SWAT Team Arrests Christian Pastor

[JohnHurt]

They had to drag him out in the middle of the highway and handcuff him, for some reason.

https://www.rebelnews.com/police_state_ ... _pawlowski

Is this really about a virus with a 99.9% survival rate?

I understand he was shut down because would not limit his church to a 15% occupancy rate. The GraceLife Church as also been attacked.

Why are the Mosques not being shut down? Synagogues? Why only Christian Churches?

What about Liquor Stores, Walmart? How about shutting down all government offices, including the police stations if they don't remain at 15% capacity? That makes just as much sense.

Here is where the GraceLife Church got shutdown:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton ... -1.5977931

The article said the reason for the shutdown was:

"Provincial regulations to prevent the spread of COVID-19 restrict in-person attendance at churches to 15 per cent of capacity and call for those who do attend to physically distance and wear masks. "

Would you follow Caesar on this edict? Would you turn away 85% of your members?

Or would you hold your church services at Walmart - pack them in, and preach in the checkout line?

[Josh]

Christianity is basically illegal in Alberta now. And don’t think for a second that the liberal-left isn’t planning to do the exact same thing in America.

[Szdfan]

That doesn’t look like a SWAT team. That looks like regular police.

Why are the Mosques not being shut down? Synagogues? Why only Christian Churches?

I haven’t heard of Canadian mosques and synagogues defying public health orders. This seems to be something that mostly Christians are doing.

[temporal1]

appleman has shared first-person, balanced insights about “how things are” in Canada.

you might be interested, a related thread on the history of “where ideas came from” regarding church and state.
long before the Reformation, long before the U.S.:

1215 England / The Magna Carta
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3794&p=122316#p122316

[JohnHurt]

That doesn’t look like a SWAT team. That looks like regular police.

Why are the Mosques not being shut down? Synagogues? Why only Christian Churches?

I haven’t heard of Canadian mosques and synagogues defying public health orders. This seems to be something that mostly Christians are doing.

They won't enforce a public health order on a Mosque because Retribution and Terrorism is something that mostly Muslims are doing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism ... _extremism

October 22, 2014 - Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a convert to Islam, fatally shot Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a Canadian soldier on ceremonial sentry duty at the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa, and then forced his way into Canada's parliament building, where he had a shootout with parliament security personnel. He was shot 31 times and died at the scene. Zehaf-Bibeau made a video prior to the attack in which he expressed his motives as being related "to Canada's foreign policy and in respect of his religious beliefs."[18][19]

August 10, 2016 - Aaron Driver was killed in Strathroy, Ontario in a confrontation with police after detonating an explosive in the back seat of a taxi. The confrontation followed a tip from the FBI that Driver had made a "martyrdom video" and was planning an attack on an urban area.[20]

September 30, 2017 - 30-year-old Abdulahi Sharif drives into Edmonton police constable Mike Chernyk then stabs him near Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, fleeing and later hitting four pedestrians with a rental truck during a police pursuit in the 2017 Edmonton attack.[21][22] Police are investigating the incident as an act of terrorism and confirmed the presence of an ISIS flag in the van that struck the police officer.[23] Sharif was confirmed by RCMP assistant commissioner Marlin Degrand as a Somali national known to the RCMP and Edmonton police as having past displayed signs of extremism.[24]

February 21, 2020 - Saad Akhtar killed a 64-year-old woman with a hammer in Toronto. The victim was chosen at random. The attacker left a note on the victim's body, expressing support for ISIS. He was arrested and charged with terrorism offences.[25]

I would say the Canadian Police would be outgunned if they tried to disrupt the Muslim Friday Prayer Service to enforce a 15% occupancy rate.

You would have a Muslim Revolution and a lot of cowardly Canadian policemen would be killed if they even walked in the door.

That's why no Mosque will ever be shut down for COVID, or any other reason. It would start a war.

[ohio jones]

That's why no Mosque will ever be shut down for COVID, or any other reason. It would start a war.

Maybe that explains why the Muslim Community of Edmonton says:

Further to extended provincial restrictions, all prayer services are closed to the public.

[Dan Z]

Maybe we should move this thread to "politics" since that is what it essentially is - a Libertarian political protest movement.

This has nothing to do with the Gospel - the fact that it involves a church is incidental.

[Bootstrap]

Why are the Mosques not being shut down? Synagogues? Why only Christian Churches?

Why not a little basic fact-checking?

Mosque, synagogue leaders in Alberta call on GraceLife Church to follow COVID-19 rules

Leaders with a mosque and a synagogue in Edmonton have a message for an area Christian church that has been routinely holding services that violate COVID-19 restrictions.

While they sympathize with GraceLife Church’s desire to bring worshippers together, they are asking its pastor and congregants to trust Alberta’s public-health rules.

“I would encourage (GraceLife) to just consider, contemplate and reflect upon what God would want them to do in terms of caring for others, especially vulnerable Albertans,” says Jamal Osman, vice-president of the Muslim Community of Edmonton Mosque.

Before the pandemic, up to 300 Muslims squeezed into the mosque for a service every Friday, which is a sacred day of worship in Islam, Osman says.

Muslims typically pray standing shoulder-to-shoulder, he adds. Letting go of years of communal practice was difficult when COVID-19 hit, but the community understood.

“It’s not our place to agree or disagree with another faith group and what they choose to do. I would just encourage (GraceLife) to consider the health and safety of everybody else.”

Zolly Claman, a rabbi at Edmonton’s Beth Israel Synagogue, lost his father-in-law to the virus early in the pandemic.

He says gathering is of the utmost importance in Judaism, and it’s a struggle to keep up with religious practice while working within public-health guidelines. Before the pandemic, up to 300 Muslims squeezed into the mosque for a service every Friday, which is a sacred day of worship in Islam, Osman says.

Muslims typically pray standing shoulder-to-shoulder, he adds. Letting go of years of communal practice was difficult when COVID-19 hit, but the community understood.

“It’s not our place to agree or disagree with another faith group and what they choose to do. I would just encourage (GraceLife) to consider the health and safety of everybody else.”

Zolly Claman, a rabbi at Edmonton’s Beth Israel Synagogue, lost his father-in-law to the virus early in the pandemic.

He says gathering is of the utmost importance in Judaism, and it’s a struggle to keep up with religious practice while working within public-health guidelines. “But COVID-19 regulations are designed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and they definitely need to be followed.”

[Ernie]

It seems to me that a year after Covid, people's minds are firmly made up. Convincing each other is no longer happening. I'll take this up in the Covid thread.

[Josh]

Maybe we should move this thread to "politics" since that is what it essentially is - a Libertarian political protest movement.

This has nothing to do with the Gospel - the fact that it involves a church is incidental.

When no churches are allowed to meet and the few pastors who do anyway meet, how is that “political”?

You have not relocated posts about underground church in China as “politics” or a “libertarian protest movement”.