt subjects shifted away from helping others to whatever was the meme du jour in the culture war. This was perhaps foreshadowed by a late 2015 Facebook video posted by Locke. During that time period, the coffee giant Starbucks, who traditionally switches from white cups to red cups for the Christmas holiday season, created a plain red cup with none of the very generic festive designs used in some of the previous years. This created a minor outrage when the evangelical social media personality Joshua Feuerstein posted an online rant complained that Starbucks was "taking Christ and Christmas off of their brand-new cups".

At that time, Locke was not nearly as reactionary as someone like Feuerstein; he simply used the outrage to make a sermon about the Veterans Day holiday, and did not take a firm stance on the controversy (stating in another video that "personally, it’s a red cup.") However, as the years passed, Locke increasingly started posting more hateful and raging "culture war" oriented videos (such as the aforementioned 2016 video on the Target bathroom controversy, and a 2017 video protesting Planned Parenthood) Perhaps this turn can be explained by Locke noticing that, on social media, making incendiary statements was what got the most "views".

Locke's reactionary turn became fully realized during the COVID-19 pandemic, where Locke dismissed COVID-19, the COVID-19 vaccine, and face masks, and started advocating even more extremist positions than before.

Descent into madness

Wingnuttery and Christian Nationalism

See the main articles on this topic: Wingnut and The United States as a Christian nation

Increasingly in the 2020s, Locke's church started looking less like a temple dedicated to worshiping Jesus and more like a proxy of the radicalized Republican Party, dedicated to a pro-Trump (until he renounced his support) vein of Christian nationalism.

Locke continued to be vocally supportive of Donald Trump, grumbling about how Joe Biden stole the 2020 U.S. presidential election, right up until Trump urged people to get their COVID vaccinations.

In late August 2021, Trump political operative Roger Stone was a guest speaker at the church, and the congregation accordingly was decked in MAGA paraphernalia. Later, Locke hosted the conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk as a guest.

In a late June 2021 sermon, Locke's tone even took on shades of QAnon when he called Joe Biden a "sex trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel" and Kamala Harris a "jezebel demon", with non-sequitur references to typical QAnon targets like "pedophiles in Hollywood", Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey, and Tom Hanks.

On October 24 2021, Locke's guest speaker was Mark Burns, a pastor who also happened to be a Republican Congressional candidate. While guest preaching, Burns spread transphobic lies concerning the "bathroom" debate and relished when the crowd spontaneously erupted into a chant of "Let's Go Brandon" (a minced oath for the phrase "fuck Joe Biden"). Burns and Locke later, in September 21 2021, appeared at a "Salt and Light Conference" (hosted by an organization run by Ralph Reed, the first executive director of the Christian Coalition) along with several other prominent Republican politicians, and other noted conservative figures such as Joe Arpaio and E. W. Jackson.

In mid-November 2021, Locke appeared at an event (that was part of a tour called "Reawaken America") at John Hagee's Cornerstone Church alongside many other far-right conspiracy theorists, such as Roger Stone, Mike Lindell, and Alex Jones. The event notoriously featured Trump associate and QAnon nut Michael Flynn calling for America to have only "one religion under God", rejecting the freedom of religion principle that is a major part of America's foundation. The event was also marked by yet another "Let's Go Brandon" chant erupting in a church.

All of this, of course, attracted much attention from the media. Reportedly Locke was extremely angry about media coverage about him, and in a late June 2021 sermon announced his plans to sue CNN and Newsweek for the "defamation" of accurately quoting him and posting clips of his "sermons".

In mid-May 2022, Locke made his most nakedly political statement yet, by declaring that "you cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation", calling all Democrats "demons" and "baby butchering election (thieves)", and yelling that he wanted no Democrats in this church. To the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, these statements were so egregiously political, it violated regulations governing the separation of church and state that were necessary to follow in order for the church to be tax-exempt. So they filed a complaint against Locke and his church. Rather than fight the charges, Locke decided, as he proclaimed in a late May 2022 sermon, to renounce what he bizarrely termed as "501c3 communism" voluntarily. In the same sermon Locke denounced his tax-exempt status, he also showed his devotion to the Golden Rule by calling pastors who actually didn't demonize Democrats "limp-wristed false prophets", calling pastors who closed their church during COVID-19 "panty-wearing" "sissies", and calling out a few other specific preachers (notably Kenneth Copeland) for supposedly being false prophets and heretics.

By March 2023, Locke claimed in an interview that he had been taking his political views too far in the past few years, and (while not renouncing these noxious views at all) wanted to refocus his ministry style towards deliverance ministry (that is, battling "demons" instead of Democrats). As part of this new direction, in July 2023, Locke scrubbed his Facebook page and teamed up with Benny Hinn after years of branding him a false prophet. Locke also released a film called Come Out in Jesus' Name that was all about "demon-slaying preachers". In a sign, however, that Locke hadn't quite left his political Christian nationalism behind, most of the preachers in the film had connections to the theocratic New Apostolic Reformation, and the film contained many of the same tired Christian nationalism political themes (ranging from COVID-19 conspiracies to LGBTQ demonization) that Locke had been preaching previously. In addition, on January 20 2023, Locke's church hosted the controversial and very Christian nationalist political ReAwaken America Tour.

