- By Sheila Gunn Reid
PETITION: Free Pastor James
Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church remains behind bars today. Sign our petition to show your support and take a stand against the tyrannical COVID enforcement Pastor James and his church are facing.
8,315 signatures
Goal: 25,000 Signatures
UPDATE: Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church remains behind bars
February 18, 2021
GraceLife, near Edmonton, Alberta, has been the site of Christian resistance to the medical tyranny of public health orders restricting public gatherings including religious services.
In Alberta, religious services are limited to 15 per cent of a building's fire code capacity. The restrictions on attendance are meant to mitigate COVID case counts, even though the numbers have plummeted and hospitalizations are down to less than half of what they were a month ago.
When GraceLife refused to turn away congregants to meet the arbitrary 15 per cent rule, and when the church did not force congregants to wear masks, it was put under weekly surveillance by local police and Alberta Health Services inspectors.
Pastor James received a $1,200 fine for violating a public health order, and eventually, when he continued to defy the 15 per cent capacity restriction, an executive order from the chief medical officer of health to close the church was issued.
That piece of paper meant nothing to a congregation and a pastor that are compelled by their faith to gather together to worship every week, and so they've continued.
On February 7, Pastor James was arrested in his office for holding services. He was released and the following Sunday, February 14, he again held services while local RCMP waited outside.
However, the police did not arrest Pastor James again last Sunday. Instead they asked him to come and turn himself in on the following business day.
He turned himself in on Tuesday morning.
Pastor James remains in custody. His lawyer, James Kitchen of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, explained to Rebel News in an exclusive interview that the pastor cannot in good conscience comply with a condition of his release on bail: to not hold religious service on Sundays.
The pastor is now at the Edmonton Remand Centre in 14-day COVID quarantine, which all new inmates experience as part of their intake. He's isolated and will be kept in solitary confinement for the next two weeks, before he is allowed into general population as his case winds its way through the system.
The Remand Centre is a maximum security prison where the worst of the worst are held because they don't qualify for bail, being too dangerous to be released while they await trial.
The Alberta correctional system has released hundreds of prisoners because it has been considered too dangerous for low-risk offenders to remain behind bars during the pandemic. Yet, the same legal system is imprisoning a Christian pastor as a non-violent political prisoner of conscience, because he cannot obey government and obey God simultaneously.
Police charge Pastor James Coates for violating public health orders at GraceLife Church in Edmonton
February 17, 2021
Last Sunday I paid a visit to a GraceLife Church west of Edmonton, because the church led by Pastor James Coates has been the site of peaceful Christian civil disobedience to the lockdown restrictions on places of worship.
The church itself has been subject to an executive order from the medical officer of health to close, issued because GraceLife does not turn away congregants to meet the government mandated 15 per cent of fire code capacity for places of worship. The church also does not require congregants to wear masks.
Pastor Coates has been fined $1,200 for breaching health regulations. Two Sundays ago, he was arrested by the local RCMP for violating public health orders. On February 14, Pastor Coates, in defiance of the government but in obedience to his God, took to the pulpit again while the RCMP waited outside. Coates gave a sermon on the appropriateness of Christian civil disobedience and the restraints of the relationship between government and church.
However, he was not arrested that day. Pastor Coates was to turn himself in to police on Tuesday.
He did, and he has remained in custody ever since, a political prisoner for practicing his faith in a country that claims to have freedom of religion. It's the kind of thing you would expect to see in Hong Kong, not Edmonton.
Pastor Coates is in the capable hands of his lawyer James Kitchen from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. Kitchen will be updating me on Coates' case as it proceeds. According to Kitchen, Pastor Coates cannot in good conscience comply with conditions of release that require him to stop holding services.
For the time that I was at the church, as the only journalist they opened their doors to, it was like the "before times," when people were joyful and their faces were uncovered, when people hugged and shook hands when meeting. It was normal.
GraceLife is an oasis in an abnormal world, and they're fighting against the government to keep it that way.
