Dr Ed McKinlay (1921-2013)

The home call on Sunday, 27 October 2013, of Ed McKinlay is a reminder of a whole generation of ministers of the Presbyterian Church in Canada who served during the high noon of the denomination’s growth and expansion and were witnesses to its decline. Ed McKinlay was a Glaswegian, one of many immigrants to Canada leaving the challenges of post-war Britain. He felt a call to the ministry and pursued undergraduate and divinity studies, graduating from Knox College in 1955 as a mature student. He was posted to St Andrew’s Kimberley, British Columbia, where he had an impressive ministry following that of Doug Herron, another able minister though of a different theological stripe. Ed McKinlay had a powerful impact on many of the young miners who were attracted by his personality and pulpit presence. While in Kimberley he connected with Flora, a school teacher from the Peace River who had grown up in Kerrisdale Presbyterian Church, Vancouver, under Harry Lennox and was active in Synod youth organizations. Shortly after their marriage he was called to St Andrew’s Lethbridge, a large congregation with a new building which presented many challenges. After the loss of their first child under tragic circumstances Ed and Flora went to Scotland where she taught as he completed Ph D studies at New College, Edinburgh. researching one of the Disruption worthies, Robert Candlish. I recall, when sitting in Thomas  Torrance Sr’s living room in Edinburgh, being told that a Canadian student of his son Tom had just been called to a church in Hamilton. Ed McKinlay served at St Enoch in the steel city for almost a decade. The congregation had ballooned to 1100 members under Mariano DiGangi, and the crowds he attracted were just the kind of people Ed was suited to serve: working class immigrants who wanted a strong pulpit presence. In 1976 he was called to Bridlewood, Scarborough, Toronto, where he had probably his most enduring ministry The congregation had been founded in 1967 and recognized by the Presbytery of East Toronto as an evangelical church, thanks to the generous stipulation of Robert McClintock. A strong Session, the highest per capita giving record of any PCC congregation, and numerous young families (many recent converts) with an appetite for strong preaching made the call a good fit. Thanks to the closing of Cooke’s Church the congregation expanded both in number and in building, reaching 300 members by 1983. As a denominational loyalist, Ed steered Bridlewood through the storms of the Dan MacDougall case. In 1979 Dan, son of a Bridlewood elder and a recent Westminster Seminary graduate, was refused ordination owing to his scruples about the ordination of women. A compromise was reached, Dan was ordained to serve under Everett Bean in Cape Breton and the crisis was averted though the issues it raised remain unanswered. Ed stayed until 1989 when he reached the retirement age of 68. He went on to have a long and fulfilling retirement as he and Flora served short-term a congregation in Caithness, Scotland, and eventually settled at Knox Church, Toronto, where he volunteered as a pastoral visitor and Flora became an elder. In recent years, increasingly challenged in body and mind, Ed was a faithful attender at worship. I last saw him on 14 September 2013 at the funeral of Dr Marguerite Archibald, a long-time Knox member, a week before he slipped and fell, breaking a hip from which he never recovered. So much of what Ed represented will be missed, especially the twinkle in his eye, his friendly chuckle, and his passionate love for Jesus. There was no ambivalence as to where Ed stood theologically. His Biblical preaching was reminiscent of the best of the nineteenth century Free Church of Scotland, more topical than exegetical, with that Scottish piety which reminded one of the days when the pulpit was what made his native Scotland a power to be reckoned with. He will be missed.