In an article entitled Maga pastor says two hundred Bibles set ablaze outside his church
on Easter morning, Far right pastor Greg Locke gets a taste of his own
medicine as a trailer full of Bibles is set ablaze in front of the Global
Vision Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Locke has previously pulled similar stunts of his
own by holding book burnings focused on Harry Potter and Twilight series due to their
supposed demonic teachings. He also notably destroyed a Barbie dreamhouse with a baseball bat
that had a Bible taped to it in response to the twenty twenty three Barbie
hit movie, which challenged traditional roles of patriarchy and endorsed various forms of equality
pertaining to sex and gender. This vehement LGBTQ opponent frequently violates his church's nonprofit
status by using his sermons to make political endorsements of Donald Trump, while characterizing
President Joe Biden and his supporters as demon's possessed demon excuse me, crack smoking
leftists. There are so many things wrong with this picture, and I wish
there were enough time to cover all of it. We're certainly going to try.
But this story is from The Daily Beast by A. J. McDougall
on March thirty first, twenty twenty four, and I want to kick it
over to our panels. Eli, I want to start with you first.
You know, this is a This is a guy who has been accused of,
well not accused of, I mean openly performed ridiculous stunts in front of
his congregation, out in public, you know, smashing Barbie dream houses,
burning his own books. But is this potential or is this actual book burning
in front of his church just another potential stunt by Lock? Or has he
drawn negative attention due to his antics as he has in the past, and
maybe somebody's get getting even with him? What do you think about that?
So I'll say, is it outside the realm of possibility that he is the
target of violence? Not at all, that's absolutely and that probably is the
case. But it kind of seems like he did it, you know what
I mean. So if you think if you look at the way that he
talks about this footage, so in the article he it's it says that he
has not yet seen the footage at the time that he describes it. In
the following ways. He talks about exactly what time the vehicle was parked.
He talks about how the UH perpetrator UH left the hazard lights on. He
said, that's the most polite criminal. And that is very interesting detail because
it's not common for people who are angry to give credit where it's due.
And I think what the case is that he can't demonize himself. I think
he's the person in the video, and he can't demonize himself. He has
to say something good about himself. So he's like, oh, look how
polite I am, even when I'm criming. I'm just so polite, polite
you've ever seen. And it's like, and this is act like a known
thing that happens when people are trying to shift blame from themselves. It is
kind of people are unable to just fully demonize themselves most of the time.
So even when you're trying to, you know, in this case, say
like no, that wasn't me that did that, which he does, he's
not defending himself, but he's trying to obfuscate himself. And even in that
process, he can't fully be like, well he's all bad, because he
knows it's him and he's got to be like, there's some good in there.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. You know. I really like
to see how this plays out if it is in fact uncovered that he did
do it. Maybe he's already setting himself up to look like a good guy
in a kind of a weird way. I wanted to kind of move to
Infidel and see what you thought about that is, do you think that Locke
could be behind these stunts in order to draw attention to himself? I mean,
is he just an attention grabbing type of guy, or is he really,
you know, concerned about this movement that he's so against. I've got
to say that Greg Locke believes in one thing and one thing only, and
that's Greg Lock. But his antics that he has done in the past,
it is would be difficult for me to put this past him. Does that
mean he did it? No, But it did strike me as rather odd
when he made the comment about wanting to start passing out the Scorchs Bible versus
the Bible pages. I found that to be, you know, this concept
of unity of opposition of you know, look at what they're doing to us,
because he's trying to take these Bibles. Who technically aren't his. It's
not like they win took his bibles and earned his property and he's going to
pass he's out as some kind of memento or trophy of survival. It just
seems very suspicious to me. Now you had mentioned earlier his bible taped around
the baseball bat with the barbie house, and anyone who will do these types
of antics and try to pass this off as it's something serious. Personally,
it's something I'm not able to do. I'm not able to take them serious,
and honestly, I don't think anyone should. I do agree with the
sheriff saying it was one hundred percent deliberate act. The question is back to
what Eli said, who And as you mentioned Jimmy, he has a history
of burning books himself. So for me, it just seems like a logical
leap to think that, you know, burning books is something the other side
would do too. But if it is real and someone did this, obviously
that's unacceptable on any level. But it is a reminder that hateful things do
breed hateful actions. It's not a justification for our side or any the opposition
of Greg Locke to do it any more than it is those words of hate
that he spews every week, how they come back to haunt us, and
how they come back to haunt people around him. Because words have consequences.
