“For the Alberta Government to request that it not be required to provide evidence on May 3 in support of Dr Hinshaw’s Orders, while at the same time barricading the church, is both reprehensible and pathetic,” lawyer John Carpay said.
“There have also been unconfirmed reports posted to social media, noting that the same police-state crackdown isn’t being applied to Mosques…”
Pastor Coates gave the exclusive interview with Sheila Gunn Reid of Rebel News on Monday where he detailed his time behind bars, his ministry opportunities while in prison, and his message to those responsible for his imprisonment.
“I am not a political revolutionary,” Pastor Coates said before the court. “I am simply here in obedience with Jesus Christ, it is this obedience that put me at odds with the law.”
Erin described the ordeal as “heartbreaking” and an emotional rollercoaster for the Coates’ young children, but said their hope remains “in the perfect sovereign will of God.”
Pastor Coates has been imprisoned in the Edmonton Remand Centre since February 16, after he refused to sign a bail condition, which his lawyers described as effectively promising “to stop exercising his Charter freedoms of conscience, religion, expression, association, and peaceful assembly.”
“The Conforming has lost the confidence of a significant bloc of ordinary, lay-Christians. When lockdowns and other severe rules were imposed in 2020, and most churches dutifully followed the edicts of governments and closed their doors, those of a Non-conforming mindset—often suffering severely under economic, emotional, and spiritual hardship—found themselves ‘like sheep without a shepherd’.”
“So we are beginning to see persecution from government. This is the most formidable persecution: COVID, LGBTQ, transgender, social justice—all these new ideologies are now going to become the only acceptable moral standards. And if you don’t accept them, you’re going to be the enemy of the government. Truth, the Bible, Scripture is going to be cancelled. The government’s taking control; they want to take control of absolutely everything. The church has become the main enemy of the government—nothing new.”
“Constitutionally guaranteed rights are not just theoretical. They cannot be cast aside just because the government declares a public health threat.”
Is it ever right to disobey the state? If so, when and why? Is there a right to rebel against authority?
Police vehicles and unmarked SUVs blocked the entrance to the church around 8am on Wednesday as authorities erected chained fencing around the building’s perimeter.
“So, let me get this straight. Peterson is a Nazi simply basically because he exhorts young men to take responsibility and clean their room. Yeah…I still don’t get the link?”
“The men who are being persecuted and the churches that are being persecuted are asserting the supremacy of Jesus Christ over the church in a way that offends the government that wants to be supreme over the church.”
While the world obsessed over three excessively rich Westerners, decrying their alleged oppression at the hands of other excessively rich Westerners, a poor Christian nun from Myanmar was kneeling in front of real oppressors, asking them to turn their guns away.
“We are gravely concerned that C0VID-19 is being used to fundamentally alter society and strip us all of our civil liberties,” the church said in a statement.
The arrest and imprisonment of Pastor Coates has not deterred the church from continuing to gather for Sunday worship.
Pastor Coates was denied bail just one week after the same prison released a convicted child rapist, forcing police to issue a warning to the public to stay vigilant as it’s likely the rapist will offend again.
GraceLife Church in Alberta, Canada is continuing to meet together for worship, despite the fact that their pastor is today sitting inside a maximum-security prison for violating state regulations by conducting church services.
Alberta Premier, Jason Kenney, is facing increased backlash after a pastor was jailed for conducting worship services in defiance of state-enforced restrictions which deemed church a non-essential practice.
“I read to my children the work the Lord is doing in people through James so they can see the sacrifice of their father is not in vain.”
