Western Standard - HANNAFORD： COVID-era pastor says Christians can resist government — but not through violence

00:00:00.000 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show of the

00:00:21.060 Western Standard. It is Thursday, June the 4th. With us tonight is COVID resistance hero,

00:00:27.900 Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church.

00:00:31.560 Reverend Stephens, welcome to the show.

00:00:33.420 It's good to be here.

00:00:34.620 Good to have you.

00:00:35.900 We're talking this morning about the relationship between church and state,

00:00:40.020 which many people believe is becoming more difficult to manage in Canada.

00:00:46.020 Pastor Stephens, you have certainly had your own difficulties during the COVID-19 crisis.

00:00:50.520 You initially complied with public health orders by pausing in-person services.

00:00:56.580 However, then you resumed services in defiance of state orders, and that led to multiple arrests.

00:01:02.260 In 2021, you were arrested twice, spent a total of 21 days in jail, including your wedding

00:01:10.180 anniversary, and with June in mind, Father's Day, and you faced charges under public health orders.

00:01:17.940 One notable arrest involved police tracking an outdoor service of yours using a helicopter.

00:01:26.020 So, I guess my first question, are you just a bad person? Were you ever found guilty of anything?

00:01:34.020 Well, I wasn't found guilty of anything. There was a few charges that we defended successfully

00:01:39.460 in court, and then the other ones eventually were dropped along with the dropping of the

00:01:45.020 health orders as well. So, no, I was not found guilty of anything during that time. But the

00:01:51.240 punishment is the process that they put of course so the state said that you must close your church

00:01:56.920 during covet you said no you answered to the higher authority than the state and in the end

00:02:03.320 the state was not able to was not able to contest that successfully yeah well they never we never

00:02:11.560 really finalized everything in court we still have some court action that we've filed against

00:02:15.880 the government that we're in the process of doing but the the tension of course is well what the

00:02:21.400 bible says about submitting to our authorities and to the magistrate like it says in romans 13.

00:02:26.920 but of course there's the tension comes in whenever god commands us as the church to

00:02:32.440 gather together not forsake that assembly and so not just myself but our congregation became

00:02:37.320 convinced that this was the case where we must obey god and not men and still tried to conduct

00:02:44.120 myself in a way that was honorable toward the governing authorities hopefully that was seen

00:02:47.800 during my rest and other interactions with the police but ultimately we had to continue to

00:02:53.240 gather together and do what was right before god well tim covet has come and gone and all charges

00:02:59.480 as you say were either dropped or you were found not guilty on those that weren't dropped now you

00:03:05.560 spoke at a recent event the dominion of canada conference and you said that when god is separated

00:03:11.080 from the state and the state puts itself in the place of god i think your phrase was we see a

00:03:17.880 myriad of problems so it strikes me that your theology on all of this is a lot more than covid

00:03:28.200 of course yeah covid was just one expression so what are these problems what what is this myriad

00:03:35.080 well see the issue is let's say the government takes a neutral position when it comes to

00:03:39.720 religions and we have a pluralistic society well well then who is the one who says okay these are

00:03:45.900 the common values that we have well it has to be the state uh what what does proper accommodation

00:03:51.020 look like uh what does what does marriage look like what should the family look like and how

00:03:55.120 it ends up the state is the one that then is the authority that defines all those things so

00:03:59.920 in in a pluralistic society you have the state itself becoming the highest authority the supreme

00:04:04.620 authority so essentially essentially god but see what i was going to say is essentially making

00:04:09.200 religious decisions of course and we've seen of late is not the church becoming more political

00:04:16.180 but we've seen the state becoming more religious as it seeks to define marriage as it seeks to

00:04:22.000 you know rule on things like abortion or euthanasia these issues that were typically

00:04:26.440 the domain of of of church or christian values now the state is entering into that that area

00:04:34.040 um and so the biggest issue of course is just defining morality and we live in a day and age

00:04:40.660 where even things like a man or woman is up for grabs in terms of how do you define that

00:04:45.180 and so the state has put itself in that position of of being the you know the determiner of those

00:04:53.120 significant moral values and so we we live in a day and age now where we see so much moral chaos

00:04:59.560 and confusion because there is no there is no shared standard that we have a society about what

00:05:06.440 is right what is wrong what is up down what is male what is female what's marriage what's uh

