Rev. James Coates
GraceLife Church, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
GraceLife Church, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Rev. James Coates is a former student of Rev. John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California and, like him, believes churches and their pastors are especially priviledged and above the law of the land. To MacArthur's cheers, Coates continued to hold church services at his nondenominational church near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in contravention of the anti-coronavirus measures which limit congregations to 15% of the church's capacity and with suitable social distancing measures in place.
After months of his reckless endangerment of the health and welfare of his church members, their families and the public at large, the authorities were forced to act and jailed Coates for 35 days. Undeterred, other pastors at the church continued to hold illegal gatherings until the authorities in Edmonton closed the church, fenced it off and posted guards.
According to the Edmonton Journal, despite those drastic measures, Coates is continuing to hold clandestine services at other locations. He even posts videos of them on Facebook, as though he imagines this wanton disregard for the health and welfare of others is something to be admired. Presumably, there is something embedded within his version of Christianity that excuses this selfishness.
GraceLife is just one of a number of fundamentalist Canadian Christian churches that feel they should be entitled to endanger people by holding super-spreader events in crowded churches with minimal observance of social distancing or other measures aimed at mitigating the effects of the lethal SARS-CoV-2 virus. These include several churches in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, outside of Vancouver, which lost a case in the BC Supreme Court alleging the restrictions 'unjustifiably infringed on religious freedoms'. The court ruled that there was indeed infringement but that infringement was justified in order to avoid the risk of accelerated transmission of the virus, to protect the vulnerable and maintain the integrity of the healthcare system.
In other words, the court was saying Christians should be prepared to forego their religious freedom for the health and welfare of others - a "do unto others as you would hsve them do unto you" moral concept with which members of John MacArthur's Grace Community of Christians appear to be unfamiliar.
Other protests have been launched by two Church of God Restoration churches in southern Manitoba and in southwestern Ontario. These churches are part of the Church of God Restoration Christian cult based in Greenville, Ohio, USA and held in-person services where the anti-coronavirus measures were pointedly ignored, so exercising their arrogantly self-licenced entitlement to endanger others for their own selfish ends.
At the Sunday protest outside the GraceLife church in Edmonton, several people could be heard shouting that the pandemic is not real and is made up by the government - presumably all the world's governments, hospitals and health services are in on this hoax.
All in all, just more examples of how:
Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It
This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.
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Sorry and surprised to see Canada has got covidiots just like here in 'Murika. I'd wish those kind of people on a country that I don't like, definitely not Canada.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see the authorities appropriately cracking down on your version of arrogant,institutionalized stupidity.