Target-blasting pastor channels old anger in new way
MOUNT JULIET, Tenn. — Eyes bulging, neck strained, fists balled tightly, the then-15-year-old boy swung wildly.
“I’m gonna beat you!” Greg Locke screamed while his stepfather shouted back, filling the boy's bedroom with bitterness and profanity.
Locke threw a suitcase, knocked over his stereo speakers and raged against the older man while his anxious mother pleaded with them both: “Calm down! Quit! Quit! Calm down!”
Suddenly, the fight went out of the stepfather. He just walked out of the room.
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Locke shoved some clothes in a duffle bag, stormed out of the house and waited for his grandfather to pick him up.
Now 39, Locke can’t even remember what started the fight. He just remembers being filled with hate and rage.
He always had been.
Locke still has some of that anger, and it has resonated with others in a big way. His recent online video rants against Target’s bathroom policy, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and the Democratic presidential candidates (and a couple of Republican ones, too) together have received more than 40 million views on Facebook.
Locke is using his newfound fame to grow his church, Global Vision Bible Church, in his hometown.
The church’s slogan: “Where broken people find new meaning to life.” Locke said he surely is one of those broken people.
Born in 1976, the pastor’s earliest memories are of his dad, Steve Locke, being locked up in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on armed robbery and drug charges. The boy’s mother remarried when Locke was 5, but he said he never got along with his stepfather, a tough Vietnam veteran who didn’t communicate well with anyone.
“I resented my stepdad," Locke said. "He hated me. I hated him.”
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Locke spent most of his time in his room, door shut. He watched TV there, did his homework there, even ate meals in there.
The boy failed a couple of grades at Gladeville Elementary School and slowly filled with rage.
Locke’s first arrest, for breaking and entering, happened when he was 11.
He and his buddies went to skateboard at a kid’s house that had a ramp outside. The kid wasn’t home, so the boys broke into the house to get some Cokes and chips.
They lifted the garage door and slid underneath. Locke decided he would be the one to kick in the locked door to the house.
“It’s a great rush of adrenaline,” Locke said, smiling. “I can remember it to this day.”
Once inside, the boys decided to steal stacks of CDs and Nintendo games.
A neighbor saw the whole thing. But Locke lied to police, lied to school administrators and lied to his mother, swearing he had nothing to do with it.
Eventually, Locke’s dad persuaded the boy to confess.
“I’ve been there, son,” his dad said. “You’re lying, and they know you’re lying and I know you’re lying. Tell the truth.”
Locke’s mother, Judy Sumner of Mount Juliet, was crushed.
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“From there on, she nurtured me. But from there, she knew (I was) a liar," he said. "It was a dark place to be in.”
Locke turned to rap music, N.W.A. and Eazy-E, as an outlet for some of his anger. He even got pretty good at rapping himself, using that to gain some popularity in middle school, but it was never enough.
“The consistent thing that kept me angry was people who said, ‘You’re gonna be just like your daddy,’ ” he said.
Many classmates were scared of Locke and usually avoided him altogether.
"He was looking for things to get mad about," said classmate Brandy Wyatt of Mount Juliet. "Everybody knew, keep your distance from him because he’s a loose cannon."
Locke continued to have run-ins with the law, fighting at school, fighting on the bus, fighting everywhere.
"He was so defiant," Sumner said. "I lived in court."
After five arrests, Locke, then 15, ended up at Good Shepherd Children’s Home in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
One Friday night, all the kids went to a revival, and the preacher railed against violence in rap music and misguided teens with all their drugs and sex.
It struck a nerve, and Locke got angry again, even confronting the preacher in the lobby afterward, pointing and screaming at him.
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“He stayed so calm and collected, and that made me even more angry,” Locke said.
The next night, the kids went back to the revival to hear the preacher again, but this time, the message hit him differently.
“Every time he spoke, it was like it was talking to me.”
Locke found himself getting out of his seat for the altar call: “I was super nervous, but I slipped out and got in line.”
Locke found himself in a side room with a volunteer, a basketball coach from a local Christian school, and the two talked and cried and prayed together.
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Soon after, Locke felt like God was calling him to preach. So Locke did.
He started cutting grass at the children’s home, and he used the $30 to go to a tiny radio station in Smyrna, Tenn., and pay for 30 minutes to preach live on the air Saturday afternoons.
After that, he went to seminary school, got married, adopted two children, had two more, traveled to 45 states and 15 countries to preach and started a church in the town where he had raised so much hell.
“Now on a Sunday, there are loads of people who knew the old Greg Locke,” he said. “And they are enamored with the change in this brat’s life.”
Follow Brad Schmitt on Twitter: @bradschmitt
Blasts from a pastor
April 22
WARNING: RAW TRUTH ABOUT NEW BATHROOM POLICY AT TARGET. #TargetMissedTheMark
“…You have lost your ever-loving mind. Are you kidding me? Your political correctness has caused you to do something extraordinarily stupid.”
April 21
GOVENOR (sic) BILL HASLAM OF TENNESSEE IS A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT ON HIS BIBLE VETO.
“I believe you’ve done a great disservice to the state of Tennessee, to the entire United States. And I believe you’ve brought dishonor to almighty God. But that’s on your watch, not on mine.”
March 4
A PASTOR'S BREAKDOWN OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.
“You can be assured of the fact that whoever gets the Republican nomination will get my vote as well as my support. Because I’m surely not going to bed with my own conscience at night knowing I voted for a party that is filled with treason or socialism.”
“All the people that want to feel the Bern will begin to understand that yes, socialism is going to burn America. We’re built on capitalism, ladies and gentlemen. That’s what makes us America.”
“First of All, Kasich, what are you still doing in the race? When you talk, all I hear is Obama, Obama, Obama. You sound just like him. Nobody’s listening to you, sir.”
“And then there’s the famed Little Marco. To be honest with you, every time he talks, I hear Charlie Brown’s teacher. Womp, Womp, womp womp womp womp.”
Feb. 12
I'm just going to say what many people think but are afraid to verbalize. Brace yourself.
“There are very few people as gifted at lying as Hillary Clinton. And if you’re going to vote for her, you oughta sue your brain for non-support. That woman belongs in a federal penitentiary for a very long time.”
“Islam is not a peaceful religion. And I’m sorry we’ve been taught that foolishness. But I guarantee ya, we’ll learn the hard way.”
“Let’s not forget the argument, ‘It’s only Christian-like to take the Syrian refugees.’ I say we don’t take the Syrian refugees because they’re a Trojan horse for ISIS. How about we spend money taking care of our homeless veterans that we should’ve taken care of a long time ago.”
