ChristianWeek

OTTAWA, ON—Longtime broadcaster and community activist David C. Onley was driving along a Toronto-area freeway when he received a call on his cell phone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper with the news: he had been chosen as Ontario's new lieutenant-governor.

Onley has been preparing to take over the role from James Bartleman, whose tenure wraps up this summer.

While the 58-year-old Onley is best known as a science fiction writer, community activist, CityTV environmental broadcaster, news anchor and advocate for handicap accessibility, he is also an evangelical Christian whose faith will shape what he brings to his new Ontario vice-regal position.

"We are thrilled with the appointment," says Brian Stiller, president of Tyndale College and Seminary where Onley's son Jonathan attends.

Living the gospel

Although criticism is sometimes leveled at evangelical Christians in politics, Stiller says:

"David never used the pulpit of the media to expound his faith. He didn't have to. In fact if he had, it would have been inappropriate. It would have discredited him and the gospel.

"Not only is he wise but he is smart. He understands the importance of serving in the public domain without trying to 'slip in the gospel.' Instead he lives the gospel. That is what makes him authentic."

Onley is not the only recent Ontario lieutenant-governor to have evangelical ties. Hilary Weston, who filled the position from 1997 to 2002, is part of a Toronto family with long-standing connections with Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.

Onley, his wife Ruth Ann and adult sons Jonathan, Robert and Michael attend Safe Haven Worship Centre in the eastern Toronto suburb of Ajax. They have variously been involved in leadership and attendance at Yorkminster Park, Peoples, Northview Community and Bayfair Baptist churches.

Yorkminster Park is the church to which Onley invited a young, attractive Ruth Ann 25 years ago, shortly after she deepened her long-standing commitment to Jesus Christ. On her website, Ruth Ann quips that she wanted to look over the many eligible bachelors the church was reputed to be harbouring.

Her hesitancy over Onley's polio-induced disability, which forces him to walk with arm braces or ride a scooter, was soon overcome. And people who have known them a long time attest to their strong, loved-based marriage.

Onley contracted polio at age three. He credits his parents' integrity and verbal witness with helping him to find encouragement in the goodness of God, no matter the circumstances.

"Their personal faith stood by me, as I was paralyzed for months on end," says Onley. "It helped me to know there was a greater force. Then, later, recognizing the tenets of the Christian faith became an incremental process."

At the ages of 9 and 13, he underwent extensive surgeries to correct some of the disease's ravages.

Since earning a political science degree from the University of Toronto, Onley has served in several on-air capacities at CityTV in Toronto. He gained his media foothold by writing a best-selling sci-fi novel Shuttle: A Shattering Novel of Disaster in Space, in 1981. His literary success led to a position as science and technology person at CityTV, and later as CityNews anchor.

Onley's colleagues have always played up his disability, rather than trying to hide it. That gave him the opportunity to become an advocate for the disabled and highlight the need for more public accessibility.

Ruth Ann has built a career as a contemporary and country gospel singer who enjoys sharing her faith through her music. Her musical style gives her access to a wide range of events, both secular and Christian.

Serving well

Stiller says the Onleys "have lived successfully in the wider community, always serving and loving successfully in their careers.

"David will bring to his new calling an authenticity rooted in faith, in his skills as a communicator never playing off of his disability," says Stiller. "You knew he never expected you to listen to him because of that. A word befitting him is 'genuine.'"

Safe Haven pastor Sam Martin describes David as "gracious and sensitive" in the way he communicates.

Daniel Winter, an associate minister at Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa, and one of the Onleys' pastors at Bayfair in the 1990s says the new lieutenant-governor "has a strong sense of justice and a strong moral stance on many issues."