COVID-19 pandemic

See the main article on this topic: COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Locke displayed unusual hostility towards public health measures and vaccines, and even dismissed the notion that a pandemic was happening at all (Locke called COVID-19 a "fake pandemic" in December 2020). In fact, Locke has been so openly hostile to COVID restrictions and vaccinations, that he has threatened to kick anyone out of his church simply for wearing a face mask during his services. Likewise, in early August 2020, Locke posted a video threatening violence against a Dunkin' Donuts employee (whom he referred to as "Nazi Skippy") for merely trying to enforce a store face mask policy.

He has also ranted against vaccines, making a mostly false claim that they are made with "aborted fetal tissue." In May 2021, he also spouted a bizarre conspiracy theory that vaccinated "political elites" are actually getting "a bunch of sugar water" instead of the vaccine. (If one thinks otherwise, according to Locke, they are "smoking meth in your mamma's basement.") In early August 2021, he even ranted against Republican Tennessee governor Bill Lee for signing an executive order that merely ensured that hospitals had adequate staffing and support during the pandemic. (This order unfortunately was necessary because the Tennessee healthcare system was in danger of collapse by people who listened to people like Locke, refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, got sick with COVID, and ended up in hospitals' ICU units, overwhelming them.)

At a late August 2021 rally, Locke encouraged people to "quit playing the coward" and "stir your school board meeting up for the glory of God," which in this case for some reason meant fighting against pandemic restrictions.

Locke's misinformation-filled preaching probably helped contribute to the death of at least one member of his church, who believed everything Locke said and ignored all health precautions on COVID-19, later dying from the disease.

On September 14, 2021, Locke was banned from Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

Support for insurrectionists

See the main article on this topic: 2021 U.S. Capitol riot

“”Let me tell you something: You ain’t seen the insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you low-down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating communists, maybe you’ll find out what an insurrection is. Because we ain’t playing your garbage. We ain’t playing your mess. My Bible says the church of the living God is an institution, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and the Bible says that we’ll take it by force. That’s what the Bible says. That’s what the Bible says. It’s going to get worse.

—Locke on May 15, 2022

On January 5, 2021, the day before the coup attempt, Locke prayed for the Proud Boys and its leader, Enrique Tarrio at a rally by advocating Christian nationalism.

Locke was present during the 2021 Capitol riot, preaching to a crowd of Trump supports at Freedom Plaza with a bullhorn on the day before the event. Shortly before this, Locke referred to himself as part of the "black-robed regiment" in a Facebook post. This obscure term was popularized among certain crowds by Glenn Beck and David Barton in a 2010 political rally, and referred to Protestant ministers who supported the American revolution. Naturally, this became a battle cry with a few dominionist Christians.

Later, Locke called Mike Pence a "Judas" for merely stating in a speech that the violence at the Capitol riot was a bad thing.

Demons, demons everywhere

In January 2022, Locke continued his unabashed fundamentalist crankery by blaming autism on demonic possession. In early February 2022, he revived the fundie tradition of book burning, targeting both old targets like Harry Potter and new targets like Twilight for being full of "spells, demonism, shape-shifting and occultism".

In mid February 2022, another insane clip of a Locke sermon went viral. In this clip, he claimed that, while supposedly casting a demon out of a woman who had recently begun coming to Global Vision, he learned the names of six witches who supposedly had infiltrated his congregation. During this unhinged rant, he accused the alleged witches of wanting to destroy the church, blamed recent illnesses in the congregation on the alleged witches, and also threatened to doxx them.

Piss off thy neighbor

“”I’m five miles from the church and can hear the music… I have a lot of churches in my district. I’ve never had one complaint on a church in my district ever, except I’ve never heard another church five miles away, either.

—Wilson County Commissioner Bobby Franklin

Though many parts of the Bible preach the virtues of silence and even-tempered thoughtful brevity (Proverbs 17:27-28), Locke prefers the extremely brash, angry, loud approach... to the point of pissing off many of his neighbors. Unusually for a church, in September 2022 alone, Locke's church received 22 noise complaints. In 2023, this resulted in both legal action from Wilson County (who, in addition to noise, also complained about failed permits for building expansion) as well as a lawsuit threat from Locke's neighbors.

Too crazy even for Locke

While Locke has entertained and endorsed many out-there conspiracy theories, one conspiracy that Locke is firmly against is flat earth. According to a press release in November 2023, Locke believes that flat earth is a "dangerous hoax" that "swept through evangelical Christian churches on the back of QAnon conspiracy theories", and that the hoax, being "propagated by credible church leaders", has divided "families and full churches to devastating degrees"... including his own church.

To repudiate flat earth, Locke challenged flat earth proponents to an open debate. A pastor named Dean Odle accepted the offer, and the "debate" was held on December 6 2023 at Locke's church. The resulting raucous train wreck stretched for over four hours and ended with Locke kicking Odle and his supporters out of his church, getting police involved in the process. Both sides then rushed to social media to whine and accuse the opposing side of purported altercations and misdeeds after the "debate".

See also

• Hypocrisy
• Transphobia and public restrooms
• European witch-hunts