Judge Robert Robert Shaigec of the Alberta Provincial Court ruled that Pastor James Coates’ charter rights were NOT violated when he was arrested and jailed for 35 days for the crime of breaching Covid health orders, handing the defiant preacher a resounding loss.
Pastor Coates was charged with one count of violating Alberta’s Public Health Act, the result of refusing to stop in-person services at Gracelife church despite a court order lodged against him.
The judge further ruled that his Charter rights were not violated when the government forbade and restricted worship and singing in church, nor were his rights violated after he spent 35 days in prison, saying “it was Mr. Coates choice to make.”
In short, he dismissed Coates’ Charter application completely, noting:
“The argument that James Coates was forced to either forsake his conscience or secure his liberty has been answere. Religious freedoms are subject to the rule of law.”
With Dr. Russell Moore’s ‘leaked’ bombshell letter being released and conveniently timed to be of a kick in the gonads of the Southern Baptist Convention President hopeful Pastor Mike Stone, accusing him of turning a blind eye to sex abuse during his time as Executive Committee chair, this scorched earth tactic has paved the way for CRT-enabling final boss Albert Mohler to wrest the denomination away from conservatives and into his progressive possession.
Stone, backed by a sea of raging supporters who are now seeing and saying out loud what we have been for nearly a decade (and getting labeled divisive over it), took to his social media to lay into the departed Russell Moore in an open rebuke of his character and intentions, declaring in a damning indictment:
The letter itself is incredible. That is, it is without credibility.
Think about it for just a moment; here’s a man who’s the highest positioned ethicist in the Southern Baptist Convention – at least he was until just a few days ago. And if you take his letter at face value, then he has known about cover-up, intimidation, bullying, stonewalling, barriers, pressure, all of these sorts of things against victims of sex abuse.
He’s known about lies and backroom deals and corruption and he’s known about it not for days or weeks or months. He’s literally known about it supposedly for years while he has not breathed a word, meanwhile republishing a book called The Courage to Stand.
Fact check: true. Stone continues:
Nobody who knows me believes that I would ever be a part of trying to cover up sexual abuse or silence its victims. That again is an outrageous lie. And again I don’t use that lightly toward anyone, but nobody who knows me would believe those accusations.
And when I talk about people who know me, let me be clear; that does not include Russ Moore. He has never, though claiming the high moral ground in this issue, he has never, not one time in a private phone call email text message visit letter, he has never not one single time contacted me privately and personally to confront me about a sin that he thought that I was committing, to caution me about an error that he thought that I was making or to warn me about a misstep that he thought I was about to lead the southern baptist convention executive committee into. No, rather he chooses these guerrilla tactics, to use some of his own terminology.
Part of the problem we have here, is we have a generation of leaders who are raised in a participation trophy era that think that if you disagree with them about anything that you’re attacking them, and that they’re enduring some kind of trauma or psychological terror.
Once again, this is not the future of the Southern Baptist Convention. And while I’m on this point, the outlandish nature of the ungodly, unbiblical nature of Russell’s slander against me on this point, is only rivaled by the outrageous nature of pastors over on SBC Twitter. Pastors who hear one side of the story and immediately call for me to be removed from any office and banned permanently from any service in the Southern Baptist Convention…
Nigeria’s most controversial pastor, the “prophet” T. B. Joshua, has passed away at the age of 57. He leaves behind his wife and three daughters.
Joshua was best known for being the head of the Synagogue Church of all Nations (SCOAN) that claimed 15,000 members, along with owning and operating Emmanuel TV. His net worth was estimated to be between 15-25 million dollars and was considered one of the richest pastors in the world.
A false prophet and heretic, he routinely made prophecies that did not come true, including saying that Flight MH370 would be soon be discovered, that the 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram would quickly be released, and that the 2014 Ebola scare and COVID-19 would end mere months after they begun.
He was known far and wide for his claims he had healed thousands from HIV, cancer, blindness, deafness, and had even raised people from the dead on a regular basis. A prosperity preacher huckster in its purest form, he pushed the usual tropes like miraculous healing water, miracle bead, and even “holy stickers” that would cure every ailment and physical malady under the sun.
