![]() ![]() Overall, he said, he had “lots of opportunities to share the Gospel.”Ĭoates was released last Monday, following the Alberta government’s decision to drop its criminal charges against the minister. When Coates sat down with the man at a table in the common area, where they began reading from the New Testament book of John, he said three or four other men joined them. The preacher went on to explain there was an inmate in the cell next door who asked him to lead a Bible study. That happened often, where guys would just come to me.” “We’d be talking through a door to each other, but I would share the Gospel with them. “Once I got into, I would have guys often come to my door and want to speak with me and would share difficulties in their life with me, and I would share the Gospel with them,” he said. In response, Coates said some of the men came to the door of his cell “often.” Reid asked the pastor if he ever got the opportunity to minister to the inmates inside the jail. That just gives you a little picture of how they thought toward me and treated me.” “He’s emailed me since then and shared with me that he’ll never forget that moment,” Coates explained. ![]() “Just to kind of show the affection that we had for each other, in the moment I was leaving, I turned around … and I lifted up my hand to wave,” he recalled, “and the doors of the pod began to shake as the men in their cells just banged on their doors as a sign of support, love, affection.”Ĭoates said he was with the jail chaplain when it happened. ***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app, developed by our parent company, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.*** Competing rights and interests must be respected, accommodated, and balanced … Individual rights and freedoms are not absolute.After spending a month behind bars for holding in-person worship services in violation of government capacity mandates, Canadian Pastor James Coates was released from jail with thunderous applause.Ĭoates, a pastor at GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta, shared the powerful moment during an interview with Rebel News’ Sheila Gunn Reid. “These claims are unsupported by and wholly inconsistent with the facts of this case,” Shaigec concluded. The judge dismissed an assertion made by Coate’s lawyers that the pastor was ticketed on the day he gave a sermon that was critical of the Alberta government in an attempt to censor him and to “impose a chilling effect.” He also said the decision to ticket Coates was made after numerous attempts by health authorities to get GraceLife Church to comply with public health orders. Shaigec said in his decision that the government was not targeting the church or its pastor, but responding to many complaints from the public. During his testimony, Coates called masking hilarious and said restrictions were part of “an agenda to transform the nation.” ![]() He argued provincial regulations meant to curb the spread of COVID-19 infringed on his and his congregants’ constitutional right to freedom of religion and peaceful assembly. He was released March 22 after pleading guilty and was fined $1,500.Ĭoates challenged the one charge he still faces under the Public Health Act during his cross-examination in May. He ordered that the trial reconvene at the end of June to decide on the constitutionality of Alberta public health orders that have limited attendance at places of worship.Ĭoates, who is a pastor at GraceLife Church in Spruce Grove, Alta., spent a month in the Edmonton Remand Centre after he violated a bail condition not to hold church services that officials said were ignoring measures on capacity limits, physical distancing and masking. “The question today is whether the purpose, manner, or effect of enforcement of that law on December 2020 violated James Coates’s religious freedoms. Provincial court Judge Robert Shaigec dismissed the application on Monday. Pastor James Coates made a charter application in relation to a ticket he received on Dec. A judge has ruled that the religious freedoms of an Alberta pastor who is on trial for violating COVID-19 regulations were not violated. ![]()
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