Summary
More than 400 pastors in Canada and America, including notorious Covid-19 conspiracy theorist and lawbreaker Artur Pawlawski, held a 'Biblical Sexuality Sermon Sunday' to pray away Canada's new law outlawing the dangerous and disgusting practice
If Pawlawski’s name sounds familiar, it’s because of international publicity he attracted for his defiance of measures introduced in Canada to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. When police broke up one of his services he called them “Nazis.“
Subsequently, Calgary’s “plague rat” pastor at the Street Church and The Cave of Adullam, narrowly escaped jail time last year for breaking lockdown restrictions. Instead, he was ordered to pay $23,000 in fines and undergo 18 months of probation.
But well before the pandemic, Pawlawski was already garnering headlines for his homophobia. For example, in 2019, he went into meltdown over rainbows painted on planters at the Crossroads Market in Calgary.
The pastor said in a video posted to Facebook:
This is a lie from the pit of hell, perverted symbol that God has given to us … They are using it to laugh at God, to shake their fingers at God saying, ‘we don’t care about your law, we don’t care about you.’
Well, Pawlawski is back in the news, this time over his participation in a “Biblical Sexuality Sermon Sunday” held to protest against Canada’s new conversion therapy ban that came into effect on January 7.
According to this Fox News report, Pawlawski, who left Poland to settle in Calgary, said that he was willing to get arrested for subjecting people to “pray-away-the-gay” interventions, even though it’s not clear that he ever practiced conversion therapy before the law was passed.
He told Fox News:
I will always preach the whole Bible. And if someone comes to me asking for help, for therapy, I want the government and everybody else to know I’ll never turn that individual away. And if it costs me, so be it. But every hurting person who is asking me for help, I’ll not turn away.
Fox News reported that an American pastor, John MacArthur, above, of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, fears that conversion therapy bans will spread across the US.
I think it’s reached a level there in Canada that it hasn’t yet reached here, but it’s coming. It’s coming fast.
MacArthur’s involvement in the initiative came after he received an email from Pastor James Coates, the first Canadian clergyman to be imprisoned for breaking lockdown rules.
Coates told Fox News he believes that Bill C-4 is “anything but loving” if it intends to:
Shut the LGBT community off from the saving and transforming message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe our government is capitalizing on a politically expedient segment of its constituency in an effort to further dismantle Western civilization as we know it.
To do this, it must outlaw its very foundation, which is rooted in a Judeo-Christian worldview. Bill C-4 is another brick laid in this effort and is evidence that our government is under the judgment of God.
Coates, above, warned that:
As governments seek totalitarian authority over every aspect of society, it’s inevitable that they will persecute any and all who refuse to declare allegiance to the state. As such, unless the tide of totalitarianism is stemmed, Christians can expect persecution to increase.
Pastor Tim Stephens, who was imprisoned twice last year for keeping his Calgary church open, also told Fox News that he believes persecution is going to increase in Canada and other Western countries.
We’ve seen that the new prevailing worldview is totalitarian, seeking to define marriage, sexuality, and control health choices. It is absolutely intolerant to opposing beliefs. All socialistic and communistic movements hate the authority and law of God that Christianity promotes.
Much of the church in Canada believes that compliance and compromise will promote peace and freedom, but this attitude only feeds the beast and will increase persecution and eliminate freedom.
It’s reported here that anti-LGBT hate group called Liberty Coalition Canada said that the bill calls “biblical teaching” a myth because its preamble says it was passed to:
Fight the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.
Liberty Coalition warned of “terrifying judgments” that will be “visited upon” Canada because of the conversion therapy ban, or as he put it, “this bold gesture of hatred towards the most high God.”
But Nicholas Schiavo of No Conversion Canada said in a joint statement with The Trevor Project:
The passing of Bill C-4 and the unanimous support it received from every official in Parliament sends a clear message to LGBTQ2 Canadians: you are valid and deserving of a life free from harm. Today, as we celebrate this historic moment, we must thank survivors and their tireless advocacy to reach this moment where conversion ‘therapy’ is finally outlawed in our country.
Justice Minister Justice Minister David Lametti said:
Canada’s criminal laws on conversion therapy are among the most comprehensive in the world.
Even Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole praised the Senate of Canada for “moving quickly” in passing the conversion therapy ban.
• See my post about my brush with conversion therapy here.