Hillhurst United Church, Calgary-based church, has written to Canada’s federal MP and minister of border security, Bill Blair, to take action over Apostle Johnson Suleman’s proposed crusade in the city.
Calgary is a cosmopolitan Alberta city with numerous skyscrapers which owes its rapid growth to its status as the centre of Canada’s oil industry.
Suleman, the founder of Omega Fire Ministry, was scheduled to speak at Calgary’s Magnolia Banquet Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday.
According to Hillhurst, however, Suleman should be stopped due to his supposed homophobic and hate speeches in the past.
Hillhurst is an affirming, LGBTQ-inclusive congregation; Keith Murray is Hillhurst’s affirming co-ordinator.
Murray says he and lead minister John Pentland first came to know about Suleman’s planned sermons by way of LGBTQ activists in Nigeria and from Toronto-based reverend Brent Hawkes, the long-time pastor of that city’s Metropolitan Community Church.
“Suleman is the general overseer of Omega Fire Ministries in Nigeria and he is scheduled to preach in Calgary,” the letter states, penned by the leadership group at Calgary’s Hillhurst United Church.
“In recent sermons in Nigeria, Suleman has preached that homosexuality is the result of having demons from the pit of hell inside of them and that people need to ‘kill the spirit of homosexuality in the name of Jesus.”
Neither Suleman nor a representative from the Calgary branch of Fire Omega Ministries could be reached for comment by StarMetro.
“We have refugees in our community who’ve fled Nigeria, who’ve had attempts made on their lives, incited by this kind of hate speech,” Murray said. “They’ve been granted asylum in Canada.”
Some of those members have been threatened with violence and death, Murray said, and “not just threats; actions too.” He said that “as an affirming church, we have to stand up to religious intolerance.”
Murray also pointed to section 319 of the Criminal Code, which governs hate speech.
