If a Christian leader breaks human laws that go against his beliefs, why not violate human laws to be more like Jesus?

It's time for wealthy church flocks who flout laws, pay zero in property taxes, to open their doors or pay up

Since Rev. John Koopman of Chilliwack’s Free Reformed Church decided public health laws to minimize COVID spread did not apply to his flock, maybe that flock should dare him to open his church doors to house the homeless in cold weather in violation of city zoning bylaws.

What would Jesus do?

As cold temperatures finally arrived in the Fraser Valley this month, the annual concerns were raised about people without housing who are forced to live rough.

When a deadly pandemic hit the world in 2020, governments and health authorities and institutions struggled with how to respond, how to protect people, how to follow scientific advice to minimize deaths.

What should the response have been to COVID-19 and the homelessness crisis from religious leaders who hold gatherings every week in massive, heated buildings left empty 95 per cent of the time and that are subject to zero property taxes?

What does one thing have to do with the other?

Hypocrisy writ large

In a social media post (not made public so I won’t name him), a prominent fellow in town pointed out that prior to the demolition of Cheam View United Church in July 2024, in January of that year during a cold snap, 40 extreme-weather response (EWR) spaces were made available at the Spadina Avenue church operated by BC Housing and Ruth & Naomi’s (RAN). When an extreme weather alert was issued, they would open the doors of the church at 8 p.m. Those who showed up got a snack, a warm drink, and a foam mat to rest and sleep on.

“It’s not fancy, but it’s essential,” the RAN Facebook page post said a year ago. “It’s about humanity and ensuring no one faces the elements alone.”

The church was compensated modestly for opening the doors, and it was only open when the temperature was forecast to go below zero.  

Fast forward to last month before the cold hit, January 2025, RAN executive director Scott Gaglardi posted again, this time pointing out that while temperatures were forecast to go below zero again, RAN did not have an extreme weather shelter in place.

While the Province is responsible for housing and health care, they do not proactively open extreme weather response shelters, and the practice is not the purview of municipal governments. So it falls on providers such as RAN to submit proposals under a federal homelessness program when winter hits, as reported by Jennifer Feinberg in The Progress recently. 

As Feinberg rightly worded it, “Many in the community have urged local church officials to open their unused church spaces to those experiencing homelessness.”

Ya, do it, I thought.

I even posted a short video showing just how massive these church properties are with large buildings and sprawling parking lots, left empty most of the time, some surrounded by fences and gates and barbed wire, serving no purpose while the churches pay zero property taxes.

Chilliwack Alliance Church is a palatial structure on Young Road on six acres valued at $21 million with more than 500 parking spaces. That's more than the Chilliwack Coliseum and is even more underused.

Southside Church on Tzeachten has a wide, lit, paved driveway about a quarter-kilometre long leading up to a massive high-tech locked gate with security cameras making sure no one enters who is not allowed. Just like Jesus would have wanted.

First Avenue Christian Assembly is a similarly massive structure on six acres worth $13 million and a parking lot that would probably be the largest in the city if not for the Alliance.

For Feinberg’s article, she got a comment from city spokesperson Jamie Leggatt regarding the suggestion that churches should open unused spaces to society’s poor and wretched. 

The problem? Municipal zoning laws. 

"Churches in our community are not zoned R8, but there are many other locations that are currently in the R8 Zone and would allow shelter use and EWR beds," Leggatt told Feinberg.

The R8 zone is for supportive housing.  

Break the law for an act of kindness

For five years Rev. John Koopman has used the courts to fight his illegal gatherings during COVID-19 protocols, laws that almost every other religious leader followed.

That grandstanding ends on Feb. 28 when he is set to be sentenced after his last legal gasp failed, the rejection of his ironic Oct. 4, “abuse of process” application.

Over those same five years, Rev. John Koopman has not violated city zoning bylaws one single time to house the homeless in extreme cold weather events, or at all. 

If one decides they will adhere to corporeal laws here on Earth only as long as they don’t conflict with someone's interpretation of a particular religion's idea of a particular god’s spiritual laws, and if Jesus is supposed to be your guidepost, the question “What would Jesus do?” seems fair.

