(OPINION) As he gears up for the release of his new film “Come Out in Jesus Name,” controversial internet preacher Greg Locke says he took his political views too far the past few years and understands that his platform was meant to highlight deliverance ministry instead.
According to the Christian Post, In the movie airing in select theaters on Monday, Locke and a group of other well-known preachers break down Jesus’ ministry of deliverance as modeled in the New Testament scriptures.
In a candid sit down with The Christian Post, Locke and his wife, Tai, discuss their change of ministry style. Locke also said he has been delivered from battling politicians to bring spiritual deliverance to others. Once a Cessationist, Baptist preacher, Locke now fully embraces the gifts and move of the Holy Spirit.
“Not only did I not believe it and I was anti-deliverance, fivefold ministry, anything that had what I considered a charismaniac flair, I was completely against it! I was so Cessationist, very Baptist,” Locke said in a video interview with The Christian Post.
Locke said his wife, Tai, who he married in 2018, was radically saved from a drug addiction with no prior religious background, which made it easier for her to embrace deliverance ministry and the move of the Holy Spirit.
“I had to unlearn a lot of what was taught in my head, in my heart, in seminary. But when God started doing demonstratively and definitively, right before my very eyes, the things that I was taught to preach against, it was shocking. I could not deny the reality of miracles, signs, wonders, tongues deliverance,” Locke declared.
Demons fleeing at the name of Jesus was just a “token phrase” to the minister until he began to see it happening for himself. “Once it started happening, I said, ‘Look, this is a third of the ministry of Jesus, the No. 1 thing Jesus did outside of preaching Gospel.’ Why are we asking people what would Jesus do and not doing what Jesus did?” he questioned.
Global Vision Bible Church was immersed in deliverance ministry “overnight” and is now bringing his revelation to the world. Locke shot to internet fame after posting a video on Facebook in 2016 criticizing Target for its new policies on gender-neutral bathrooms. He later became very outspoken in favor of Donald Trump and then against the coronavirus restrictions.
The minister has since had a change in focus and believes he was misdirected in focusing on things that are not in the spiritual realm, as the Bible instructs.
“If they hear and read and if they Google me, they’re not going to want to see the movie in a lot of ways because the media has done a good or bad, depending on how you look at it, job of painting me as this insurrectionist Christian nationalist that hates everybody,” Locke shared. “That really couldn’t be further from the truth,” he continued.
“This progression with CNN was interesting because I became the most controversial pastor of America, to the most hated pastor in America, to the most dangerous pastor in America. And now I would say I’m probably the most misunderstood pastor in America because they don’t recognize the transition.”