So if those words are having consequences to him too, well, perhaps he
should consider toning down his rhetoric because he doesn't believe this. That's what it
is. It's rhetoric. Sure, yeah, And I mean we've got a
case to maybe think or maybe say that he is behind this and this is
kind of just more of the show that he's putting on, or he could
be drawing some retaliation. It's scott. If this is indeed a case of
retaliation against Locke for his far fest, far fetched excuse me, and far
right commentary political activism, can it be considered a hate crime? I mean,
is this is this so serious? Uh that we should be giving it
that title? Well, I mean it's really tough to say. I mean,
both the Infidel and Eli bringing up some good points. I mean,
I definitely could see I could see Locke doing something like this, right,
I mean, having you know, this martyr complex, uh, is definitely
kind of a It's an ego it's an ego trip and so you know,
there's there's really two. It's it's the story is either a Greg Locke story
or it's an act of violence story. And and in this case, it's
probably a little bit of both. I mean he's drawn, uh, he's
drawn the ire of many different many different populations, many different groups within the
population, for example, And these are some of his own words. This
one's taken from a video of him on Twitter. He's as now, I'm
going to make you mad for a minute, and I don't really care.
Why is it you pull up to a church and it says they operate in
faith and you have fifty handicapped parking spots we ought to start, say,
having signs of a wheelchair laying down and someone just walking up. Well,
pastor, I think you're being insensitive. I think you just don't have enough
faith, is what I think. And so he's he's he's saying that disabled
people are just don't have enough faith. They should just cast aside their wheelchairs
and stand up and walk. And I found this other tweet of his from
July of last year, and this is like a one stop shopping spot for
all for violating all these different communities. Here he says Jesus is the only
way to heaven. Period. Masks don't work. There's only two genders.
Trump won the election. George Floyd is not a hero. Socialism is an
evil disease. Epstein didn't kill himself. The tunnels are real. I had
to look up that last one. But he's definitely trying. I mean,
it's almost like he's intentionally provoking these these communities. And so he has a
history of being a troublemaker. And so the question then lies you were asking
about is it a hate crime? Is it a hate crime if there are
people actually responding to this? And I wasn't really sure about that. I
looked it up. This is from Justice dot gov. It says, at
the federal level, hate crime laws include crimes committed again on the basis of
the victims perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual
orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. Okay, and so the
question then is whether or not it's a hate crime depends on why. If
we're assuming that it was committed by somebody else. Can you know, Joe,
I wonder if you could do a hate crime against yourself, If anybody
could, it would be somebody like him. So, but then the question
is are they doing this because of his religious beliefs or are they doing it
just because he's an asshole. I mean, it can go either way,
and I think I'm in I'm inclined to align with your last point. I
mean, he's noting ire from people because he's religious. He's drawing ire because
he's well, he's basically a walking clickbait, isn't he. He's a troll.
He is trying to do things for attention and you know, purposely raise
his stock by openly making these outlandish claims. And you know, I just
want to harken back to the fact that a lot of the things he's saying
go against the rules that are established in his community in the five oh one
c three nonprofit REALM. Right, So, standing at your pulpit and endorsing
political opponents and then why why is it just another way to be provocative?
Right, He's provoking the government. He's saying, look what I can do,
don't tell me what to do. I'm running this church. Yeah,
And so these are good points. I could segue into something I know Eli
had something to say about, and that is, you know, Locke is
telling his congregation all sorts of things. He's taking political stances. They're they're
way way far right wing, but they're they're also unhinged. I mean,
even even for right wing people, beating up a Barbie doll house is kind
of crazy. But AILI by by Locke telling his congregation that they need to
not be so lukewarm and passive, aggressive and and essentially demanding that they take
a more abrasive or forceful stance. Is it is this a call to action
by him for people to engage in violence, a call to violence? I
would hesitate to call it that. It's kind of like the the Christian verse.
