Early life
Locke was born in Donelson Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1976. [3] According to Locke, his father was imprisoned during Locke's early life, and his mother remarried when he was 5. Locke subsequently had a turbulent relationship with his stepfather. [3]
Locke states that following multiple arrests, he was sent to a children's home in Murfeesboro at the age of 15, where he converted to Christianity. [3] [4] As a teenager, he preached on local radio stations. [4]
Career
Locke founded Global Vision Baptist Church in 2006. In 2011, the church officially split from the Independent Baptist movement and changed its name to Global Vision Bible Church. [5] Locke had a "flair for the theatrical" according to one writer, which included a four day stint in a scissor lift to solicit donations homeless people, and releasing a rap song under the name "Rev Rymz" to raise awareness of child trafficking. [4]
Locke began using social media to post videos, quickly finding that, according to him, "the controversial stuff really drove traffic." [4] Locke's first viral video was an angry response to the 2015 Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. [4] In 2016, Locke posted a Facebook video in which he criticized changes to Target's bathroom policy. [6] Locke leaned into the image of an "old-school, over-the-top pastor with a country twang," according to one writer, with such stunts as fastening a bible to a baseball-bat and demolishing a pink dollhouse onstage. [4]
Locke founded Locke Media in 2016 together with former journalist Wayne Caparas who he met at a Las Vegas get-out-the-vote event. [4] Locke kept his church open through outbreaks of COVID-19, and claimed that it was a "fake pandemic". [7] He said that those who wore masks to his church would be asked to leave, [8] and discouraged vaccination among his congregation. [9] His sermons included Hollywood cabals and QAnon, and he claimed there was an "unholy plot" by the likes of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris against true Christians such as those at Global Vision. He also supported the "Stop the Steal" campaign after the 2020 presidential election. [4]
Locke was present during the January 6 attack on the Capitol. [10] He encouraged his congregation to travel to Washington, D.C., and was scheduled to speak before Trump at the Ellipse. Locke did not end up speaking at said event, but he did deliver sermons at the Freedom Plaza on January 5 and near the Capitol steps during the riot. [11] Afterward, Locke condemned the violence but maintained, without evidence, that it had been instigated by antifa agitators. [11] In September 2021, Locke was permanently suspended from Twitter; his account was later reinstated. [12] As of April 2022, Locke's social media audience numbers in the millions. [13] [14] Locke has been a speaker at several stops on the pro-Trump ReAwaken America Tour, which features conspiracy theories about vaccines and the 2020 presidential election. [15] [16] [17]
After Biden became president, Locke began focusing on exorcism and demonic possession. [4] On January 23, 2022, during a sermon, Locke claimed that obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism spectrum disorder "could be" forms of demonic possession, saying: "Are you telling me my kid's possessed? No. I'm telling you your kid could be 'demonized' and attacked but your doctor calls it autism." This statement was condemned by advocates for neurodivergent people and the Autism Faith Network. [18] [19] On February 2, 2022, Locke held a burning of books and materials related to witchcraft and the occult. [20] [21] During a sermon on February 13, he claimed to have discovered six "witches" within his congregation during an exorcism and threatened to expose their names. [22] [23]
Locke was executive producer and subject of the documentary film on exorcism entitled Come Out in Jesus Name, which was released in March 2023 through Fathom Events. [1] [4] The film chronicled the ministries of deliverance ministers such as Alexander Pagani, Isaiah Saldivar, and Mike Signorelli, culminating at Locke's own revival tent in Tennessee. [24] [4] In a statement made to The Christian Post about the movie, Locke also expressed a desire to change his focus from politics, saying that he was “misdirected by focusing on things not in the spiritual realm.” [2] The movie made $2.5 million in box office returns. [4]
During the early days of the bombing campaign in Gaza in October-November 2023, he advocated for violence against Palestinians. He further called for missiles to destroy the Dome of the Rock and called Islam a Satanic cult. [25]
On March 31, 2024, on Easter Sunday, an unknown man parked a trailer filled with Bibles at an intersection near Locke's church, and then intentionally set it on fire, according to the sheriff's office. Locke said that the act "was most assuredly directed at us" and that it proved Christianity is "under attack more than ever before in the United States of America". [26]
Personal life
Locke met his first wife, Melissa Biggers, at Good Shepherd Children's Home while he was there as a ward of the state; Biggers was among the facility's staff. [27] In 1995, Locke and Biggers became engaged. They have four children, two of whom are adopted. In January 2018, Locke confirmed in a video posted to Facebook that he and Biggers had separated, [28] and the divorce was finalized in May. [29] Locke married Tai Cowan McGee the same year. Prior to their marriage, she was his administrative assistant. Locke has repeatedly denied any suggestions of infidelity. [29]
On September 3, 2024, Locke's family residence came under intense gunfire. Police reportedly found 30 to 40 bullet shell casings around the property, which were determined to have been fired into the garage, house windows and a family vehicle, with one bullet hitting a pillow in a bedroom. Despite one Locke family member (not Greg) being home at the time, they were not injured and no immediate arrest was made by law enforcement. Locke arrived at the house shortly after the attack and the family stayed at a hotel that night as a safety precaution. A local man, Tyler Poole, pled guilty to one count of aggravated assault and two counts of reckless endangerment for the incident, which stemmed from a dispute with Locke's stepson that was unrelated to Locke's church or teachings. [30] [31] [32] [33]