- By Sheila Gunn Reid
PETITION: Free Pastor James
Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church remains behind bars today. Sign our petition to show your support and take a stand against the tyrannical COVID enforcement Pastor James and his church are facing.
8,315 signatures
Goal: 25,000 Signatures
UPDATE: Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church remains behind bars
February 18, 2021
GraceLife, near Edmonton, Alberta, has been the site of Christian resistance to the medical tyranny of public health orders restricting public gatherings including religious services.
In Alberta, religious services are limited to 15 per cent of a building's fire code capacity. The restrictions on attendance are meant to mitigate COVID case counts, even though the numbers have plummeted and hospitalizations are down to less than half of what they were a month ago.
When GraceLife refused to turn away congregants to meet the arbitrary 15 per cent rule, and when the church did not force congregants to wear masks, it was put under weekly surveillance by local police and Alberta Health Services inspectors.
Pastor James received a $1,200 fine for violating a public health order, and eventually, when he continued to defy the 15 per cent capacity restriction, an executive order from the chief medical officer of health to close the church was issued.
That piece of paper meant nothing to a congregation and a pastor that are compelled by their faith to gather together to worship every week, and so they've continued.
On February 7, Pastor James was arrested in his office for holding services. He was released and the following Sunday, February 14, he again held services while local RCMP waited outside.
However, the police did not arrest Pastor James again last Sunday. Instead they asked him to come and turn himself in on the following business day.
He turned himself in on Tuesday morning.
Pastor James remains in custody. His lawyer, James Kitchen of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, explained to Rebel News in an exclusive interview that the pastor cannot in good conscience comply with a condition of his release on bail: to not hold religious service on Sundays.
The pastor is now at the Edmonton Remand Centre in 14-day COVID quarantine, which all new inmates experience as part of their intake. He's isolated and will be kept in solitary confinement for the next two weeks, before he is allowed into general population as his case winds its way through the system.
The Remand Centre is a maximum security prison where the worst of the worst are held because they don't qualify for bail, being too dangerous to be released while they await trial.
The Alberta correctional system has released hundreds of prisoners because it has been considered too dangerous for low-risk offenders to remain behind bars during the pandemic. Yet, the same legal system is imprisoning a Christian pastor as a non-violent political prisoner of conscience, because he cannot obey government and obey God simultaneously.
Police charge Pastor James Coates for violating public health orders at GraceLife Church in Edmonton
February 17, 2021
Last Sunday I paid a visit to a GraceLife Church west of Edmonton, because the church led by Pastor James Coates has been the site of peaceful Christian civil disobedience to the lockdown restrictions on places of worship.
The church itself has been subject to an executive order from the medical officer of health to close, issued because GraceLife does not turn away congregants to meet the government mandated 15 per cent of fire code capacity for places of worship. The church also does not require congregants to wear masks.
Pastor Coates has been fined $1,200 for breaching health regulations. Two Sundays ago, he was arrested by the local RCMP for violating public health orders. On February 14, Pastor Coates, in defiance of the government but in obedience to his God, took to the pulpit again while the RCMP waited outside. Coates gave a sermon on the appropriateness of Christian civil disobedience and the restraints of the relationship between government and church.
However, he was not arrested that day. Pastor Coates was to turn himself in to police on Tuesday.
He did, and he has remained in custody ever since, a political prisoner for practicing his faith in a country that claims to have freedom of religion. It's the kind of thing you would expect to see in Hong Kong, not Edmonton.
Pastor Coates is in the capable hands of his lawyer James Kitchen from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. Kitchen will be updating me on Coates' case as it proceeds. According to Kitchen, Pastor Coates cannot in good conscience comply with conditions of release that require him to stop holding services.
For the time that I was at the church, as the only journalist they opened their doors to, it was like the "before times," when people were joyful and their faces were uncovered, when people hugged and shook hands when meeting. It was normal.
GraceLife is an oasis in an abnormal world, and they're fighting against the government to keep it that way.