Well not not the Christian version, but you could say the buddy version,
Buddy Jesus version of cull to violence, like the l like what LOL
is to laughing. It's he he really wants them to so. So what
he said was that this is a quote from the article that he had said
to his congregation. I'm sorry, I gotta take a fin of here.
He's a known, you know, we are under attacked type preacher. So
what he says is, if you think Christianity is not under attack now more
than ever before in the United States of America, you have not been paying
attention. You need to get your head out of the sand. Quit being
so lukewarm. Quit being so passive, aggressive and manby, pamby and spiritually
sissified. So he very much wants to like rally the troops of his congregation,
so to speak, and kind of get them behind him. So the
next time he makes like a Facebook video or he's on the local news,
he can have like seven to ten people behind him holding signs that say,
you know, God, hey whoever, or you know that may not be
his brand, but you know, he can have like that support behind him.
He just wants to rally that support. He is very much a provocateur
as you, as Hasban said, and he just he does a lot of
these videos where he's like just kind of angry and about whatever's going on politically.
He had a video about the about when Target changed the bathroom policy to
allow customers to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. There was
a Baptistnewsglobal dot com article about him and it was titled, in part,
here's why you shouldn't listen to him. This was in August of twenty twenty
one. Baptist News Global was saying don't listen to this guy. To Baptists,
Well, it's not uncommon for I think members of different congregations or even
different sects of Christianity to kind of point the finger at each other. Right,
I'm not so sure if I'm convinced that he's not making a call to
action, I don't know where we draw the line. You know, he
is trying to kind of evoke some kind of victimhood with him with his followers
and give them something to identify as victims. And you know that could spill
over and become really ugly. We've seen that in our political sphere and our
own government January sixth, of course, and in other ways. And you
know, Glenn, I want to ask you. You made mention of passing
out Bible pages. So what would be so bad about him passing out the
burned Bible pages? Is this a badge of honor? Or is it a
reminder of their victim? Would to create the solidarity that he would need if
things would escalate, I think the goal would be anger. You know,
you create that unity, and once you get that unity, then you give
it a direction. And that direction rather consistently with well coming from the guy
who decided to take a baseball bat with the Bible wrapped around into a Barbie
house, Negativity, violence, these type of things seem to be his way
to He would want to resolve almost anything. It's more of a condescending you
know, let's go handle this, because you're you're not brave enough, you're
not bold enough, you're not Christian enough, you're not whatever you want to
put there. You're not enough. But I am, and I'm going to
be the example. So I think to him, he sees himself as that
hero, you know, that that one who's going to lead people. Because
I don't believe that Locke actually buys most of what he says, but I
think that there's that I want to be that guy. I want to be
that person, and I think that this is just another way to stay relevant
in his eyes and to get people charged up about a burned Bible. I
mean, I guess that's a bonus. So I don't think he's losing his
sleep. But one thing I wanted to say that I found odd is that
usually those trailers have ven numbers on I'm I'm surprised that there isn't somebody tracking
that trailer a little more seriously than that, and that's a lot more expensive
than the Bibles. I was feeling bad about the trailer. Well, you
know, if this is his own actions, I mean, he's an expert
at this point, after going through the Twilight and Harry Potter books. He's
probably got some skill there to be able to disguise his tracks right or mask
his tracks. You know, Scott, I wanted to get your opinion on
whether or not, plain and simple, is this violence. Well, that
depends on how you look at it. I mean, if it's I mean
we've been talking a lot about Greg Locke and about how you know, maybe
he staged it, but you know, there's always the possibility that he didn't.
We've talked about some outrageous things he's done. He's offended a variety of
communities. He's he's definitely generated ire from from the public. And so it
definitely and and Infidel touched on this earlier, and that is if it was
violence against Greg Locke or his church or or whatever. You know, it's
it's not the way to go. It's not a good way to go.