He claims that he had a divine origin, spending 15 months in the womb, and had his YouTube channel of nearly million 2 million followers taken down over accusations of homophobia. This claim was exacerbated with the release of a video of Joshua doing his best Todd Bently impersonation, repeatedly slapping a woman nearly 20 times in the face and sending her to the floor in order to cure her of lesbianism.
Notably, 116 people under his care died when a church building he owned collapsed in Nigeria. He initially claimed that it was on account of a “strange aircraft” that buzzed by, and then tried to bribe reporters to pass on that narrative. A later investigation would show that the building was poorly constructed and that several floors were added without engineering support, causing the deaths.
A group of Southern Baptist pastors have submitted a resolution aiming at the denomination’s position on abortion, seeking the SBC’s sanctification and turning away from decades of affirming unbiblical regulationism that promotes exceptions for legally murdering preborn children, despite multiple pro-life resolutions aimed at atoning for and gaining absolution for the resolution they passed back in 1971.
In that horrific resolution they resolved to “work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion” for “rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”
In the five decades since, the SBC has never called for the immediate abolition of abortion without exceptions, nor have they declared with one voice “no peace with child sacrifice!”
Will now be their time?
On June 15-16, numerous Southern Baptist Pastors will head down to Nashville with the hopes of having their resolution on the Abolition of Abortion adopted. If passed, this would represent a cataclysmic shift in the way SBC churches view and understand the great evil of abortion, which has so far fully accepted and openly supported regulating abortion rather than abolishing it.
We reached out to the Southern Baptist pastor who helped spearhead the resolution and who is bringing thousands of pamphlets and booklets with him to the convention in order to explicate that truth.
He told us that hundreds of Southern Baptist pastors from all across the United States have signed the resolution, and is praying that it will get a hearing:
Because Southern Baptists have always been ‘people of the Book,’ and affirm that abortion is murder, we believe that if heard, the messengers eagerly will receive this biblically faithful resolution and glorify God in crying out for equal justice for our preborn neighbors. As Christians, we must rise up with one collective voice, obey God, and demand abortion be abolished immediately, without exceptions for murder or compromises with the culture of death.
Some of the resolutions include:
(10) WHEREAS, over the past 48 years with 60+ million abortions, traditional Pro-life laws, though well intended, have not established equal protection and justice for the preborn, but on the contrary, appallingly have established incremental, regulatory guidelines for when, where, why, and how to obtain legal abortion of innocent preborn children, thereby legally sanctioning abortion, and
(11) WHEREAS, since 1980, the SBC has passed many resolutions reaffirming the importance of human life at all stages of development, but we have yet to call for the immediate abolition of abortion without exception or compromise, and…
Then, the call to action:
(13) RESOLVED, that the messengers of the SBC meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, June 15-16, 2021, do state unequivocally that abortion is murder, and we reject any position that allows for any exceptions to the legal protection of our preborn neighbors, compromises God’s holy standard of justice, or promotes any God-hating partiality (Psa 94:6; Isa 10:1-2; Prov 24:11; Psa 82:1-4), and be it further
(14) RESOLVED, that we will not embrace an incremental approach to ending abortion because it challenges God’s Lordship over the heart and the conscience, and rejects His call to repent of sin completely and immediately (Gen 3:1; John 8:44; Rom 2:14-15; 2 Corinthians 11:3), and be it further
(15) RESOLVED, that we affirm that the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law, and be it further
(16) RESOLVED, that we humbly confess and lament any complicity in recognizing exceptions that legitimize or regulate abortion, and of any apathy, in not laboring with the power and influence we have to abolish abortion, and be it further…
We hope and pray that this resolution is passed.