00:05:10.680 family and so so we have this um you know this these these ethics that are that are not they're

00:05:21.080 amorphous they're not they're not defined and so that's one of the issues and then of course along

00:05:25.720 with that with the state being in this position of of authority uh and even even defining morality

00:05:33.560 well then you have the state reaching its tentacles into all facets of our life and so

00:05:38.200 whether that's in the family or education um you know welfare health care uh the state seems

00:05:44.920 sees all of these things because on on the land mass of of our country that it has jurisdiction

00:05:49.960 and authority over all those areas. And so we move into a situation where we have essentially

00:05:56.020 a soft totalitarianism. Now, totalitarianism is not gulags and those kind of things,

00:06:04.980 but it just means the state sees itself as having total control or total jurisdiction over all

00:06:10.240 facets of life. And we see that increasingly, and people are responding, whether Christians or not,

00:06:15.580 They're saying, hey, we're losing our freedoms.

00:06:18.360 We're losing our ability to choose.

00:06:20.740 As the government has rejected God and the Christian God,

00:06:26.980 we've seen the government increase in size and its authority

00:06:29.900 in the areas that it's seeking rulership.

00:06:32.180 And so we see an increase, actually, the tyranny of government.

00:06:34.880 So to me, that's a significant issue that affects everybody.

00:06:38.500 Well, how do other religions see it?

00:06:42.240 I mean, Islam, for example, or the Jewish religion,

00:06:45.580 Do they struggle under the same kind of irritations as we do?

00:06:54.880 Well, I think it's a human condition to want freedom and to want liberty.

00:07:00.020 When you consider the Western world, the Western world was formerly Christendom

00:07:03.460 and it was influenced by Christian values, not just in the church,

00:07:06.380 but how the government was run.

00:07:09.940 And so we don't see people flocking to majority Muslim countries for freedom

00:07:14.320 because because their values there there's certainly some some overlap with christianity

00:07:20.740 but their values on the whole are are antithetical to what we see in the christian worldview and so

00:07:25.600 um where you see the flourishing of of prosperity of uh you know free market economics where you see

00:07:35.020 justice freedom these are all countries that have been influenced by the christian religion

00:07:40.340 you seem to me tim to be somebody who might remember a time when things were different

00:07:46.280 certainly i do how did we get here that's a good question um one of my kids asked asked my dad you

00:07:53.900 know what was different from his childhood to theirs and he said well his childhood he can go

00:07:58.160 play in the playground without fear of finding a needle or being being abducted and so there was

00:08:02.960 much more freedom for children to be children in that day and age and it wasn't too long ago

00:08:06.820 So I think historically, with the 1960s, we see a change of religion here in Canada, where you have Pierre Trudeau and others talking about individual rights.

00:08:17.260 And what they meant by that was humanistic, secular values, and who can argue against individual rights.

00:08:23.920 But these were promoting the ideas of the individual as opposed to the values of God that had founded our society.

00:08:33.220 and so we see in the 60s a big shift in in the morality in the ethics and now that has permeated

00:08:40.180 through you know all of our institutions of higher learning into our governments uh into our

00:08:44.340 politicians and so now we're groaning a little bit under the effects of that because because ideas

00:08:49.380 have consequences so to beg the question a little all right i think i agree with you that it started

00:08:56.980 in the 1960s but what was it that triggered that was i mean was it a reaction to the horrors of

00:09:04.980 the second world war was it the intentional action of activists who were acting out the

00:09:13.380 things that they learned at universities or novel theories of social organization is this the

00:09:19.700 communist party that was failing elsewhere working itself in there's many different

00:09:26.020 theories that i've had put to me what's your theory yeah i'm not sure yeah i'm not sure if

00:09:31.140 we can point our finger into some one facet but i'd say in terms of the ideas that undergird that

00:09:36.020 that now are bearing its fruit you'd have to look back to to carl marx or graham she these other

00:09:40.980 marxists and you know in in these world wars we went to fight against these ideas but but now it

00:09:48.420 seems that even some of the politicians that we vote for in our country and south of the border

00:09:52.820 uh have the same values as as those communistic leaders of yesteryear and so we've already seen

00:10:00.420 the destruction of communism we've seen its tendency towards totalitarianism even though

00:10:05.860 its ideals are you know putting the means of production in the hands of the people and this

00:10:10.900 is going to be a society of equality and so this ideal egalitarianism is still promoted today

00:10:16.900 but but the the method is is going through more this humanistic car marks all these other men

00:10:23.340 they hated god they wanted society without god uh they saw the family as and hierarchy in the

00:10:28.400 family as part of this tyranny and that needs to be teared down torn down and so his idea along

00:10:34.840 with others was you you tear down the structures of christianity and what will emerge from that

00:10:39.620 will be this utopian society but but it's obviously it's more dystopian than utopian

00:10:44.020 Is this a new challenge for the church?

