Some White Evangelical Leaders Hesitate To Preach The Vaccine. Others Spread Misinformation Instead.

At a recent Sunday service, Pastor Travis Fleming stands at the pulpit and prays.

“We want to be in prayer certainly for a number of individuals that have tested positive this past week,” he says.

In late July the coronavirus spread rapidly through the pews at First Baptist Gallatin. More than 50 congregants who attended a Sunday service got sick. Some were even hospitalized.

“We had more who have tested positive for COVID in about a 10-14 day time frame than we’ve had all the previous 18 months of COVID,” he says.

Fleming says it was sobering. The church temporarily paused in-person services, and when they do get back together, he’ll ask people to wear masks. The outbreak could have been much worse, but he says they were lucky: many of his congregants are vaccinated and didn’t have serious symptoms.

“It should be a wake up call for those who are unvaccinated to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go through that as an unvaccinated person,’ ” he says. “‘I need to go ahead and get vaccinated.’”

Fleming is vaccinated himself and he thinks the vaccine is a gift from God.

And while he is comfortable sharing that with congregants one on one, he has reservations about preaching it from the pulpit.

“It’s a fine line for us as ministers to walk as to how much we say about a vaccine,” he says, “or how much we say for it or against it.”

He says it’s too divisive.

‘Faith over fear’

Public health officials are begging people to talk to their doctors about the vaccine, in part because they know doctors will encourage people to get it.

At a recent press conference, Gov. Bill Lee encouraged Tennesseans to consult someone else, too: clergy.

Yet even leaders of white evangelical churches who are for the vaccine, like Fleming, are hesitant to evangelize. Their congregants are among the most vaccine hesitant, and the states along the bible belt have some of the lowest vaccine rates.

But there are outliers who are willing to take a stance, like Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet.

“You will not wear masks in this church,” Locke shouts from the stage during a recent sermon to cheers and applause from his audience. “I’m telling you right now, do not get vaccinated! Do not get vaccinated!”

Paige Pfleger WPLN News

Greg Locke preaches out of a red and white striped tent that seats 1,500 people. He’s expanding to an even bigger tent to accommodate his growing audience.

Locke preaches under the canopy of a red-and-white-striped tent that he jokingly refers to as a “circus tent.”

He often gets fired up during his sermons. But later, sitting amid rows of empty plastic folding chairs, he is more cool-headed.

“People are like, ‘How can you be so sure of yourself?’ ” Locke says. “And I’m not sure of myself, I’m sure of the facts. The facts embolden me.”

When asked where he gets his facts, he says, “I can’t give up all my sources.”

Locke says he feels it is his responsibility to preach those “facts” to his congregation. But much of what he says about the pandemic and politics is based on misinformation and conspiracy theories.

For example, he thinks that COVID-19 is a flu that’s being overblown by the government.

“Right now they’re trying to cover up a stolen election,” he says.

There’s no evidence that’s true. And the science has shown clearly that the coronavirus is far deadlier than the flu.

Locke put up a vinyl sign facing the street that says Global Vision is a mask-free church that celebrates “faith over fear.” He even has a tattoo on his bicep that says “fear is a liar.”

Yet much of what he says seems to stoke fear.

“You get that COVID-19 vaccine you’re going to get sick, you’re going to die. Period,” he says.

Locke also believes that the vaccine is causing the delta variant, which is not true. In Tennessee, the majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations are unvaccinated people.

‘Is this somebody that is wrong for me to follow?’

While Locke’s approach has drawn thousands to his church, it has also planted seeds of doubt among other followers — like Paula Greene.

“He still is entitled to his opinions — my problem is, is those don’t belong at the pulpit,” Greene says.

When Greene first encountered Locke’s sermons on Facebook over a year ago, she was drawn to his preaching style. She liked him so much she thought about making the hours-long drive from Northeast Tennessee.

But that changed as his message went from a religious one to one filled with his political opinions, she says, culminating in the service where he said people can’t wear masks in his tent.

Paige Pfleger WPLN News

Pastor Greg Locke put up a vinyl sign facing the street by his church campus that says his followers cannot wear masks at his services.

Greene has an autoimmune disease and would have to wear one if she attended.

“I got so upset, I was crying,” she says. “And I prayed immediately. God lead me.”

She remembers turning off the livestream, dismayed. She had felt a connection with Locke. She even gave money to his church. But now, she felt she was being turned away.

“We are in a time right now that we are uncertain of so I’m praying for discernment,” Greene says. “Is this somebody that is wrong for me to follow?”

Locke was not the messenger to guide her during the pandemic, she says.

“God has not laid on my heart to watch another service of his,” she says.

She says she was searching for a shepherd, not someone who would lead her astray.