Mask Up And Get Kicked Out Of Church, Tennessee Pastor Preaches

NASHVILLE, TN — Some 34.5 million U.S. cases and more than 611,000 deaths nationwide since the first U.S. COVID-19 case was reported a year and a half ago, Pastor Greg Locke is still preaching what he calls the gospel of a hoax at his Nashville-area church.

Locke, who since the beginning of the pandemic has branded COVID-19 a hoax and ignored public health guidance to stem its spread, raised the stakes Sunday at his Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, located just east of Nashville:

Wear a mask, the 45-year-old pastor warned congregants Sunday in a sermon shared on Facebook, but know it's a ticket out of church.

“If … you start showing up (with) all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave,” Locke said. “I will ask you to leave. I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church.”

The pastor’s five-minute diatribe against masks, which comes at about the 1-hour, 11-minute mark on the Facebook video, comes amid concerns about the surging U.S. infection rate from the coronavirus delta variant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday updated federal mask guidance for vaccinated Americans, including wearing masks indoors, in schools and in COVID-19 hot spots.

On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs became the first federal agency to mandate vaccinations for its doctors and other medical staff. State governments across the country are taking new looks at how to control the spread of the delta variant, now the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States.

• See Also: Her Son Died of COVID. At His Funeral, She Offered Vaccines.

Among them, California Gov. Gavin Newsom required health care workers to provide proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or get tested for the virus every week.

“The announcement here today is broad, it’s significant, believe we may be the first state at scale to not only require it for all state employees but to engage in public-private partnership with our healthcare facilities in the state,” Newsom said.

Locke told congregants gathered under a tent Sunday that government efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus and its variants are evidence of a “wicked, godless culture” that seeks compliance and control over the masses.

• See Also: Blind Faith Meets Coronavirus Science In Potentially Deadly Crash

“Now I’m gonna go on record right now while we talking about this,” Locke thundered. “They talkin’ about shutting down this nation for round 2, talkin’ about masking everybody back up and shuttin’ down churches.

“Hey, my hind leg! If they think they gonna shut this church down. I’m gonna ahead and let you know that right now, in the name of God,” he said. “Knock on my door and ask me if I’ve got a vaccine. Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord splits you, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Locke also said “they will be serving Frostys in hell before we shut this place down.”

The pastor may not have trouble finding sympathizers in Tennessee, one of the most vaccine-hesitant states in the nation, with only about 38 percent of residents vaccinated.

The state has seen at least 1,000 breakthrough cases — 27 of them fatal — in which a vaccinated person became infected with the delta variant, Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercy said in a statement.

Piercy has taken heat for encouraging residents to get vaccinated; and Michelle Fiscus, the state’s top vaccine official, was fired earlier this month. Fiscus wasn’t given a reason for her termination, but she told The Tennessean that she was a scapegoat and was fired to mollify state lawmakers who were upset over the health department’s efforts to vaccinate teenagers against the coronavirus.

“It was my job to provide evidence-based education and vaccine access so that Tennesseans could protect themselves against COVID-19,” Fiscus said in a written statement to the newspaper. “I have now been terminated for doing exactly that.”

Locke was an early critic of pandemic-associated church closures, and said in a sermon last summer that he would “go to jail” before he closed his church. He was responding to possible repercussions for a California church that continued to hold church services in defiance of a statewide ban on indoor worship.”

“They will be selling Frostys in the lake of fire before Greg Locke and Global Vision Bible Church ever closes down,” Locke said at the time.

Locke adopted a drive-in church model in March 2020 when Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee banned gatherings of more than 10 people. Lee said at the time that churches were “risking people’s lives” with in-person worship services.

Although Locke insists the pandemic is a political rather than public health issue, 16 Republican state senators signed an open letter to Tennesseans this week imploring them to get jabbed and underscored that residents maintain freedom of choice and vaccines won’t be mandated.

“Unfortunately, efforts to get more people vaccinated have been hampered by politicization of COVID-19,” the senators wrote. “This should not be political. Tennesseans need factual information to make educated decisions regarding their health. …

“Every life lost to this virus is tragic. The COVID-19 vaccines save lives. Again, we strongly urge all Tennesseans to study the facts, talk to your doctor and get vaccinated.”