00:10:47.420 I think it's a new challenge for the church because many pastors, and myself included, in the past especially, we feel like, oh, we can't get involved in the area of politics.

00:10:58.260 And so whether that's Marxism, other areas, well, those are really ideas outside of our task of just teaching the Bible and helping people to live a moral life and find their way to heaven and be reconciled through Jesus.

00:11:12.460 and so many pastors feel really uncomfortable dealing with these these broader ideas but it's

00:11:18.980 important for us to realize as christians that uh jesus christ as king of kings and lord of lords

00:11:25.600 and his word it speaks to everything in our life it's not that you find a chapter and verse about

00:11:31.040 everything like changing your oil in your car or things like that but but the bible does speak to

00:11:35.740 everything if you're a mechanic the bible does speak about how you ought to operate as mechanic

00:11:39.900 if you're a politician if you're a lawyer the bible has wisdom and how you ought to operate

00:11:44.460 and we we knew that in the past but then we we've bought into the secular lie that that really the

00:11:50.780 christian faith and other religions are just something between your ears and to keep private

00:11:54.860 and eternal internal and shouldn't impact how you live your life in the public sphere when i asked

00:12:01.740 you if this was something new for the church i actually had in the back of my mind the condition

00:12:07.900 the relationship between the church and the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago, when obviously, famously,

00:12:15.100 many Christians paid with their lives for their beliefs. But as you described what was happening

00:12:20.700 to the state in Canada today, assuming the moral authority to make decisions on what people thought

00:12:29.020 believed and how they behaved, I can't help thinking of the cult of emperor worship that

00:12:35.260 defined the roman empire they the state the emperor was the state and he defined morality

00:12:42.460 according to the beliefs of the religion that they had at that time and of course

00:12:47.260 that made it very uncomfortable for christians so are there any is there anything that the

00:12:55.500 you would like to draw forward about what christians experienced in the first few centuries of

00:13:01.660 this uh of the christian era and their dealings with the roman church can it teach us anything

00:13:07.580 yeah of course christians were fiercely persecuted uh it wasn't necessarily across the entire empire

00:13:13.100 to the same degree at all the time but certainly there are certain emperors in certain regions in

00:13:16.700 rome that persecuted christians quite severely and and even in the book of acts in the 17th chapter

00:13:23.420 uh as as paul and his companions are traveling uh they cause a bit of a stir and um and and the

00:13:31.700 locals there are saying well these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also

00:13:35.760 and and they're talking about another king jesus um and they're saying jesus is lord not caesar

00:13:43.800 is lord and so immediately there was a conflict between loyalties and like you mentioned the

00:13:48.640 emperor worship that christians would not uh bow down to or take part in and so that did put them

00:13:54.220 on a bit of a collision course and in time through their through their witness we see a change

00:13:59.980 throughout the roman empire and and that led not just to a change in in religion but it led into

00:14:05.800 a change in the morality um and how the empire was was run but of course now you're seeing we are

00:14:13.120 seeing in today's age, the change in morality on how Canada is run and what is accorded respect

00:14:21.620 in terms of opinions and morality. Let me draw your attention to and comment, please, on one

00:14:29.020 thing that came out just in the last couple of days. There is a bill going through the Senate.

00:14:36.220 It's under review, and yesterday I'm informed that the Senate voted to support a move to

00:14:48.220 criminalize residential school denialism, that they are going to establish a certain

00:14:56.280 truth, which so far has not been supported by any physical evidence. But it will still be a crime

00:15:06.480 to say, no, the residential school narrative is not supported by the facts.