Full transcript below:
Southern Baptist Resolution on Abolishing Abortion(1) WHEREAS, from the moment of fertilization, all humans are created in God’s image by, through, and for Jesus to the glory of God, and all souls belong to Him (Genesis 1:27; 4:1; 21:2; Isaiah 7:14; Colossians 1:16; Romans 11:36; Ezekiel 18:4), and
(2) WHEREAS, as God’s image-bearers, all humans both display His divine worth, power, and attributes, and possess equal, objective worth before God, not varying on the basis of incidental characteristics; such as ethnicity, age, size, means of conception, mental development, physical development, gender, potential, or contribution to society (Rom 1:19-20; Gen 1:27; 9:6; Matthew 18:6), and
(3) WHEREAS, to murder any preborn image-bearer is a sin, violating both the natural law of retributive justice as set forth in the Noahic covenant, as well as the sixth commandment forbidding murder, and as such, is ultimately an assault on God’s image, seeking to usurp God’s sovereignty as Creator (Gen 9:5-6; Exodus 20:13; Proverbs 6:17), and
(4) WHEREAS, God’s Word clearly declares that all human life is a sacred gift and that His Law is supreme over man’s life and man’s law (Psalm 127:3-5; 139:13-16; Rom 2:15-16; Acts 10:42; 17:31; 1 Corinthians 4:5), and
(5) WHEREAS, God commands His own people to “rescue those who are being taken away to death” and holds them responsible and without excuse when they fail to do so (Prov 24:11-12), and
(6) WHEREAS, God establishes all governing authorities as His avenging servants to carry out His wrath on the evildoer; and commands these authorities to judge justly, neither showing partiality to the wicked, nor using unequal standards, which are abominations (Psa 82; Prov 20:10; Rom 13:4), and
(7) WHEREAS, in 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States rendered an iniquitous decision on Roe v. Wade, and in doing so deprived the innocent of their rights, and usurped God, who sovereignly ordained their authority (Isa 5:23; 10:1-2; Psa 2; Matt 22:21; John 19:11; Acts 4:19; 5:29, Rom 13:1), and
(8) WHEREAS, in the Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court of the United States subverted the U.S. Constitution namely, the Preamble, as well as the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments without any legal authority (Article 6, Clause 2 “Supremacy Clause”), and
(9) WHEREAS, governing authorities at every level have a duty before God to uphold justice asserting their God-ordained and constitutional authority to establish equal protection under the law for all, born and preborn, by intervening, ignoring, or nullifying iniquitous decisions when other authorities, such as the Supreme Court, condone such injustices as the legal taking of innocent life (Daniel 3; 1 Kings 12; 2 Kings 11; Jeremiah 26:10-16; 36:9-31; 37:11- 21; 39:7-10), and
(10) WHEREAS, over the past 48 years with 60+ million abortions, traditional Pro-life laws, though well intended, have not established equal protection and justice for the preborn, but on the contrary, appallingly have established incremental, regulatory guidelines for when, where, why, and how to obtain legal abortion of innocent preborn children, thereby legally sanctioning abortion, and
(11) WHEREAS, since 1980, the SBC has passed many resolutions reaffirming the importance of human life at all stages of development, but we have yet to call for the immediate abolition of abortion without exception or compromise, and
(12) WHEREAS, our confessional statement, The Baptist Faith and Message, according to Article XV, affirms that children “from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord”; and further affirms that Southern Baptists are mandated by Scripture to “speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death,” now, be it therefore
(13) RESOLVED, that the messengers of the SBC meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, June 15-16, 2021, do state unequivocally that abortion is murder, and we reject any position that allows for any exceptions to the legal protection of our preborn neighbors, compromises God’s holy standard of justice, or promotes any God-hating partiality (Psa 94:6; Isa 10:1-2; Prov 24:11; Psa 82:1-4), and be it further
(14) RESOLVED, that we will not embrace an incremental approach to ending abortion because it challenges God’s Lordship over the heart and the conscience, and rejects His call to repent of sin completely and immediately (Gen 3:1; John 8:44; Rom 2:14-15; 2 Corinthians 11:3), and be it further
(15) RESOLVED, that we affirm that the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law, and be it further
(16) RESOLVED, that we humbly confess and lament any complicity in recognizing exceptions that legitimize or regulate abortion, and of any apathy, in not laboring with the power and influence we have to abolish abortion, and be it further
(17) RESOLVED, that as Southern Baptists we will engage, with God’s help, in establishing equal justice and protection for the preborn according to the authority of God’s Word as well as local and federal law, and call upon pastors and leaders to use their God-given gifts of preaching, teaching, and leading with one unified, principled, prophetic voice to abolish abortion, and be it finally
(18) RESOLVED, that, because abolishing abortion is a Great Commission issue, we must call upon governing authorities at all levels to repent and “obey everything that [Christ] has commanded,” exhorting them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance by faithfully executing their responsibilities as God’s servants of justice, and working with all urgency to enact legislation using the full weight of their office to interpose on behalf of the preborn, abolishing abortion immediately, without exception or compromise (Mark 6:18; Matt 28:18-20; Rom 13:4, 6).
Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church announced yesterday during the June 6 service that after 40 years as their lead pastor, he will be soon stepping back from his current role with the church, having begun the process of searching for his successor.
Warren, 67, oversees the 25,000-member, 14-campus Saddleback Church that has been peddling poison and spiritual strychnine in the form of The Purpose Driven Life for over four decades now, told the congregation:
Now, if you registered with our church family and you read your email today, you know that this next week, we are going to begin the official search for my successor. That’s a big deal. The official search for my successor. This isn’t the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. It’s the beginning of the beginning.
But we’re going to start looking for the next-generation pastor who will replace me and lead our family into the future.
Taking the time to answer a series of questions, Warren explains that they have no intention of leaving the church, and in fact hope to die by it, but that he’s looking forward to the transition into a less visible role as “founding pastor.”
They don’t have anyone in mind to succeed them yet, but will be looking both internally and externally for someone “already doing purpose-driven ministry” that “fits the biblical qualifications.”
With the recent announcement that Warren and company have begun to ordain women, it’s not unthinkable that they would have a woman take over as Senior Pastor. He further explains that the number one qualification they are looking for in a pastor is one who will love them as Warren does.
They have no timeline or timetable of how long the transition team will take, only that the search team will be lead by the elders and will begin right away.
The sixty-third album in an ongoing series documenting faithful churches gathering for Sunday service in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
With some churches still not gathering in-person in these dark times and others being persecuted by the government for being open, even having the pastors arrested, these are the congregations who are meeting faithfully at the command of Scripture (Heb. 10:25).
These churches are preaching outside, are back in their buildings having in-person services, are having drive-through services, or are meeting in secret. Some with masks and social distancing, others without.
All are being safe. All are being obedient to the scriptures. All are loving their neighbors.
Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary, Alberta has been physically shut down by Alberta Health Services, locking the door to the church mere weeks after arresting and then releasing their incarcerated pastor, Tim Stephens.
This act of tyranny and religious persecution is particularly galling, in that it was only days ago that senior members of Alberta’s reigning political party were caught flouting the same rules they put in place, demonstrating the complete lack of consistency and hypocrisy that has ‘rules for thee but not for we.”
AHS seized our building! Fines, injunctions, imprisonment, and seizure of property will only demonstrate the folly of their actions and bring glory to Christ. Incredible that this happened in the same week our most senior officials were photo'd flouting health orders. pic.twitter.com/JCT8ToWjTP
The picture he’s referring to is the one below, where multiple government leaders from more than one household were dining in close proximity, an act currently prohibited in Alberta and punishable by steep fines.
Premier Jason Kenney, Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon, Finance Minister Travis Toews, Health Minister Tyler Shandro and a staff member were photographed dining outdoors on the evening of June 1.
In a statement released to the public, AHS said they have received more than 57 complaints and therefore “physically closed Fairview Baptist Church and has prevented access to the building.”
They say that “this action was necessary as the Lead Pastor of the church has continued to disregard public health measures required by law under Order of the Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) for the protection of the public” and that “This Closure Order will remain in place until the Pastor can demonstrate the ability to comply with these restrictions.”
There is no word yet on how the church leaders and elders will proceed. IN a Facebook post, Pastor Stephens reminded his followers “They can take the building but they cannot take the church.”
In the past Fairview Baptist Church has had underground services away from the public view, similar to what James Coates and GraceLife Church are doing now, or they may do an online service as a temporary stop-gap measure while they regroup and plan their next course of action.
Please keep this church and this pastor in your prayers.
A congregation that was swarmed by nearly 80 police officers on Sunday, breaking up the service and even slamming one member on the ground for no discernable reason, are crying foul at the goverment’s harsh tactics that saw them raided and forcibly dispersed under threat of arrest and jail.
Mere days before this incident occurred, law enforcement came for their Pastor, Paul Furlong, who heads up Revival Church in Melbourne, Australia. He was arrested and remanded into police custody, eventually being charged with incitement.
