Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

To Know and Serve God - A Biography of James I Packer

To Know and Serve God
A biography of James I. Packer
By Alister McGrath
Hodder & Stoughton. 340 pages. £16.99 (hardback)
ISBN 0 340 56571 3

Perhaps a more appropriate subtitle for this interesting and unique book would be 'The Life and Times of James I. Packer', for unlike most biographies, very little is revealed about James Packer's family background, his marriage to Kit or their children, or indeed the character of the man himself. Instead, what the reader is treated to is a fascinating account of the development of mainly British evangelicalism in the post-war years which Dr. Packer was seminally involved in shaping.
As Alister McGrath charts the fortunes and misfortunes of Dr. Packer's career, the reviewer found himself alternately exhilarated and shocked. The sense of God's providential hand at work is certainly conveyed, particularly in the way he used Dr. Packer and others to promote an intellectually credible and robust reformed evangelical theology at a time when evangelicals were a despised minority. One cannot underestimate the morale-boosting effect (not to mention the apologetic value) of books like Fundamentalism and the Word of God and Evangelism and the sovereignty of God. His little booklet produced by Latimer House, Keep yourself from idols, was probably the best riposte ever written to Bishop John Robinson's Honest to God. Knowing God has become a modern classic, exhibiting the sure influence of the Puritans on the young Packer with its masterful combination of deep doctrine and pastoral wisdom.
What was shocking to one like myself, who was too young to be aware of the events at the time, was the appalling in-fighting and narrow ecclesiastical politics surrounding the formation of Trinity College, Bristol, as well as the early days of Latimer House in Oxford. Evangelicals can leave a lot to be desired in their treatment of each other!
We are exposed to some of the best thoughts of Packer, especially on the authority of Scripture and penal substitution, with a review of his influence on the wider evangelical (and non-evangelical) stage since leaving for Canada in 1979.
Dr. McGrath writes as an admirer of Dr. Packer rather than as a 'follower'. The impression received is that while the biographer might well applaud Packer's writings on inerrancy and penal substitution, he would not own such views for himself. However, Packer's co-belligerence with others of a totally different doctrinal position, as reflected in the controversial Growing into union and the more recent 'Essential 94' congress is upheld as an approach which contemporary evangelicals would do well to emulate (p..290).
McGrath's presentation of the fateful (and possibly prophetic) Evangelical Alliance meeting at which Dr. Lloyd-Jones gave his infamous address, paints the 'Doctor' (or to be more precise, his close followers) in less than a favourable light. One feels this is an attempt to justify the position taken by the majority of Anglican Evangelicals (or evangelical Anglicans) since Keele 1967, i.e. the establishment comes first and evangelicalism is but one 'tradition' among many (a position not taken by Packer himself).
It may seem a little churlish to complain about something Dr. Packer didn't do, when he achieved far more in one lifetime for the cause of the gospel than many of us could ever hope to achieve in several lifetimes, but it may be worth registering. As a young tutor in Bristol in 1955, Dr. Packer wrote a critical review in the Evangelical Quarterly with the express purpose of 'killing dead' the holiness teaching then associated with the Keswick Convention. It was not a popular move! But it was a necessary one. It was essentially Pelagianism that was causing untold damage, especially among younger Christians. Packer won the day. Would it not have been so helpful (and there still may yet be time) for a similar work to have been produced carrying out a similar task on charismatic theology, which in so many ways is similar to that of the early Keswick? Certainly, that review of Packer's cost him dearly and so a reluctance to engage in something similar would be quite understandable.
This is a warm, well-written and very readable book. There are gaps, however, and one wonders whether Dr. McGrath yet fully appreciates and understands classic evangelicalism. The gaps can be filled in by reading Oliver Barclay's vitally important Evangelicalism in Britain: 1945-1995 - for here is a man who both understands and identifies with the cause to which Dr. Packer has devoted the major part of his life.

Melvin Tinker, St. John Newland Hull