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TWU launches online fonds of Lloyd Mackey, retired Surrey journalist and author

The ‘Lloyd Mackey fonds’ is a new addition to Trinity Western University’s digital archives
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Lloyd Mackey with a book he helped write and edit, The Church in Surrey & White Rock. (File photo: Tom Zytaruk)

Researchers exploring the life’s work of long-time Surrey resident, author and retired journalist Lloyd Mackey will be fond of this new addition to Trinity Western University’s digital archives.

The Langley-based Christian liberal arts university held a celebration of the 83-year-old’s body of work on March 16 on campus to launch the “Lloyd Mackey fonds,” a term referring to a complete collection of works from a single author.

Mackey began his journalism career as a reporter then editor of the Chilliwack Progress and was also the founding editor of BC Christian News.

“It was basically my Ottawa Watch writing that went on over 15 years in Ottawa that triggered it,” Mackey said of the online archive containing several hundred weekly columns he penned from 1998 to 2013 as a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, of which he remains an honorary member.

“It feels like it’s possible for a lot of the stuff that I wrote during that period of time to be able to be useful long after I’m gone,” he said of the online fonds.

“From 1998 to 2005 the stuff that I wrote was formed into a book that never got too much publicity but it was called ‘More Faithful than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly,’ that was basically when the Liberals were in power and then the rest of the writing, starting in 2005-06, it took place when the Conservatives were in power. There’s stuff in there that, while I sort of grew somewhat known for writing about Harper, a lot of my writing was about the impact of faith in other parties, particularly the Liberals as well as the Conservatives.”

READ ALSO: New book reveals Christian church’s ‘untold story’ in Surrey, White Rock

Mackey lives in a Whalley with his wife Edna, in the city’s centre. “We look out, and we’re in a low-rise, and we look out and watch the SkyTrain skip by and we can see the Civic Hotel, at least the building the Civic Hotel’s in.”

Surrey resident Dr. Lloyd Mackey at the podium during a ceremony March 16 to unveil a new digital collection of his work in Trinity Western University Archives. (Submitted photo)
Surrey resident Dr. Lloyd Mackey at the podium during a ceremony March 16 to unveil a new digital collection of his work in Trinity Western University Archives. (Submitted photo)

Mackey is also an author of numerous books including These Evangelical Churches of Ours (Wood Lake Books, 1994), Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW, 1997), More Faithful than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005), The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper / Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW, 2005/2006), and Church in Surrey & White Rock: The Untold Story (SWR Publishing Company, 2018).

He’s also founding editor and director of the Online Encyclopedia of Canadian Christian Leaders, described in a TWU press release as “an outgrowth of his Doctor of Ministry (DMin) studies, completed in 2015 through Tyndale University College and Seminary,” served as senior editorial advisor for Faith in Canada 150 and also taught journalism part-time at TWU, which also has locations in Ottawa, Richmond-Lansdowne and Richmond-Minoru.

“There are many types of journalism. Some journalists are provocateurs,” Mackey said at his fonds launch, “bringing strong argumentation to their story-telling. I respect them, while at the same time filtering their exaggerations or partisanship – and cringing a bit at their zeal to pick a fight. Others are advocates for certain positions. I respect them, too, but in my own coverage, not to leave the impression that my perspective and God’s are identical.”

Mackey was a reporter with the Progress from 1967-72 and then served as its editor from 1975 to 1980, after working with the Columbian and then the United Church Observer between 1972 and 1975.



tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com

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About the Author: Tom Zytaruk

I write unvarnished opinion columns and unbiased news reports for the Surrey Now-Leader.
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