Pastor who re-married his ex-wife's best friend few months after divorce says he still preaches against divorce

After months of denying they were in an intimate relationship before his recent divorce, Greg Locke, the outspoken internet preacher and lead pastor of Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee, has married his administrative assistant and ex-wife's best friend, Tai Cowan McGee.

Greg Locke and ex-wife

The marriage came after Locke legally divorced his ex-wife Melissa, whom he said he "loved for 21 years".

"The divorce and remarriage is a fact. Everybody knows that," Locke said. Locke was known support of hardline conservative values, including his opposition to divorce.

Locke said he will continue preaching against divorce despite his failed marriage.

"I still preach against divorce. I'm in a series right now in Ephesians, I'm encroaching on Chapter 5. You know, I'm gonna have to preach about marriage. Husband's love your wives as Christ loves the Church, that's a difficult balance right now but I'm gonna have to learn to be a way better husband than I was the first go round," he said of his new marriage.

"There's no doubt. We (Locke and his ex-wife) both contributed to the failure of our marriage ... and so I'm gonna have to learn to be a biblical husband in the strictest sense of the word. I'm not gonna change the fact that I'm still very conservative, my values and morals. Is divorce wrong? Yeah. Does God offer forgiveness? There is only one unforgivable sin in the Bible and it's not divorce. It's the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit," he said.

"It's certainly not a situation I thought I would ever find myself in but I'm here and what I'm finding now is that our phone is ringing off the hook with pastors that have gone through or are going through the very same thing. Guys that I never would have imagined that are divorced and remarried or are in the process," he added.

Since news broke of his personal life earlier this year, Locke has been the subject of several unsavory headlines, some of which accused him of being both physically and verbally abusive to his wife who struggles with mental illness.

He said there are details in his sealed divorce files that would totally "exonerate" him.

Locke and new wife

When asked if he was aware of the optics of his new marriage in light of previous reports about their relationship, he replied: "I'm legally remarried and I'm legally divorced. What it looks like? ... I'm not gonna live crazy and single for the rest of my life and just live in misery because my ex-wife decided to burn my life to the ground publicly with a bunch a lies about abuse and stuff which my kids were mortified by," he said.

In an interview with CP January, Locke said his relationship with McGee then was platonic. 

When asked how their relationship flowered into a marriage, Locke explained that things began to change after his divorce with Melissa was finalized in May.

"We were a week from the finalization of the divorce. Had we talked about 'hey, let's go out on a date when all of this is done? Yeah.' ... Of course there were feelings. We just didn't know what to do with them until things were legal," Locke explained.

He said in July they both went to the elders of their church to discuss their relationship and "we went for it in August just like the paperwork says."

"The church is fine. The church is growing. We lost people because I got divorced and in the evangelical world if you're a pastor and get divorced it's like you've got leprosy. I lost a lot of friends, a lot of meetings," he said. "It's not ideal. That's for sure. This is not the position that people want to find themselves in. It is what it is there's no doubt about that."
CP