00:15:15.840 Now, that sounds to me like the government exercising a religious right to define an

00:15:22.700 ultimate truth or am i just being a little over reactive well i would agree with you you know

00:15:30.400 it's one thing for the government to make laws that would legislate morality that's all laws

00:15:34.740 can really do is legislate what is right and what is wrong and put proper sanctions but just a

00:15:39.540 second people people say you can't legislate morality did you just say you can well that's

00:15:44.720 all you can do all laws are value statements and and the penal the penalties that we put on that

00:15:51.200 law. Like for instance, when rape today doesn't get the death penalty as it used to in Canada,

00:15:55.780 well, that's a value statement. And depending on how long someone might serve in jail for

00:16:00.880 particular crime, we're saying how much worth it is that thing that is then hurt or jeopardized

00:16:09.840 because of that crime. So all laws can do is give value statements on what's right and what's wrong.

00:16:15.900 their moral determinations. The problem is, of course, is whether you have a secular government

00:16:21.920 or religious government, we know intuitively, but that's because of the Christian worldview,

00:16:26.160 that it's wrong to legislate people's thoughts. It's one thing to put limits on actions,

00:16:35.140 but to begin to legislate on people's speech and people's thoughts, we see that as an egregious

00:16:41.440 overstep of the government. But we have to ask, why is that? Well, that's because of the influence

00:16:45.420 the christian faith uh if you go to iran for instance well that's that's fair game uh so

00:16:50.940 and other in other cultures and customs yes you you can legislate what people think and say

00:16:56.940 but in in the christian world we say no that's wrong because of what the bible says about you

00:17:02.140 know individual freedom responsibility and we're made in the image of god and you shouldn't

00:17:05.820 legislate people's thoughts or ideas so this whole development seems to be playing out in the

00:17:13.660 background i mean obviously you're very aware of of these things which is why you led your

00:17:18.940 congregation in a certain direction in 2021 i would wager a bet but a lot of people who might

00:17:27.500 chance on this really haven't a clue what we're talking about so how then as somebody who cares

00:17:35.580 about these things do you get other people to care about these things which although they may not

00:17:44.700 articulate that straight out are actually fundamental to what they think is their

00:17:49.580 right to live the way they want to live right and i think that's a that's a key way to think about

00:17:55.340 it is we think of the ideas of of liberty or freedom and justice we want to live in a society

00:18:03.420 of peace and harmony we want to live in a society of high trust where uh you're you're not putting

00:18:09.180 bars on your windows to protect you from your neighbors like uh we know what it means to live

00:18:14.380 in a society like that because we've seen a society like that and so well the question the

00:18:19.740 question then becomes well what it what are the ideas the founding values that that give rise to

00:18:24.380 that kind of society and and i'm i'm convinced and in history but bears that out it's that the

00:18:29.420 influence of the christian faith wherever it goes it produces a society of freedom

00:18:36.300 of individual responsibility which then leads to trust prosperity and so it's in my mind it's

00:18:42.620 helpful to lead with some of those values that people see as values and then demonstrating how

00:18:47.900 the christian faith that leads those ideas that we so desire i hope people give you the time to

00:18:56.060 consider what you're saying. You recently addressed the Dominion Conference, and there

00:19:07.500 you argued that separating the state from God turns the state into a short-sighted, weak,

00:19:15.420 incompetent demigod. And yet this is the state that can say,

00:19:20.700 you are not following the prescribed set of beliefs. You believe that there are only two

00:19:28.220 sexes. You don't believe that there were murders in residential schools on the scale that indigenous

00:19:36.140 people are claiming. That may well seem to me or you to be short-sighted, weakened, and incompetent,

00:19:45.340 but they're very serious about it and they have the power of the sword to enforce it.

00:19:50.700 So, tell me something that can give Christians and other people who are not Christians, but also who find this kind of government dictating of what they are to believe and hold as truth to be highly objectionable, where do they start?

00:20:14.000 I think people need to realize that there's no such thing as neutrality.

00:20:20.700 You know, there's a few ideas that we need to grasp.

00:20:24.700 There's no idea of neutrality.

00:20:25.760 When someone says secular, you know, they are feigning neutrality, but it's not actually neutral.

00:20:34.920 Because when we come down to those questions of morality, what is your source of authority?

00:20:39.920 Is it shifting human opinion?

00:20:41.480 Is it something transcendent?

00:20:42.860 Is it based upon scripture?

