R.I.P., J.I.P.

I began writing this post the week following J.I. Packer's death on July 17th.  Considerable time has passed and much has been written about Dr. Packer in the weeks following his passing.  I am going to keep the original wording from this post as I began to write it in July......

Last Friday, just before noon, Dr. J.I. Packer went to be with Jesus.  Jim Packer was in his hospital bed, his wife Kit and one of his pastors praying at his side.

Upon hearing the news of Dr. Packer's passing, it was hard not to see this as the end of an era.  Jim Packer was a giant within the Evangelical Christian world in his own right, but he also connected the current generations of Evangelicals with some pretty significant heroes of the faith from the past. Whether one considers his personal working relationships with people like D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Stott, and F.F. Bruce, or whether you consider that Packer was part of the generation of Oxford students who were deeply influenced by hearing C.S. Lewis speak in person, Jim represented the remaining presence of an influential generation of some very significant Christian stalwarts.

A truly practical and personal treasure...

I count it a great privilege and blessing to have studied under Dr. J.I. Packer.  Several years ago, I took a two-week summer course he taught at Regent College.  It had long been on my theological bucket list to take a class with Dr. Packer after learning so much from his writings over the years.  His books, Knowing God, Growing in Christ, and Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God were particularly influential for me.  The class I took with him on Paul's (underappreciated) epistle, 2 Corinthians, formed the material behind Packer's richly devotional little book, Weakness is the Way.  Each class session began with Dr. Packer having the class stand and sing the doxology (as he did with all his classes).  He believed that theology was for doxology, that sound doctrine and deep devotion were inseparable. 

But I have been influenced by Packer's teaching in indirect ways also.  I remember Knowing God on our bookshelf at home as a kid, and I remember my mother spoke highly of it (despite her firm Baptist heritage).  Later in life, Ian McPhee was a one of my professors and an important mentor in my theology undergrad studies at Peace River Bible Institute.  Ian himself had been strongly influenced by Dr. Packer.  Ian was clearly a disciple of Dr. Packer not only in his doctrine, but also in his own teaching career, for, in imitation of Packer, Ian taught books of the Bible (from both testaments) as well as doctrinal theology, biblical theology, and contemporary theology classes.  If there was a controversial theological issue that needed to be dealt with at college, it usually fell to Ian to address it.  In his ability to deal fairly with the varying opinions in a thorny theological debate, Ian was charitable in his criticism, humble in his arguments, and always gracious in his critique of an idea or theological stance that he disagreed with while recognizing that many who held to it were his Christian brothers and sisters.  This spirit of humility and charity permeated Packer's work.  I always liked to hear Ian's reminiscences of being a student at Regent, gathered on the patio at the Packer's home for informal times of fellowship and discussion.  Ian would often slip into Packer's pristine English accent and quote a snippet of ingrained Packerian wisdom.  As I recall, we sang some of Ian's favourite hymns to begin classes and some of them (probably from Ian's Presbyterian heritage), though rick in theology, were largely unknown to the students.  Sadly, Ian died of cancer while I was in the second to last year of my undergrad. 

Everything Jim Packer did in his life-long ministry was done with Christ at the center, Scripture as foundation, and the church in focus.  Jim served as a Canon and an honourary minister at St. John's Vancouver Anglican church (Anglican Network in Canada) as well as teaching for many years at Regent College.  His church ministry was to help lay people love God with all their minds as well as hearts, and his college teaching was to help Christian academic pursuit be aimed at the instruction, edification, and unity of the church.  

I won't repeat what has been said about Jim elsewhere (see the links below - just a sample of what has been written about him after his passing).  But I will share four memories I have of him.

The first face-to-face conversation I had with Dr. Packer was when I took the 2 Corinthians summer class at Regent.  Each student was given 20 minutes to discuss a possible paper topic with him.  After we discussed my subject (that weakness and suffering is a sign of true apostolicity in Paul's writings), we discussed the crisis in the Anglican Church.  Again, you can read in some of the links below the controversy that Packer was involved in because he (along with many others) was holding to the authority and veracity of Scripture in a denomination that was fast abandoning it.  But our family had been part of an Anglican congregation in northern BC that was experiencing the same type of division for the same reasons.  He was very encouraging and very firm on Scripture as authoritative for the life of the church in the face of an increasingly post-Christian culture and a culturally compromised Anglican church.  

