Lockdown-defiant pastor finds common cause with Canadian truckers

A Canadian pastor who was imprisoned for keeping his church open during COVID-19 has found common cause with the truckers who have blockaded Ottawa to protest mask and vaccine mandates.

James Coates, pastor of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta, says his nondenominational congregation’s “peaceful protest” laid the groundwork for the truckers’ demonstration that has ended in a government crackdown and inspired a similar convoy in Washington, D.C.

“The truckers, as well as myself, recognize that a degree of government overreach has come from the pandemic that is an unjustifiable infringement on our civil liberties,” Mr. Coates told The Washington Times. “Their stand has been more political than ours, which was about theology and truth, but they’ve shown great courage.”

Mr. Coates, 42, spent 35 days in the maximum-security Edmonton Remand Center last year for letting worshippers decide whether to wear masks and not limiting the size of his congregation in violation of government coronavirus mandates.

The Canadian government had fined him $1,200 and arrested him to make him sign a document that would oblige him to enforce the restrictions of Canada’s Public Health Act, but he refused.

He said his legal appeals went nowhere until Tucker Carlson interviewed his wife on Fox News last February, prompting prosecutors to offer him a new document in which he admitted guilt without setting any conditions on his pastorship. After he signed it, the government released him on March 22.

“It was not reflecting well on them that a pastor was imprisoned for having church services,” Mr. Coates said. “The longer I was in there, the more pressure was mounting on the government.”

He tells his story with a theological twist in the new book “God vs. Government: Taking a Biblical Stand When Christ and Compliance Collide.” He co-wrote the book with Nathan Busenitz, a pastor at Grace Community Church in California.

“Fundamentally, it comes down to the headship of Christ over his church and not wanting to surrender that to Caesar,” Mr. Coates said. “The government doesn’t have the right to tell the church what to do. It’s up to the leadership of a local church to decide whether to comply with requests and how to reopen safely without putting people in jeopardy.”

Mr. Coates, pastor of the GraceLife since 2010, said “about 200” people were attending Sunday services and “only a couple of them” were wearing masks when Royal Canadian Mounted Police began visiting on Sundays in December 2020.

“We left it to everyone’s conscience,” he said. “We didn’t tell people they had to come to church, we just said they could come if they wanted and wear a mask if they chose.”

But while the prison time was hard on his wife, Erin, and their two sons, now aged 12 and 18, he said he “would do it the same way again.”

“The more time passes, the more I’m encouraged and satisfied we took the stand we did and I went through the experience I did,” Mr. Coates said. “We never asked for a confrontation with the governing authorities. They picked the fight with us, almost like they wanted to make us an example to the rest, but it backfired.”

He added that GraceLife Church, which has continued to host Sunday services without mask requirements or size limits, has not had any COVID-19 infections beyond some “isolated cases” that obliged it to go online for two weekends last July.

While many Canadian states have lifted their regional restrictions, Mr. Coates noted that the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn’t unveiled any plan or timeline to lift national mandates, and proof of vaccination continues to be required for air travel to the United States.

For that reason, he said he understands the willingness of the truckers currently blockading Ottawa to go to prison.

“It grieves me to no end that they’ve been arrested and imprisoned,” Mr. Coates said. “I thank them for their sacrifice, for our nation.”

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.