I mean, at least that's my opinion. I can't I can't support that
kind of action if it was if it was somebody something that's done against him,
and so if that was the case, then I would say, yeah,
it's definitely violence. It's it's uh, I mean, it's it's putting
the public at risk. It's in you know, it's endangering you know,
it could be innocent bystanders who knows that. You know, a fire could
get out of control, it could pass on to like nearby buildings or houses,
and so it's uh, and it's and it's fire. It's fire for
one thing, and which is Locke is quite familiar with. We've talked about
his book burning experience, and and uh, may be maybe maybe if it
was him, he felt like he was expert enough that he could keep it
under control. But I mean, it's it's hard, it's like right in
your face. It's like burning something that's precious to these people. And whether
or not we agree with their beliefs, we have to support their right to
have that belief we have to support their right to have those books. And
and so if you're asking me if it's violence, I say, definitely it's
violence if it's coming from outside of the church itself, if he did it
himself, then it's just a show, you know. Then it's like you
know, a stage magician just you know, having you know, pyrotechnics as
part of the background. And so you know, it would depend on how
we look at it or what the police find out, if the police are
in fact investigating it. Yeah, so bringing the police into it, this
is a good a good opportunity to be for me to answer. Ask you
a closing question. I'd like to get your closing comments based on the idea
that maybe Greg Locke was under attack by somebody. So there, let's say
there are two sides of controversy, lock on one hand, and the people
who support LGBTQ plus rights general quality. Who wins in such a case like
this, who's got the claim to really be angry? And uh, you
know who who is really being affected by hate crimes? And then after Scott,
if you could, if you could wrap it up quickly, I want
to get to Infidel and then we will move to ELI and close it out.
Uh. Well, if it is, if it is in fact a
show, then I think it's a It's a reflection of Locke realizing that he
has to get more and more more outrageous to keep you know, stoking the
fires, as it were, of that hatred. And so if it is
him, then I you know, if it's a show, then I think
that he realizes that his influence and his side is kind of on on the
you know, on the down side here. If it's if it was an
act of violence, I think it's not the way to It's not a good
way to, uh to express that. If you're if somebody from the LGBTQ
community or from any of the numerous other communities that he's uh that he's offended.
I don't think that's the right way to approach it. And I I
think it would you know, once it's just if it's discovered to be somebody
like that, then I think that would be kind of a black eye from
their cause Infidel any closing comments, yeah, I would have to agree.
I mean, this is obviously not the way that anyone needs to resolve their
problems. As much as I am happy to see Bibles go away, I
think this has since so many wrong messages in so many ways that it's not
even funny. It's counterproductive on almost any level. The only win I could
see in this would be possibly Greg Locke and his type of rhetoric of getting
amped up a notch, whether he did it or not. And the truth
is is that I don't think he really cares if anyone's caught for it,
even if he didn't do it, because he would be hoping, okay,
what happened the next night on the cameras, because he's looking for that.
That's what an insider looks for. And if he's already incited things enough for
other people to start driving the bus, I think it'd be perfectly happy given
him an opportunity to push back at something else, all right, ELI last
thoughts, Sure, So as far as the question, who's you know losing
out? If who's the viction of a hate crimeer, I mean, I
think if this is an act of violence from another group or individual as a
result of of what he is saying about, you know, the group they
affiliate with or groups, nobody still went like, there's no like everybody is
losing not not only does nobody win, everybody is losing here. And this
just is not as it's already been said. You know, I'm kind of
just repeating you know, my my panelists, my co panelists here, but
this isn't the right way to do it. Somebody could have gotten hurt,
you know, property could have been damaged, but lives could have been lost,
and then where would we be. We wouldn't be in any better of
a position. Whether it was Greg Lack or not, it was incredibly stupid
and irresponsible and it's definitely not the right way to send whatever your message about
religion is, Get on YouTube, make a podcast like we're doing. If
we are not out threatening people with fire or being violent, and we're having
the important discussions here, so