Another memory I have is from my time working part-time on staff at St. John's Vancouver (Packer's home church) while studying at Regent (I am still doing both of these things).  I had the privilege to preach several times at the 7:30 am prayer book service at St. John's.  This service is about 45-50 minutes long and typically has between 25-40 people.  It is a holy communion service every Sunday, straight from the BCP.  It is the service that Jim attended.  My memory is of preaching several times with one of my heroes in the faith sitting in the third-from-front pew, listening.  Sometimes I wonder what he was thinking..... 

I couple years ago, I attended a three-day conference on the Puritans hosted at Regent College.  Several world-class church historians and theologians were on hand to deliver lectures on various Puritans or aspects of Puritan theology.  The two Jims, James Houston (founder and first president of Regent) and James Packer, were in attendance as well.  It was generally recognized by all scholars in attendance that Packer had done more than anyone else to set off the 20th century revival in Puritan study and for renewing a knowledge of the Puritans among lay Evangelicals.  Houston and Packer were interviewed as part of the conference and, along with his trademark good humour, Packer still spoke in complete paragraphs composed of sentences with three or four subordinate clauses each, without so much as an "um" or an "uh".  Such command of English and such clarity and organization of thought.

This image (from Crossway) reminds me of the conversation in the Packer's living room - lit only by Vancouver winter-afternoon light

My fourth memory is a conversation over tea in Jim's living room in late February of this year, not long before Covid became a global reality and would have made such a conversation impossible.  In my time at Regent I have studied a fair bit of Richard Hooker's work. That day in Jim's living room, he was quite exhausted from sorting through his library and setting aside many (more) hundreds of his books to donate to Regent College's library.  His health had already been failing, and he was tired, and I offered to postpone, but he said that we should still meet.  We discussed Hooker and his contemporary, Richard Field (who I learned of through an old set of Packer's class notes from when he taught Anglican history and theology), and the relation of their respective work.  Amidst Jim's exhaustion, he still took time to meet with an aspiring theologian and to discuss the great riches of the church's past and ways that it might benefit the church today.  Jim Packer loved Christ and his church and he longed to inspire that dual love in others.  I was only one of many hundreds (probably thousands) of people he made time for and engaged with not in a condescending "professional theologian" way, but in an encouraging, personal, humble, and ordinary way.  Jim Packer was an extraordinary ordinary mere Christian. 

Below are links to some remembrances of Jim Packer upon his ushering in to Christ's presence, where I have no doubt he heard those weighty words, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

 

A low-quality recording of Jim Packer's funeral is available to watch at St. John's Vancouver's website

Packer biographer, Leland Ryken, remembers J.I. Packer at Christianity Today

 Regent College remembers J.I. Packer

Bruce Hindmarsh, who was both a student of J.I. Packer and taught alongside him at Regent College, remembers J.I. Packer as the Robin Hood of Evangelicalism at Christianity Today

Justin Taylor remembers J.I. Packer at The Gospel Coalition 

Leland Ryken has 10 things you should know about J.I. Packer at Crossway

Hans Boersma, who for years held the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College (and who also began his classes by singing the doxology with his students), remembers Dr. Packer as a great Puritan at First Things

Carl Trueman remembers Dr. Packer's personal influence on his life at The Gospel Coalition

Mark Noll remembers J.I. Packer at Desiring God

Gerald Bray of Beeson Divinity School appreciates Dr. Packer

And Timothy George (fellow Evangelicals & Catholics Together member with Packer) remembers J.I. Packer

This personal remembrance of Packer at Mere Orthodoxy

And another lovely personal reflection on Dr. Packer at Reformation 21 

And Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition reminds us of just how practical Packer's theology really is for everyday life  

 

I suppose this list could go on but I have to stop it somewhere.  And I haven't even linked to any of Dr. Packer's own writings.  Some day I hope to follow up with more reflection on the books and essays of Dr. Packer's that have influenced me the most.  For now, I hope some of the above commemorations and reflections inspire others to pick up a J.I. Packer book and read.