Western Standard - August 25, 2023


Pastor Hildebrandt pleads guilty to COVID charge


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

131.58871

Word count

709

Sentence count

31


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Join me in this episode as I read from a sermon I delivered at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in February of 2022. This sermon was delivered in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on the issue of worship during a pandemic.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I was sentenced today for continuing to assemble for worship with our congregation in 2020 and 2021 as the Bible directs.
00:00:11.020 A Justice of the Peace fined me $65,000 for an outdoor church service that was live-streamed and open for all to attend on June 6, 2021.
00:00:23.240 Even though most pandemic-related charges have been dropped, and many are being dropped in Alberta, the recent ruling there does not apply to Ontario, as it pertains to a technicality of the issuance of the pandemic mandates in Alberta, not the constitutional validity of the tyrannical orders imposed by Conservative governments in our provinces.
00:00:52.080 I admit it today to one count of obeying God rather than man.
00:00:58.000 I freely admit that we violated the Reopening Ontario Act, an act which brazenly violated Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the underpinning of the Canadian Constitution.
00:01:11.580 In her decision, released on February 28, 2022, Ontario Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerantz ruled that the orders stemming from the Act directly violated our freedom of religion
00:01:28.860 and accepted that these mandates had a negative psychological impact on the well-being of Church members.
00:01:38.920 However, she ruled that such violations of our freedoms and negative impacts were justified in a free and democratic society.
00:01:48.520 This decision was later upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeals, as well as by default the Supreme Court of Canada, by even refusing to entertain our appeal on this matter of national importance.
00:02:03.180 After much prayer and consultation with leaders and wise counsellors, I made a decision to accept a deal that will end further legal battles as it pertains to myself,
00:02:16.860 the Elmer Church of God, my family, and all others that have been ticketed and summoned for worshipping with us in Elgin County.
00:02:25.300 I was personally fined $65,000 for apparent harm that I caused the surrounding community for continuing to gather for worship during a declared pandemic.
00:02:38.240 All other charges relating to gathering will be dropped, which, if taken to trial, could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees if acquitted,
00:02:49.420 and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines if found guilty.
00:02:54.040 As gathering for worship was declared a harmful act in the community to the Court today,
00:03:00.980 I, along with the Church of God Congregation, offered, in lieu of the fine, to donate $75,000 over the next year to the Elmer Food Bank
00:03:11.860 to make amends to the local community that was most impacted by our actions.
00:03:17.700 Sadly, this offer was declined outright by the prosecution, and the $65,000 fine will be going to the Ontario government, not the local community.
00:03:30.180 This raises the question whether our actions were a harm to the community or a harm to the government narrative.
00:03:37.980 I'll let you decide.
00:03:39.040 Our congregation didn't have a single funeral in 2020, 2021, or 2022.
00:03:45.500 The local public health unit has been unable to trace a single case of the virus to our gatherings during the entirety of the pandemic.
00:03:54.880 We were threatened by neighbors, persecuted by Christians, defamed by the media, vandalized by radicals, surveilled by the police,
00:04:04.180 and fined by the government for offering the gospel to the lost, hope to the fearful, comfort to the hurting, refuge to the outcast, food for the hungry, and a hug to the rejected.
00:04:18.600 That, my friends, is the fundamental duty of the Church, the people of God.
00:04:23.500 When we abandoned that duty, we bowed to man and turned our back on God.
00:04:29.380 By God's grace, I will always obey God rather than man, regardless of the consequences.
00:04:35.880 Did I make mistakes?
00:04:37.240 Could we have done better in some situations?
00:04:39.480 Of course.
00:04:40.660 We now have the privilege of hindsight, and our position on the pandemic is broadly and scientifically validated, regardless of your faith in God.
00:04:50.140 Public trust in our governments and institutions is collapsing with no end in sight.
00:04:56.980 We know the truth will prevail.
00:04:59.420 Lies and liars will be exposed.
00:05:01.900 So I implore you, love the Lord God with all your heart and soul.
00:05:06.680 Follow His voice, His prophets, and leaders.
00:05:10.020 The best is yet to come.
00:05:12.580 God bless you, and may He restore godly leadership throughout our land.
00:05:20.140 Father's ministry, and may He restore godly leadership through each other.