Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004)
Article: A Reformation & Revival Journal Interview with James I. Packer
Author: Anonymous

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RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004) p. 163

A Reformation & Revival Journal
Interview with James I. Packer

Our regular interview feature this quarter is with the highly-esteemed theologian Dr. James I. Packer. Dr. Packer was born in Gloucester, England in 1926 and came to faith as an undergraduate at Oxford University where he received his B.A. (1948), M.A. and D.Phil. (1954). He previously taught at Tyndale Hall (Bristol) and Trinity College (Bristol). After holding a chair in theology at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, for many years he is now a Board of Governors’ Professor (emeritus faculty) at Regent, where he has taught since 1979. Dr. Packer remains a senior editor for Christianity Today and a busy teacher and writer.

Dr. Packer has faced several controversies during his lifetime, including a variety of theological debates among both Liberals and Evangelicals. He has engaged these debates in a manner that eschews both sectarianism and extremes. For this reason he remains a model to many who preach and teach, as well as thousands of serious lay readers the world over. He still lectures widely and writes extensively, and is the distinguished

RAR 13:4 (Fall 2004) p. 164

author of numerous best-selling titles. He has been called “the best-known writing evangelical theologian in the world” for good reason. He is profoundly respected and widely loved among those who seek for a vibrant explanation of orthodox Christian faith. Dr. Packer still resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife Kit. This interview was conducted in Carol Stream, Illinois, in July 2003.

R R J—Tell us about your conversion and early experience of faith in Christ.

J I P—I was brought up a formal Anglican, which means I was taken to church as a child. It was, I suppose, as much part of the unthinking routine of my life as cleaning my teeth; it was certainly not more. At age fifteen I played chess in the school chess club with the son of a Unitarian minister who between games tried to sell me the Unitarian bill of goods. The things he said produced no conviction. I could see straightaway that the Unitarian position held together by sheer will power rather than logic. Unitarians deny the divinity of Christ; if they deny something so central to the New Testament as this why don’t they deny much more of what is in the New Testament? In the next breath they say the moral teaching of Jesus is the most wonderful thing in the world; if they are so positive about that element of the New Testament, why are they not prepared to believe more of it? Brooding on the two horns of that dilemma made me realize from the start that their position is an arbitrary one. That set me thinking for the first time about the next question: “What then is ...

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