James Coates

On Tuesday, pastor John MacArthur called on "faithful pastors" to join him in preaching a biblical view of marriage and sexuality on January 16 in light of the Canadian Bill C-4 banning conversion therapy, which will become law that week.

Canadian Pastor Tim Stephens was released from the Calgary Remand Centre on Thursday July 1, 2021, and reunited with his family after spending 17 nights in jail for holding worship services that disobeyed COVID-19 public health orders.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley urged the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to consider placing Canada on the Watch List that monitors countries violating religious freedom.

Rev. Ray Matheson, himself a church leader in Alberta, believes James Coates and Artur Pawlowski are "misguided" and bad examples of what it means to follow Jesus. 

GraceLife Church has insisted that its members were not among the hundreds of protesters, some of whom at one point started tearing down the fence surrounding the shuttered church. 

Just two weeks after GraceLife Church’s Pastor James Coates was released from serving 35 days in prison for not adhering to COVID-19 restrictions, a convoy of about a dozen police (RCMP) vehicles assisted in erecting fencing around the property of GraceLife Church early Wednesday morning.

Erin Coates, the wife of jailed Canadian Pastor James Coates, says of her husband, "His job as a shepherd of the sheep is to open the doors and allow people to worship according to their conscience and according to the Word of God."

James Coates, pastor of GraceLife Church near Edmonton, turned himself in to authorities after holding in-person worship services again on February 14.