A Tennessee pastor known for burning books, casting out demons and creating outrage says someone burned 200 Bibles outside his church on Easter Sunday.
Greg Locke, pastor of Global Vision Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, said the church’s security cameras recorded a “polite crook” stopping their vehicle in the middle of an intersection by the entrance to the church, putting on their hazard lights, then dousing a trailer full of Bibles with gas and setting it on fire.
“You got to be kidding me,” Locke said during the Easter revival service, according to a video posted on the Global Vision website. “How many churches in America have a trailer full of Bibles getting burned to block the parking lot?”
The fire is currently under investigation by the Wilson County Sheriff’s Department.
According to a press release from the sheriff’s office, the Mt. Juliet Fire Department responded to the fire at about 6 a.m. on Sunday morning and quickly extinguished the fire.
Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable. Give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you will receive a copy of “Baptistland: A Memoir of Abuse, Betrayal, and Transformation” by Christa Brown. To donate, click here.
“The trailer, containing bibles, had been dropped off in the middle of the intersection and then intentionally set on fire,” according to the sheriff’s department. “To uphold the integrity of the ongoing investigation, other specific details cannot be provided at this time. However, we assure the community that further updates will be shared at the appropriate juncture.”
At first, Locke joked about the fire, saying he had asked law enforcement to give the charred pages of the Bible to the church — so the church could hand them out as a reminder of the need for prayer.
Then he called the fire another sign that Christianity was being threatened in America and that the return of Jesus and the End Times were imminent.
“If you think that Christianity is not (under) attack more than ever before in the United States of America, you have not been paying attention,” he told his church. “Quit being lukewarm. Quit being so passive aggressive and mamby-pamby and spiritually sissified. OK? I’m telling you, they’re attacking churches in America.”
Locke then told his congregation he had just returned from a trip to Israel, which he said was the safest place in the world and that news reports about the war in Gaza were media lies. He then went into a long monologue about the so-called Red Heifer prophecy — the idea that a red cow has to be sacrificed on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to usher in the return of Jesus and the end of the world.
The Temple Mount is currently the site of the Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest places in Islam. Locke told his congregation that the mosque on the Temple Mount would soon be “brought to rubble” and that a red heifer would soon be sacrificed — which would allow first the Antichrist and then Jesus Christ to arrive.
“We are watching the word of God be fulfilled before our very eyes,” he said.
Locke was once a relatively obscure Tennessee preacher — known mostly for publicity stunts like backpacking hundreds of miles to raise money for missions and staying up all night on a cherry picker to raise awareness about homelessness.
He became a social media influencer after a 2016 video of him condemning the inclusive bathroom policies at Target went viral. Locke has since used his online influence to promote Donald Trump and Christian nationalism — as well as to declare himself an exorcist, capable of casting out demons.
Locke has also claimed witches infiltrated his church in an attempt to bring his ministry down and has clashed with his neighbors and local officials after erecting an enormous tent on the grounds of his church during the COVID-19 pandemic. That tent, Locke has claimed, is needed to accommodate the crowds of new people attracted by his support for Trump and his newfound career casting out demons.
Bob Smietana is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
English 
Spanish 
8 Responses
True, authentic Jesus-following is under attack… by people like Greg and his saviour Trump and most of MAGA… like the blasphemous “God Bless the USA” Bible he’s now trying to sell…
Nothing sells like fear and paranoia. Locke has been deceived by Dispensationalist pop culture theology so he spouts nonsense about eschatology and imagined persecution. The Church’s problem is that it’s rotting from within. As Myron J. Taylor once said when comparing the Ark to the Church: If not for the Flood on the outside, the stink on the inside would be too much to bear.
I’m not buying this one. Landscaping / utility trailors have serial numbers just like vehicles so this should be easy to trace from the original purchaser to current owner. So some Christian hating person or group ran around collecting a huge pile of Bibles , loaded them on a trailor and torched them at Greg’s dwindling church . Sure ok , and the Easter bunny showed up at the service too but was kicked out for being a Jezebel or a practicing witch. I’m sorry and I hope I’m wrong , but this has all the markings of one of his publicity stunts. Greg Locke isn’t mentioned much anymore in the media . His church is less than 1/2 the size it once was and he thrives on attention. Without it he is just another abusive jerk of a pastor and adulterer. If arson investigators really do their job, I bet this gets traced back to someone in Greg’s sphere of stupidity.
The whole thing is bizarre! Locke is largely a grifter who has found a profitable niche. And then someone decided to play right into his narrative and burn a trailer full of Bibles in the road outside their building. Just a bizarre set of events that almost sounds like a script.
“he told his church. “Quit being lukewarm. Quit being so passive aggressive and mamby-pamby and spiritually sissified. OK? I’m telling you, they’re attacking churches in America.””
Instead of blaming the congregation, for your failure as a church leader, maybe it is time to start leading by example. Your church is only as strong as your commitment to following God’s Commandments, and building the foundation on the ministry of Jesus.
It is disgusting how many “pastors” blame the congregation for their failures, they love the attention, money, fame, and power, but do not want the responsibility when something requires accountability.
Every polite thief leaves a complimentary trailer with a book burning. I’d put my money on Locke or one of his minions being behind this latest publicity stunt. More fuel for the Christian Nationalism fire.
That also got covered over at Wondering Eagle.
Whose regular troll claimed PROOF of PERSECUTION.
Several regular commenters were skeptical – given Greg Locke’s track record, it wouldn’t be that far a stretch for him to torch those Bibles himself as a publicity stunt. It shows how More-Godly-Than-Thou he is – after all, SATAN is singling him out for special attention! Just like Bob Larson!
Or this could be a spectacular Troll; during his Witchfinder-General phase (when he claimed Witches were infiltrating his church on the say-so of Demons) trolls would leave presents under the sawdust of his tent floor for him to find – Tarot cards, paperback Necronomicons, Blair Witch stick sculptures – and enjoyed the resulting fireworks. (No Ouija Boards, though – too big to smuggle in. And D&D books from 1977 on are not only too big, but too expensive to expend.)
I suspect it was Locke or one of his minions that did this. I don’t see this being a spectacular troll move given the financial outlays involved. Besides, Locke is a diminishing has-been, so I think the trolls would have by and large moved onto new MAGA-cultist A-hats.