July 6 Today in OPC History

The Rev. Edwin Lynne Wade was born on this date in 1908 in Houston, Texas. He moved with his family to California in 1925, eventually graduating from UCLA (1930) and Westminster Seminary (1933). Wade served PCUSA churches in New York before he became one of the constituting ministers of the (now) Orthodox Presbyterian Church at its first General Assembly in June, 1936. After serving OP congregations in Los Angeles and Kirkwood, Pennsylvania, he entered the Navy and served as a chaplain from 1940 until 1956, when he began his labors as a missionary in Guam.

In 1959, Wade began a six year battle with cancer. In this long struggle he underwent treatment for the removal of more than seventy tumors, while diligently pursuing his calling until the final few weeks of his earthly life, which came to an end on February 18, 1965. At his passing, Robert Nicholas wrote a tribute, “Warrior at Rest,” in the Presbyterian Guardian: “His survival far beyond every realistic prognosis was in a way typical of the persistence of his every effort. Whether it was a game of golf or an intense encounter for the souls of men, he did nothing half-heartedly. A Calvinist to the core of his being – and he never apologized for that word – his high regard for the doctrines of sovereign grace was equaled by the compassion with which he sought to press upon men everywhere the claims of Jesus as the only Savior of sinners.”