00:20:45.180 What is your source of authority?

00:20:47.700 And so when you understand that secularism is not just the absence of religion, it's another religion. It's another worldview. There's ideas about right and wrong. There's ideas about what happens after we die. There's ideas about our origins, the very questions that religion deals with. Also, secularism and materialism deals with those same questions and has its own answers.

00:21:13.060 and so when people realize that it's not as if canada presently is just a religious no we've

00:21:21.360 adopted another religion and it's hard to define because it doesn't have churches but it's in our

00:21:27.200 institutions or schools it's on the tv media and so to be able to identify that and then to

00:21:32.820 understand that in this clash of worldviews well ultimately it's it's it's it's the one true and

00:21:40.020 living God who has made us, or it's a lie, it's truth, or it's error. And so people first need

00:21:47.560 to recognize that religious ideas, ideas of origin, ideas of life after death, ideas of morality,

00:21:55.260 they're unavoidable, and they impact our society, they impact our government. And so we must first

00:22:03.480 realize that, and then we can start asking, okay, now what is the truth behind some of these

00:22:09.600 worldview ideas you have a big task before you you and the others at the dominion conference

00:22:17.480 i only wish i could say that most people were listening and thinking about that but the what

00:22:23.120 you have just described in the last 20 minutes is foundational for what happens to this country

00:22:28.500 in the next 100 years um back 100 years and you can you can see the benefits of the the kind of

00:22:35.860 christian worldview that prevailed um i'm going to give you the last word and i don't want you

00:22:43.500 to be pessimistic giving us some hope here but what is the next hundred years going to look like

00:22:49.640 well i don't know i don't know crystal ball god knows but i am hopeful and the reason why i'm

00:22:55.160 hopeful is because i believe many people whether religious or not are are realizing that that the

00:23:01.400 direction of our country and other western countries is is heading in a bankrupt direction

00:23:05.680 It's like we're a bouquet of flowers and we're cut flowers and we're starting to wilt and wither.

00:23:13.220 We recognize we have no root, no foundation.

00:23:15.780 I've seen recent polls that demonstrate that church attendance for the first time in decades is now increasing.

00:23:21.860 And especially among young men, our church is full of young men.

00:23:24.140 And so the future to me, the next generation, I believe is aware of the lies of secularism, is looking for truth, looking for firm foundation.

00:23:36.160 They want someone to tell them what a man is, what a woman is.

00:23:39.140 They know that intuitively and to live according to that principle

00:23:42.900 and recovering some of those ideas and history that we've forgotten.

00:23:45.800 So I'm very encouraged and hopeful,

00:23:47.880 and I would encourage Christians and pastors especially to speak up,

00:23:51.320 use your voice, and teach God's word as it pertains to all aspects of our life,

00:23:56.460 whether family or government affairs.

00:23:58.660 One last question, Pastor Tim.

00:24:00.640 I think many Albertans, Christian Albertans, are so offended by what they see as Ottawa's

00:24:08.400 godless dictates that they see independence as the only solution.

00:24:14.140 Now, you have personally resisted Caesar in the matter of COVID, so you are no stranger

00:24:21.160 to standing up to the government.

00:24:23.780 But in good conscience, how far can a Christian take this?

00:24:27.720 Could, for example, a Christian actually take up arms in pursuit of a free Alberta and still be on the right side of God?

00:24:39.100 Well, I don't think so. I think the Bible is clear that, you know, the way of Christ is a way of peace.

00:24:45.600 If you think about Christian movements in the past, they have gained their influence through persuasion, not through force or through violence.

00:24:53.460 even you think about christians in rome like you mentioned uh earlier the the whole idea of the

00:25:00.220 roman empire eventually being converted is because christians suffered well and they did so with uh

00:25:06.460 with love and with truth and so the way of christ is the way of love the way of self-sacrifice

00:25:10.480 and i believe that's what we need to be focusing on even here now well thank you and on that note

00:25:17.620 i think we shall end appreciate you coming in to share your thoughts with us about alberta

00:25:22.900 independence god king and country it's been a pleasure thank you very much pastor tim thank

00:25:29.140 you for the western standard i'm nigel hannaford

Western Standard - June 07, 2026

HANNAFORD： COVID-era pastor says Christians can resist government — but not through violence

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