Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Christian Nationalist’s Book Burning and School Board Book Banning in Tennessee
Book burning (Kat Stan)
February 7, 2022
By Bill Berkowitz
I am pretty sure that the good citizens of Mount Juliet, Tennessee would never think of themselves as having anything in common with Nazi Germany. Located in western Wilson County, Mt. Juliet is a suburb of Nashville. In Money’s annual “Best Places to Live” ranking, Mt. Juliet has been named the 22nd best place to live in the United States. The city of 34-+ thousand is 86.92% White, 6.70% Black or African American, 2.47% Asian, 0.44% Native American, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 1.42% from other races, and 2.00% from two or more races. Thanks to Pastor Greg Locke of the Global Vision Bible Church, Mount Juliet is now on the map for holding a book burning, or, as Locke termed it, a “burning service.”
On Wednesday, February 2, Locke held a book burning, citing the church's "biblical right" to "burn ... cultic materials that they deem are a threat to their religious rights and freedoms and belief system."
Locke’s book-burning came after a January vote by Tennessee’s McMinn County School Board to ban Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic novel, from all of its schools.
On CNN, Spiegelman called the banning of “Maus” “disturbing,” “terrifying” and “troubling.” Spiegelman added: "I've moved past total bafflement to trying to be tolerant of people who may possibly not be Nazis, maybe? Because having read the transcript of the school board meeting; the problem is bigger and stupider than that.
"They really genuinely focused, reading this 20-minute document—they totally focused on some bad words that are in the book. Like 'damn it I can't believe that the word 'damn' would get the book jettisoned out of school on its own, but that's where the genuine focus seemed to be."
As The Daily Kos’ Rebekah Sager reported, “When the Nazis began burning books in May 1933, they claimed the books were ‘un-German.’ Joseph Goebbels, ‘chief propagandist,’ delivered an incendiary speech claiming ‘No to decadence and moral corruption!’”
“’Let’s go give the devil a black eye.’ ‘That’s how Pastor Greg Locke, … roused his congregation on Wednesday night,” Vice’s David Gilbert reported. “Then, he led them to a bonfire blazing outside where he proceeded to burn books like Harry Potter and Twilight.” In a Facebook video, he told his followers to “bring all your Harry Potter stuff,” as well as “all your Twilight books and movies. That mess is full of spells, demonism, shape-shifting, and occultism. Bring tarot cards, Ouija boards, healing crystals, idol statues, spell books, and everything else tied to the occult. It's got to go.”
Locke is no stranger to controversy. Last week during a sermon he suggested that autism, epilepsy, and other mental health disorders are actually demon possession.
As Gilbert noted, Locke is in lockstep with Trump, “praised the Proud Boys during a rally in Washington on Jan. 5th, 2021. … is a member of the Christian nationalist Black Robe Regiment, a group of pastors who are ready to go to war to put Christianity back at the heart of American life. He has espoused QAnon-linked conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking tunnels under the White House from his pulpit.”
Locke is also an anti-vaxxer and COVID-19 denier, calling it a “fake pandemic,” and “urged his congregation not to get vaccinated, and called Tennessee Governor Bill Lee a ‘coward’ for allowing the National Guard to assist hospitals struggling to cope during the height of the pandemic.”
And Locke is all over the map: He claimed that Homeland Security, witches, Freemasons, and others were among those in attendance at the burning.
Gilbert reported that “Locke streamed the entire event live on his Facebook page, which has 2.3 million followers. In the video, the pastor can be seen taking bundles of books and tossing them on the fire. Other attendees also appeared to throw books on the fire along with other items including clothing.”
While it’s unclear how many people actually participated in Locke’s book-burning, it comes during a period when school boards across the country are cracking down on curriculums over teachings about the history of slavery and racism in America.
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