Greg Locke is a radical right-wing pastor who regularly uses the services at his Global Vision Bible Church outside of Nashville, Tennessee, to rant about politics and spread wild conspiracies. One of Locke’s favorite methods of dismissing anything that contradicts his narrow worldview is to dismiss it as “nonsense.”
For instance, Locke insists that the idea that Joe Biden is the president is “nonsense.”
Right-wing pastor Greg Locke continues to declare that “Joe Biden ain’t the president of the United States. He’s a fake. He’s a phony. He’s a hypocrite, and God’s going to uncover that nonsense and he’s going to kick his sorry tail out of that White House.” pic.twitter.com/nZKpNP6Veq
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) January 29, 2021
Radical right-wing pastor Greg Locke says God doesn’t want him to accept that Biden won the 2020 election because “forensic science proved” that Trump won. https://t.co/BvSwVdMAgO pic.twitter.com/JTASCaOk5p
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 2, 2021
Even though Joe Biden has been in the White House for nearly three months, right-wing pastor Greg Locke says “you have lost your ever-loving mind” if you believe he’s the legitimate president. pic.twitter.com/h2xNVVTTg4
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 11, 2021
Locke also believes that dangers posed by the COVID-19 virus are “nonsense.”
Radical right-wing pastor Greg Locke declares that if anyone in his congregation shows up to church wearing a mask, he’ll kick them out. pic.twitter.com/9TUktdr3av
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) July 25, 2021
Just a normal Sunday at Global Vision Bible Church as right-wing pastor Greg Locke literally screams at his congregation “do not get vaccinated” while saying that only “crack-smoking, demon-possessed leftists” think Biden is the legitimate president. pic.twitter.com/humGnQnBoC
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) August 1, 2021
According to Locke, participating in social distancing and mask wearing in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is likewise “nonsense.”
Greg Locke announces that he’ll be hanging banners informing attendees that the wearing of masks is prohibited in his church: “We will not allow it. We’re a mask-free campus.” https://t.co/qroGOhOXKE pic.twitter.com/qPdoVEhDeC
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) July 28, 2021
One of the unifying themes of Locke’s rants is essentially that anything he doesn’t like is “nonsense,” but the reality seems to be that the things he dismisses as “nonsense” are really just things that he doesn’t understand.
On Monday night, Locke preached at New Life Independent Baptist Church in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina, where he dismissed math, of all things, as “nonsense” after admitting that he simply is not very good at it.
“I’m dumber than a box of rocks in a lot of areas,” Locke said. “I graduated from high school almost two years late with an eighth-grade bonehead math degree. I failed pre-algebra two years in a row. I’ve never had business math, consumer math, I never even made it past pre-algebra, I never had real algebra. I hate math. I get nervous when the Holy Spirit wants me to preach out of the Book of Numbers. I hate math. It’s nonsense.”
Math, of course, is not “nonsense,” nor are the outcome of the election, the dangers of COVID-19, or the usefulness of mask wearing and vaccines in preventing its spread. They are only “nonsense” to Locke because, like math, he doesn’t understand them.
