Mark Burns, a South Carolina pastor and televangelist who’s running for federal office, wants fellow conservative firebrand Greg Locke to do the same. While speaking at Locke’s Tennessee church Sunday, Burns told attendees that “demon-killing machines” like Pastor Locke need to become politicians.
Locke, a former Evangelicals for Trump adviser, is vocal about conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic. Twitter permanently suspended Locke from its platform last month, and the pastor has banned masks from his church.
Mark Burns: ‘Take the Glory of God…to the Halls of Congress’
Mark Burns, pastor of Harvest Praise & Worship Center in Easley, S.C., told a cheering crowd on Sunday, “We gotta recruit Greg Locke to run for federal office,” later adding, “Maybe he’ll run for governor.” Burns, 42, said, “If you really want to see life change, the Gospel of Jesus just can’t stay in the house of God. We need politicians who would take the glory of God that’s in the temple of God and take it to the halls of Congress.”
Burns, who lost a 2018 bid for the U.S. House of Representatives, says he’s running again next fall. We “have to work to get 2022 right to continue President Trump’s America First agenda,” he announced on Facebook, where he describes himself as a “unifier.”
Previously, Burns admitted he “overstated several details of my biography because I was worried I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a new pastor.” During a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, he proclaimed, “All lives matter.” And after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Burns tweeted he was “Angry at Antifa.”
In a Time magazine article naming Burns “Donald Trump’s top pastor,” the evangelist said he felt “appointed for such a time…just like Esther did.” He added, “For someone like Donald Trump to say, ‘Hey, your heart is right, your spirit is right, you’re my real friend, come follow me,’ that speaks volumes.”
Pastor Greg Locke: ‘There’s Always a Platform for the Truth’
On Monday, during a town hall at Locke’s Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Mark Burns described himself as a “pit bull for the American patriot.” By contrast, he said, “chihuahuas” like “AOC” (New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) “they just bark.”
Also at the town hall were Trump ally Roger Stone, whom the former president pardoned, and anti-vaccine activist Charlene Bollinger, who says she and her husband are “super-spreaders of the truth.”
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