City convoy tries to recruit religious community

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This article was published 10/02/2022 (952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Organizers of the Winnipeg anti-mandate convoy at the legislature have reached out to religious leaders to seek their support.

“While we understand that many of the restrictions imposed over the past two years do not fall under the jurisdiction of religious organizations, we know that as community leaders you have seen first-hand the division that mandates have created in our cities, towns and neighbourhoods,” reads an email from the group.

Organizers said they understand religious groups have responded to mandates “with diligence and integrity while trying to balance the needs of your congregants.”

Caleb Brown of the Winnipeg convoy, confirmed they had reached out to a number of religious leaders, but didn’t specify who or which denominations.

“We respect and value the role that these (religious) organizations play in our communities and invite conversation with a wide spectrum of voices,” he said in an email to the Free Press.

Eric Friesen, interim pastor at Church of the Way, an evangelical congregation in Winnipeg, received the email and said his leadership team didn’t want to respond to the request for support.

Some of them are health-care workers and they are “angry and fed up” with the protests.

“We don’t intend to signal our support for the protest,” Friesen said.

The convoy established itself in front of the legislature on Feb. 4. Since then it has erected portable toilets and fire pits and has hunkered down for a long stay as it demands an end to all vaccine and mask mandates.

Michael Pahl, executive minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba, said he had also received the convoy’s email.

“I read your letter with interest, and not without sympathy,” he replied, noting “The past two years have been hard on all of us.”

“The restrictions necessary to curb a deadly virus have saved lives, but they have also made life challenging.

“Nonetheless, as Christians our highest calling is to love God by loving our neighbours, especially our neighbours most vulnerable to harm,” he said in declining to offer his denomination’s support for the protest.

“The restrictions have been difficult, but the death or long-term debilitation of these people and others is a much greater burden that we are still living and healthy have had to bear.”

Pahl affirmed the organizers for stating they “condemn all manifestations of hate, racism, misogyny and disrespect,” urging them to make that sentiment clearer in their public statements and to take steps to distance the protest from those who “espouse those hateful words.”

“The email is moderate in tone,” Pahl noted in an interview, adding “it could be successful in getting support from some groups.”

Pahl said he hoped his response to organizers might spark some reflection for Christians about the issues of freedom and rights. But he said he “didn’t expect to change any minds.”

In its invitation for support, the convoy organizers write that the freedom of religious groups to gather is a fundamental right.

“Given the evidence that the vaccines have an increasingly waning ability to prevent transmission and infection, and given that effective treatment options are now available, it is exceedingly clear that it is time to transition to a society free of COVID-19 mandates and to allow individuals to access and manage their own health risks and decisions in consultation with their medical care providers,” the convoy email said.

“We ask that we stand together in supporting our health care workers while also lifting mandates and allowing our communities to once again come together,” the email concluded.

Organizers attached a copy of a letter they wrote to Premier Heather Stefanson in which they made several demands, including the reinstatement of all provincial employees who were placed on leave or terminated due to mandates and ask her to urge the federal government to remove travel and border restrictions.

Two of the city’s largest churches, Church of the Rock and Gateway Church, said they did not receive the email.

On Friday, the Manitoba government said it would ease restrictions further as of Tuesday and it outlined a plan to list all restrictions by mid-March. Convoy organizers have pledged to stay at the legislature until all restrictions end.

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