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James Innell Packer (22 July 1926 – 17 July 2020) was an English-born Canadian evangelical theologian, cleric and writer in the low-church Anglican and Calvinist traditions.
Jul 17, 2020 · James Innell Packer, better known to many as J. I. Packer, was one of the most famous and influential evangelical leaders of our time. He died Friday, July 17, at age 93.
- Early Life
- Conversion
- The Puritans
- Early Writings and Positions
- Knowing God
- Inerrancy
- Regent College in Vancouver
- Controversies and Separations
- Packer The Author and Reader
- Packer The Man
James Innell Packer was born on July 22, 1926, in the village of Twyning in the north of Gloucestershire, England, the firstborn child of James and Dorothy Packer. His only sibling, Margaret, was born in 1929. The Packers were a lower–middle-class family with a nominal Anglican faith, faithfully attending nearby St. Catharine’s Church but never tal...
At the age of eighteen, Packer won a scholarship to Oxford University, studying classics at Corpus Christi College. He arrived in Oxford as an awkward, shy, intellectual oddball (his descriptions), with a single suitcase in hand. His father was a clerk for the Great Western Railway, which enabled young Packer to have a free ticket for the hourlong ...
That same year, in 1944, a retired Anglican clergyman, losing his eyesight, donated his large library to the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. The leaders of OICCU stored them in a basement and asked Packer the bookworm if he wanted to sort through the sets, including classics from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Packer soon came ac...
Packer’s first published article, written in 1952, was on “The Puritan Treatment of Justification by Faith” (Evangelical Quarterly24, no. 3 [1952], 131–43). After obtaining his BA degree from Corpus Christi in Oxford (1948), he took up his first teaching post at at Oak Hill Theological College in London as a tutor (instructor) in Greek and Latin (a...
In the early 1970s, Packer approached Inter-Varsity Press about publishing the series of articles from Evangelical Magazine as a book. The publisher responded that they needed him to write on the charismatic issue sweeping through Great Britain before they would consider a book from him on another subject. So he took it to Hodder & Stoughton instea...
In February of 1977, Packer met with R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, Norman Geisler, and Greg Bahnsen for a conference on the Authority of Scripture at Mount Hermon, California. Later that year, the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy was formed, which produced the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancya year later, with Sproul as the lead au...
In 1979, James Houston, who had been friends with Packer since their undergraduate days at Oxford, invited him to join the faculty at Regent College at Vancouver. Packer eventually accepted the position, which would allow him to teach without administrative duties, and his family made the transatlantic relocation. He maintained a position at the un...
Packer’s life was not without doctrinal controversy and relational rupture. In October of 1966, during the National Assembly of Evangelicals, Lloyd-Jones issued a call for evangelicals to leave doctrinally mixed denominations (like the Church of England) and instead to fellowship with an association of independent evangelical churches. John Stott, ...
His biographer Leland Ryken notesthat it is virtually impossible to construct a comprehensive bibliography of his writings: In both his speaking and writing, Packer has followed a policy of entering virtually every door that has opened before him. The list of his publications defies tabulation, partly because of the large number of items, partly be...
He sometimes wondered if commentators on his theological and ministerial career had missed the personal side of Packer, including the humor that he saw in life and the twinkle in his eye. He did not want to be portrayed as a brain in vat or a mere purveyor of ideas. His longtime friend Timothy George described what it was like to watch the man in a...
Mar 26, 2024 · James Innell Packer (July 22, 1926 — July 17, 2020) was an influential author, professor, theologian, and churchman. He spent the first half of his life in England and the second half in Canada.
Aug 21, 2024 · James Innell Packer, better known as J. I. Packer, died in 2020 just five days shy of his ninety-fourth birthday. A scholar and writer, his best-known book, Knowing God, has sold more than 1.5 million copies since its publication.
Jul 21, 2020 · Jim Packer provided us with an example of a fully committed but irenic Christian who was always open to the new things God was doing by means of the Holy Spirit.
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This article surveys the life and ministry of James Innell Packer (1926–2020), evangelical Anglican, theologian, author, Bible translator, and church renewal advocate.
