An Evangelical pastor in Nashville is standing by comments he made last week about the Delta variant—when he called it nonsense—and now is loudly urging his congregation to “not get vaccinated.”
Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church previously shared that if his congregation shows “up with masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave.” Those in attendance cheered at the 45-year-old—who has made similar statements in the past—and his comments.
Locke’s church has grown during the pandemic, the Washington Post reports, as his far-right commentary brought in audiences during the 2020 election and beyond. He has called the pandemic “fake,” said Joe Biden was a “sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel,” and dangerously claimed the COVID vaccine is a “dangerous scam.”
And just this past week, Locke frantically called the pandemic BS—or “biblical stupidity”—and said he won’t be apologizing for what he said.
“The Delta variant was nonsense then, it is nonsense now,” Locke screamed of the COVID variant that continues to surge in the U.S., especially in southern states. “You will not wear masks in this church. I’m telling you right now. Do not get vaccinated, do not get vaccinated. I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t need your money. I don’t need your hand clap. I don’t need more people on social media to follow me.”
He added that “Joe Biden’s days are numbered” and that the only people denying the 2020 election was stolen are “crack-smoking, demon-possessed leftists.”
In what a doctor in the South is calling the “darkest days of this pandemic,” Florida and Louisiana were at or near their highest hospitalization numbers on Monday since the start of the pandemic, Reuters reports. Elsewhere, California leaders have reinstated indoor mask orders in various places, and both Cali state workers and New York City workers will soon be required to either be vaccinated or undergo regular testing.