His crime? Releasing a video on social media threatening to have a church service on the weekend – an act prohibited by the state of Victoria. They are in the throes of a stringent statewide lockdown after a handful of people tested positive for COVID, throwing nearly 6 million people into an emergency closure. (Reports vary from between 4-11 cases that sparked the emergency procedures.) In the video, Furlong tells his audience:
My church is open. I’ve said I would not shut the church again. This Sunday at 10 a.m., my church the Revival Church in Narre Warren…we are open for worship. Many of you may hear me declare that I have chosen to obey God over man. This comes down to a freedom of religion, movement, association.”
There is no word on when he will be released from prison.
Despite his arrest for making that status update, the church went ahead without their pastor and has a service anyway, an act of defiance that was quickly met with an overwhelming force of officers. They surrounded and barricaded the original park where was the first service was to be held, and followed them to this location after they moved to an adjacent area.
Speaking to Rebel News, the unidentified man who was body-slammed by officers, said in a statement:
So we’re being pushed out, of the park. As I was moving I was just simply asking a question ‘for what reason are we, am I being moved on for?’ And then just simply for asking those questions, they decide to assault me and take me to the ground and do their thing.
Completely ridiculous! I mean, they need to tell me the reason I’m being moved on for. But I think the fundamental reason they’re doing this, it’s pure intimidation. Anyone who dares to speak out or actively put themselves on the line to disobey this arbitrary show directions, they come out in force to prove a point. Like we’re the state get in line – that’s what it is.
It’s communist-style policing.
The video of the man being choked and forced to the ground begins at the 03:40 mark. There is some cursing, as along with the church gathering, there were many journalists attending, some who have not yet learned to tame their tongue.
When Kat Kerr, our favorite pink-haired charismatic meme-bot and “Dr. Michael Brown-approved prophetess” isn’t weaving an unbiblical tale of witchcraft and false theology by claiming that when babies die in miscarriage, sometimes God “puts them back” in the womb, or that she has a picture of thousands of lioned-faced angels frog-marching chained demons across the sky in order to go to heaven for judgment or giving explaining that when children die, sometimes they have to stay in the mansions of their distant relatives until their own parents take custody of them, she’s revealing that angels will occasionally forcibly remove souls from bodies.
Speaking to chief-enabler and gullibility king Steve Shultz on Episode 26 of “Wednesdays with Kat and Steve! Kerr explains that on occasion, if a person is about to die, their angels will somehow rip their souls out of their bodies beforehand, effectively killing them so they don’t have to suffer.
“I’ve seen a situation where it actually happened. Right before the moment of the impact their angel will actually come and grab their spiritual body out (of their physical one.) It’s absolutely true. For whatever reason, and I don’t know why, it’s just whatever their angel has decided at that moment knowing that they won’t live or survive it.”
On the fly, in an expert show of improv, Kerr spins a yarn on the spot to justify her wild story.
Somebody came up and asked me a question after the meeting, saying “our son had the most horrific accident and it was horrible what happened to him? Did he feel any of that?”
And the Holy Spirit said “no!” His angels took him out, took his spiritual body out and just took him right to heaven because they didn’t want him to have the impact of that torment on him.
So they just grabbed him on up out of the vehicle before the head-on happened and he never felt a thing.”
Shultz “Well, so even though moments later he would be torment-free anyway, they didn’t want him to experience even a moment of torment, even a second of torment?
“Well I’m sure the father had told them “just get him.” I’m sure the father, for whatever reasons said, “take him before the impact happens.”
So many times people don’t realize they just…they were just taken. They were just taken.”
Like clockwork, our social media overlords have issued a command on high and gave our publisher, JD Hall, a 24-hour suspension from Facebook. Furthermore, they have deleted this post, which we have published in its entirety here.
The last time he defied them by making the outrageous, anti-scientific claims that men are men and women are women, he was banned for months.
It won’t be our first, and it certainly won’t be our last.
Stuff like this is why we count on our patrons and keep us afloat, and why this is ultimately a post about gratitude. We thank our supporters with a grateful heart. Your sacrifices for us slow the tide as we grow our audience across other platforms, readying for the day we are wiped off the platform in its entirety.