Christians, including Rev. Koopman I'm sure, do spend time doing good works for charity. I know the parishioners at Southside, for example, were each given hundreds of dollars to buy Christmas presents for needy families. Back in 2015, I recall attending a Chilliwack Connect event at First Avenue Christian Assembly where dozens of people from the faith community, non-profits and government gathered to provide hot meals, hair cuts, clothing, even pedicures to the working poor and those experiencing homelessness. It was wonderful. The fact that I remember it from a decade ago, and was invited as a journalist to take photos and write a story about it is the exception that proves the rule.

Christians, including Rev. Koopman, also spend a lot of time focused on The Bible. It’s like their favourite book. I’m no expert, but I think there are quite a few passages in that book about helping the poor, sharing wealth, not hoarding privately the way these churches and wealthy parishioners do. How about the parable Jesus tells in Luke 12 starting at verse 16? Look it up and read it in the context of modern wealthy church leaders leaving palace-like structures empty while people struggle with poverty and hunger. Cognitive dissonance anyone?

The Bible is full of it – Isaiah, Matthew, Mark, Corinthians. Have you ever read Leviticus? That's the chapter full of rules that maybe made sense at the time, but adhered to today by some strict Jews seem odd. You know, not mixing fabrics, not trimming beards and not eating bacon or clams. My favourite is how they pre-tear toilet paper the day before Shabbat so as not to be seen by God to be doing "work." But even in wacky ol' Leviticus, readers are directed to help the needy.

No tithe like the present 

Pastors such as Koopman – and I am picking on him, but there are others such as James Butler of Free Grace Baptist Church and Timothy Champ of Valley Heights Community Church to name two – are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of donated dollars to fight fines levied on them because they refused to follow public health mandates during a global pandemic as other churches did. Maybe they could spend their time and instead of paying lawyers, spend those dollars violating City of Chilliwack zoning regulations and set up cots and make soup and give pedicures during the next cold snap.

The emergency shelter at the church on the corner of Spadina and Yale that was offered in 2024 is not offered in 2025, mainly because the church was demolished in between then and now. To paraphrase the aforementioned prominent Chilliwack citizen's Facebook post on the topic, with some sarcasm added for good measure, if only there were other churches in town with tens of thousands of square feet of space left unused 95 per cent of the time.

Here is an admittedly apples-and-oranges – or pulpits-and-Priuses – comparison between the biggest church in town, Chilliwack Alliance Church, and its next-door neighbour, Toyota Chilliwack. Both properties are valued the same, according to BC Assessment, but while Toyota paid $150k to city coffers last year, Chilliwack Alliance Church paid diddly squat.

Toyota Chilliwack
8750 Young Road

Size: 3.9 acres
2024 property assessement: $21,073,000
2024 property tax exemption: $10,000
2024 tax levy: $151,615.17

Chilliwack Alliance Church
46033 Brooks Ave. and 8600 Young Rd.

Size: 6.3 acres 
2024 property assessment: $20,547,000.
2024 exemption for property tax purposes: $20,547,000.
2024 tax levy: $0.00

On the one hand, we have Toyota Chilliwack, a business out to make a profit. They are not housing homeless people in a cold snap, obviously, that would be ridiculous. But they are running a business paying various federal and provincial taxes, employing lots of people, and adding more than $150,000 a year to the city hall budget in property taxes. (They also very charitably participate in an annual car giveaway every year at Christmas.)

On the other hand, we have Chilliwack Alliance Church, a church out to spread the word of the gospel, I guess. They are also not housing homeless people in a cold snap. Their attendees certainly do good works, but they are adding nothing concrete to the community, at least by way of property taxes to municipal coffers as every other property owner in the city does.

No politicians are likely to ever touch this hot potato of a topic, but it is at least arguable that churches should step up and honestly answer the WWJD question when it comes to housing the homeless or we need to revoke their tax-exempt status.

Amen.

-30-

Paul J. Henderson
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